Authors' note: Part of the research for this project was made possible by a grant from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, and we are grateful for its support. We also thank Senem Aslan and the anonymous IJMES referees for their thoughtful comments and critiques. Finally, we are indebted to those we interviewed for their willingness to share their time and remembrances of the events discussed in this article. As always, our interpretations do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the aforementioned individuals or institutions, and any errors are our responsibility.

¹ We use the term “Kurdist” advisedly and with the awareness that it sounds awkward in English. It is not intended as a translation from the Turkish term Kürtçü, which is sometimes used pejoratively by Turkish officials and conservative commentators and politicians. Kurdist signifies an actor who explicitly and publicly advocates for collective Kurdish cultural or political rights in Turkey. Such advocacy may, but does not necessarily, include demands for decentralization, federalism, or independence. We use it because the more usual word, “Kurdish,” simply denotes ethnicity and contains no information about political preferences.

² Ergun Özbudun and Frank Tachau, in particular, authored a number of important studies in the mid-1970s that drew close correlations between levels of development and changes in party preferences. See, for instance, Özbudun, Ergun and Tachau, Frank, “Social Change and Electoral Behavior in Turkey: Toward a ‘Critical Realignment?’” International Journal of Middle East Studies 6 (1975): 460–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Özbudun, Ergun, Social Change and Political Participation in Turkey (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976)Google Scholar; and Laudau, Jacob M., Özbudun, Ergun, and Tachau, Frank, eds., Electoral Politics in the Middle East (London: Croom Helm, 1980)Google Scholar. About the early 1970s, also see Ahmad, Feroz, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950–1975 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1977)Google Scholar. It also ends with the 1973 election.

³ For some of the best overviews, see Bozarslan, Hamit, “Kurds and the Turkish State,” in The Cambridge History of Modern Turkey, vol. 4, ed. Kasaba, Reşat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar, and his “Political Crisis and the Kurdish Issue in Turkey” in The Kurdish Nationalist Movement in the 1990s: Its Impact on Turkey and the Middle East, ed. Robert Olson (Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1996), 135–53. Also see McDowall, David, A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997), 409–15Google Scholar.

⁴ Our categorization of Kurdish-majority regions of the country is based largely on the demographic study provided by Servet Mutlu in his 1996 study. In these provinces the percentage of the population believed to be Kurdish ranges from 55 to 90 percent (based on the 1990 census). They are Ağrı, Bingöl, Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Hakkari, Mardin, Muş, Siirt, Tunceli, and Van. See Mutlu, Servet, “Ethnic Kurds in Turkey: A Demographic Study,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 28 (1996): 517–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ For an example, see Özbudun and Tachau, “Social Change and Electoral Behavior in Turkey.”

⁶ See Roberts, Kenneth M., “Social Correlates of Party System Demise and Populist Resurgence in Venezuela,” Latin American Politics and Society 45 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roberts, Kenneth M. and Wibbels, Erik, “Party Systems and Electoral Volatility in Latin American: A Test of Economic, Institutional and Structural Explanations,” American Political Science Review 93 (1999): 575–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ We here define notables as people mobilizing resources such as religious charisma, tribal solidarity, family name (genealogical background), and land ownership in order to gain election. For more on Kurdish notables and a thorough discussion of definitions, see Özoğlu, Hakan, “‘Nationalism’ and Kurdish Notables in the Late Ottoman-early Republican Era,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 33 (2001): 383–409CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Migal, Joel S., Strong Societies and Weak States: State–Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), 27Google Scholar.

⁹ Memoirs by activists such as Musa Anter and Kemal Burkay, for instance, offer thorough discussions of the 1960s and early 1970s but almost no information on the late 1970s. See Anter, Musa, Hatıralarım (My Memoirs), vol. 1 (Istanbul: Yon Yayıncılık, 1991)Google Scholar; Burkay, Kemal, Anılar Belgeler (Memories and Documents), vol. 1 (Stockholm: Deng Yayınları, 2002)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ The national press (e.g., Cumhuriyet, Hürriyet, Milliyet, etc.) paid almost no attention to the campaign in Diyarbakır, so there is no mainstream national analysis of Zana's campaign and only very brief mention of his victory. The national press (especially Hürriyet) did, however, publish a number of stories concerning Zana's activities in office in 1979.

¹¹ Copies of Diyarbakır Sesi and Yeni Yurt from the 1970s are available at the Milli Kütüphane (National Library) in Ankara. It is unfortunate that neither collection includes the weeks of the actual election. The library's collection of Diyarbakır Sesi from 1977 spans only January through May, and although the library has the bound collection of Yeni Yurt for December 1977, the volume is missing 9–23 December (and thus misses the election, held on 11 December). Despite multiple inquiries, we could not find the papers at any other library or in local news archives in Diyarbakır.

