Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 10/2014

TURKEY FOCUS POLICY BRIEF No: 1

Ret. Amb. YALIM ERALP

January 2012

Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis

Abstract

Cultural differences have become, in the eyes of some, an impediment to Turkish accession to the EU. French sociologist Amaury de Riencourt makes a clear distinction between culture and civilization. From his perspective, “..Culture and Civilisation are two expressions that have been used more or less indiscriminately and interchangeably in the past. The distinction between them is of organic succession. They do not coincide in time but follow each other during the life span of a par-ticular society: each Culture engenders its own Civilisation...”