Professor Fatih Tayfur from Middle East Technical University in Ankara published recently a book that should be very much on top of the reading lists of all major European decision makers, and which in a way will be very influential during the negotiations with Turkey. Professor Tayfur's well-written, interesting world-system study on the trajectory of Greece and Spain in their accession to the European Union would be an event in itself, but the fact that the book is authored by one of Turkey's leading dependency-theory oriented scholars adds importance to this work in the framework of the ongoing debates about the future European Union accession of the author's home country (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited. ISBN 0 7546 1964 8, currently available from 84.95 $ to 298.54 $ (Campusi - Searching 70 bookstores, 60,000 sellers on the world book market). Professor Tayfur is not alone among major Turkish scholars who have identified as the "Gretchenfrage" of the Turkish accession the choice between the United States and Europe . As the United States Department of State in it's country page for Turkey so neatly puts it: "U.S.-Turkish relations focus on areas such as strategic energy cooperation, trade and investment, security ties, regional stability, the global war on terrorism, and human rights progress. Relations were strained when Turkey refused to allow U.S. troops to deploy through its territory to Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom, but regained momentum steadily thereafter and mutual interests remain strong across a wide spectrum of issues." United States Department of State, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3432.htm) Tayfur's well argued, and also extremely well-written doctoral dissertation at the LSE in London is based on the theoretical concepts of Wallerstein and Arrighi, Waltz and Modelski, and starts from the very heart of the Turkish strategy search for the rightful and just place of that great nation in Europe, but it does that by a systematic reference study to the successful integration case of two countries whose example will be especially important for Turkey during the next years: Greece and Turkey. Both countries share with Turkey the position of a semi-periphery in the world system, both countries, during their accession, were faced with a relatively higher share of agriculture in the economic structure and with a relatively weaker position of their capital on the world market. And in addition, both countries share with Turkey the historic experience of a transition towards democracy only in the last quarter of the 20th Century after periods of military intervention similar to Turkey (Greece) or past authoritarian rule (Spain). In difference to the countries of former Communism, these authoritarian governments nevertheless did not abolish the functioning of the price mechanism and the general principles of private property, alas in the context of a considerable intervention of the state in the economy
