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An inquiry into the linkage among nationalizing policies, democratization, and ethno-nationalist conflict: the Kurdish case in Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Demet Yalcin Mousseau
Demet Yalcin Mousseau*
Affiliation:
International Relations, Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey
*
*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article analyzes the effects of nationalizing policies of the state, processes of democratization, and uneven socio-economic development on the rise of Kurdish ethno-mobilization led by the PKK terrorist organization since the 1980s in Turkey. Three features of the Turkish modernization context are identified as conducive for the rise and continuation of Kurdish ethno-mobilization: a) a nation-building autocratic state that resisted granting cultural rights and recognition for the Kurds; b) democratization with the exclusion of ethnic politics and rights; c) economic regional inequality that coincided with the regional distribution of the Kurdish population. It is argued that autocratic policies of the state during nation-building accompanied the development of an illiberal democracy and intolerance for cultural pluralism. These aspects of Turkish democracy seem to be incompatible with both the liberal and consociational models of democracy that accommodate ethnicity within multiculturalism.

Keywords

democratization and ethnic conflictethno-nationalist mobilizationKurdish conflict in Turkeynationalizing state and ethnic conflicthuman rights
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 45 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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