¹² Electoral reforms in the 1960s (primarily the switch from a winner-take-all to a proportional-representation system after 1961 and then another shift to a national remainder system in 1965) were important in facilitating the entry of smaller parties into politics (e.g., the Worker Party of Turkey) and help explain the rise of left-wing and Kurdist political activism in that decade. See, for instance, Hale, William, “The Role of the Electoral System in Turkish Politics,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 11 (1980): 401–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These institutional rule changes, however, do not explain the rise in support for independents in the southeast in the 1970s; if they did, we would have expected such support across the country. They do not, in other words, account for regional variations.

¹³ Municipal elections in Turkey consist of three types of contest: mayoral races (belediye başkanlığı), provincial councils (il genel meclisi), and city councils (belediye meclisi). In general, mayoral races have been seen as the most important and most hotly contested. See S. Ulaş Bayraktar, “Turkish Municipalities: Reconsidering Local Democracy beyond Administrative Autonomy,” European Journal of Turkish Studies (2007), http://www.ejts.org/document1103.html (accessed December 2007).

¹⁴ DİE, 11 Aralık 1977 Yerel Seçim Sonuçları (Results of the 11 December 1977 Local Elections) (Ankara: Devlet İstatistik Enstitüsü Matbaası, 1979).

¹⁵ The exception to the high level of support for independents in Kurdish-majority provinces in 1977 is Hakkari, where support for independents was high in local elections but almost nonexistent in national elections. Part of the explanation lies in the influence of tribal politics. A political organization based on an ideology of kinship, the tribe is an important mediator and the institution that mobilizes the electorate.

¹⁶ Urfa, Kars, and Erzurum delivered 5.3, 4.9, and 4.3 percent of the vote for independents respectively; each of these provinces includes large Kurdish populations.

¹⁷ Gilles Dorronsoro, “The Autonomy of the Political Field: The Resources of the Deputies of Diyarbakır (Turkey): 1920–2002,” European Journal of Turkish Studies (2005), http://www.ejts.org/document477.html (accessed August 2007).

¹⁸ Roberts, “Social Correlates of Party System Demise,” 50.

¹⁹ MSP tended to do better in the Kurdish regions than on a national level, probably the combined result of its ethnically inclusive discourse of religious solidarity, support of shaykhs, and politics of resource redistribution. Its candidates in the local and parliamentary elections also had the profile of activists not of notables.

²⁰ See, for example, Güneş-Ayata, Ayşe, “The Republican People's Party,” Turkish Studies 3 (2002): 102–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²¹ Zürcher, Erik J., Turkey: A Modern History (London: I. B. Tauris, 1993), 237Google Scholar.

²² See, in particular, Keyder, Cağlar, State and Class in Turkey: A Study in Capitalist Development (London: Verso Press, 1987), esp. chaps. 8 and 9Google Scholar; Unbehaun, Horst, Klientelismus und politische Partizipation in der ländlichen Türkei. Der Kreis Datça 1923–1992 (Hamburg: Schriften des Deutschen Orient-Instituts, 1994)Google Scholar; Meeker, Michael E., “The Great Family Aghas of Turkey: A Study of a Changing Political Culture,” in Social Practice and Political Culture in the Turkish Republic, ed. Meeker, Michael E. (Istanbul: Isis, 2005/1972), 131–64Google Scholar.

²³ DİE, Census of Population 2000: Social and Economic Characteristics of Population: Diyarbakır Province (Ankara: State Institute of Statistics, 2000), 44.

²⁴ For good overviews of this process and the Kurdist groups of the 1960s and 1970s, see Bozarslan, “Kurds and the Turkish State” and Sosyalizm ve Toplumsal Mücadeleler Ansiklopedisi (The Encyclopedia of Socialism and Social Struggles), vol. 7 (Istanbul: İletişim, 1988). Useful memoirs for this period include Zana, Mehdi, Bekle Diyarbakır (Wait, Diyarbakır) (Istanbul: Doz Yayınları, 1991)Google Scholar; Anter, Hatıralarım, 1; and Burkay, Anılar Belgeler.

²⁵ For more on TİP and Kurdish activism in the 1960s, see Watts, Nicole F., “Silence and Voice: Turkish Policies and Kurdish Resistance in the Mid-20th Century,” in The Evolution of Kurdish Nationalism, ed. Ahmed, Mohammed and Gunter, Michael (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2007), 52–77Google Scholar; Gültekingil, Murat, ed., Modern Türkiye'de Siyasi Düşünce: Sol (Political Thought in Modern Turkey: The Left) (Istanbul: İletişim, 2007)Google Scholar.

²⁶ See, for example, Ekinci, Tarık Ziya in Şeymus Diken, Amidalılar: Sürgündeki Diyarbakirliler (Those of Amed: People of Diyarbakir in Exile) (Istanbul: İletişim, 2007), 62–63Google Scholar.

²⁷ The Kurdistan Workers Party was not active in Diyarbakır until 1979 and did not play a role in Zana's campaign.

