Ethnic identity and perceptions of the police in Turkey: the case of Kurds and Turks

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the literature on minorities’ and ethnic groups’ perceptions of the police, this article investigates the differences between Kurds and Turks in terms of their perceptions of the police in Turkey. We conducted survey research using a nationally representative sample of 1804 people. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that Kurds in Turkey have a more negative perception of the police than Turks, regardless of their gender, education, income, party affiliation, and sectarian identity. It is concluded that the historical relationship between Kurds and the Turkish state has had a decisive effect on how Kurds perceive the police.

KEYWORDS:

• Turkey
• ethnic identity
• Kurds
• perceptions of the police

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Christopher Einolf, Ekrem Karakoç, and Engin Arik for their critical and useful comments on earlier drafts of the paper as well as Ali Çarkoğlu, Ersin Kalaycıoğlu, and Tarcan Kumkale for their useful comments during the construction of the survey instrument.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are original and were collected in a project financed by the Technological and Scientific Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). The authors discussed all the details regarding the data collection in the article (please see pages 12–14). The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [O. S.], upon reasonable request.

ORCID

Osman Sahin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0815-9433

Sema Akboga http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0937-9961

Notes

1 For example, Oliveira and Murphy (2015) found that those who identified more strongly with Australia and Australian culture have a more positive view of the police.

2 The World Values Survey asks the following question to measure people’s confidence in the police: ‘I am going to name a number of organizations. For each one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them: is it a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence or none at all?’ One of the organizations in this list is the police. The participant is expected to provide a number between ‘1’ and ‘4’. (1 = a great deal; 4 = none at all).

3 Sunni Muslims comprise the largest belief group in Turkey. Sunni Muslims adhere to the five pillars of Islam, including the declaration of faith, praying five times a day, fasting during Ramadan, pilgrimage to Mecca, and Zakat (giving alms) (Martinovic and Verkuyten 2016).

4 Alevism is thought to be a sect of Islam, combining elements of Shi’ite and Sufi Islam, causing the Alevis to be considered heterodox Muslims. Alevis constitute the second largest belief group in Turkey, numbering up to 15 million of a population of approximately 75 million people (Borovali and Boyraz 2014). This makes Alevis the largest religious minority in Turkey.

5 Although the Turkish Statistical Institute does not ask people their identity in censuses, several studies estimate the Kurdish population is somewhere between 14.5% and over 20% of the total population of Turkey (Karimova and Derevell 2001, Koç et al. 2008, The World Factbook 2016). Therefore, we conclude that our survey sample is fairly representative of Kurds and Turks in Turkey.

6 The World Justice Project, in their words, is “an independent and multidisciplinary organization measuring working to advance rule of law in the world”. The organization has created an index (the WJP Rule of Law Index) aiming to measure how the rule of law is viewed by the general public in 102 countries.

7 This survey question might be considered to be “double-barreled”, since participants cannot distinguish between dyads – Kurds/ Turks and Alevis/ Sunnis – in answering the question. However, this question primarily aims to measure people’s perceptions about the impartiality of the police rather than which groups the police might be more hostile towards. Therefore, this particular question – though the wording creates a measurement/ operationalization problem – is essential for the development of the independent variable.

8 AKP voters (Mean = 3.5513) vs. MHP voters (Mean = 2.7532).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) under Grant 113K522.