²⁸ As used in social-movement theory, frames are sets of beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimate actions. Unlike other sorts of cognitive constructs (e.g., personal perspectives), they are negotiated, constructed, and interactive. Framing is the production of symbols and meaning given to events, interpreting and codifying reality. See Benford, Robert D. and Snow, David A., “Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment,” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000), 611–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an application to the Kurdish national movement, see Romano, David, The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 99–170CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁹ Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 281.

³⁰ For a thorough discussion of the economic problems of the mid-1970s, see Keyder, State and Class in Turkey, 165–96.

³¹ Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türkiye Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Republican Turkey), vol. 7 (Istanbul: İletişim, 1985), 1870.

³² See, for example, Watts, “Silence and Voice”; Mesut Yeğen, “Turkish Nationalism and the Kurdish Question,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (2007): 119–51.

³³ Bozarslan, Hamit, “Some Remarks on Kurdish Historiographical Discourse in Turkey (1919–1980),” in Essays on the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism, ed. Vali, Abbas (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2003), 34–38Google Scholar.

³⁴ Yeni Yurt, 17 August 1977.

³⁵ See, for example, Özgürlük Yolu, January 1979, 47–52.

³⁶ See, for example, Özgürlük Yolu, August 1977, 55–59.

³⁷ See, for example, Özgürlük Yolu; Sosyalizm ve Toplumsal Mücadeleler Ansiklopedisi 7, 2131–32.

³⁸ For more on the eastern meetings, see Azat Zana Gündoğan, “The Kurdish Political Mobilization in the 1960s: The Case of the ‘Eastern Meetings’” (master's thesis, Middle East Technical University, 2005). Also see Watts, “Silence and Voice”; İsmail Beşikçi, Doğu Mitingleri'nin Analizi (1967) (An Analysis of the Eastern Meetings [1967]) (Ankara: Yurt Kitap-Yayın, 1992); Burkay, Anılar Belgeler, 2002.

³⁹ An extensive reading of the local press of the 1970s in Diyarbakır, Mardin, Urfa, and other cities shows the emergence of the “southeast” as a central reference during these years.

⁴⁰ Zana, Bekle Diyarbakır, 213.

⁴¹ DİE, 11 December 1977.

⁴² Cumhuriyet, 4 December 1977.

⁴³ See Özgürlük Yolu, May 1977, 3–17, and October 1977, 11–14.

⁴⁴ Yeni Yurt, 9–11 November 1977; Cumhuriyet, 10–11 November 1977.

⁴⁵ DİE, Census of Population 2000, 25, 47.

⁴⁶ Yeni Yurt, 30 September 1977, 1.

⁴⁷ Biographical information on Zana in this section is drawn from Zana's 1991 memoir, Bekle Diyarbakır; a personal interview with Mehdi Zana conducted by the authors in Diyarbakır in January 2007; published interviews with Zana and other Kurdish activists in Diken, Amidalılar, and Ballı, Rafet, Kürt Dosyası (Kurdish File) (Istanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1991)Google Scholar; and other interviews with politicians and activists involved in politics in the 1960s and 1970s. Some supported Zana's candidacy in 1977, and others were involved with competing organizations.

⁴⁸ These ideas are well illustrated in Zana's election manifesto, published in Yeni Yurt, 25 August 1977, 1.

⁴⁹ Özgürlük Yolu, 30 November 1977, 71.

⁵⁰ See, for instance, Bildirici, Faruk, Yemin Gecesi: Leyla Zana'nın Yaşamöyküsü (The Evening of the Oath: The Biography of Leyla Zana) (Istanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2008), 29–32Google Scholar.

⁵¹ For a detailed description, see Bildirici, Yemin Gecesi, 40–42.

⁵² Zana, Bekle Diyarbakır, 189–90.

⁵³ See, for example, Yeni Yurt, 20 August 1977.

⁵⁴ Yeni Yurt, 25 August 1977, 1.

⁵⁵ Zana, Bekle Diyarbakır, 193; also see Yeni Yurt, 8 November 1977; Özgürlük Yolu, December–January 1978, 8.

⁵⁶ Zana, Bekle Diyarbakır, 208.

⁵⁷ Zana, Bekle Diyarbakır, 194–95; also Mesut Baştürk and Aydın Hasar, personal interview by Nicole Watts, Istanbul, 26 July 2007.

⁵⁸ Mehmetoğlu was critically described in some leftist-Kurdist circles as “bourgeoisie”; his family traded in oil, tires, and sugar. See Özgürlük Yolu, December–January 1978, 8–9.

⁵⁹ Yeni Yurt, 21 November 1977.

⁶⁰ Hasan Şeker, personal interview by Nicole Watts, Diyarbakır, 15 January 2008.

⁶¹ Zana, interview; Baştürk and Hasar, interview.

⁶² Zana, Bekle Diyarbakır, 194–99; also Baştürk and Hasar, interview.

⁶³ Zana, Bekle Diyarbakır, 211–12.

⁶⁴ Ibid., 193–97; Baştürk and Hasar, interview.

⁶⁵ Zana, Bekle Diyarbakır, 237.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 236; Baştürk and Hasar, interview; also Diken, Amidalılar, 170–71.