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

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 conflict
• ethno-nationalist mobilization
• Kurdish conflict in Turkey
• nationalizing state and ethnic conflict
• human rights

Notes

The author does not claim that these factors are causes for the mobilization of the PKK but identifies these conditions in light of the ethnic literature as conducive for ethnic mobilization.

Similarly, this article does not attempt to draw a general strategy or institutional arrangement for ethnic-conflict elimination for multi-ethnic societies, since the ultimate solutions may vary among countries with respect to domestic conditions, composition of ethnic groups and other factors. However, it aims at identifying contextual problems in the accommodation of ethnicity in Turkey.

For a more elaborate explanation of liberal versus consociational democracy, see Smooha; Peleg.

Many militant leftist, nationalist, and religious organizations came into being in the 1970s, involving high levels of political violence, including at universities. Beside the SP, various leftist organizations and movements incorporated Kurdish groups, dealing with the Kurdish question. Hence, the latter was embraced and addressed as a part of the leftist ideology in the 1970s in Turkey. The PKK was the first Kurdish-based movement that channeled Kurdish nationalism after the late 1970s combining Kurdish separatism with Marxist socialist ideology. The unique objective of the PKK came to be the establishment of a Kurdish socialist state in Eastern Turkey.

Freedom of thought and organization has been restricted also for religion and radical leftist communist ideologies in Turkey. However, for the purposes of this study the main focus is on ethnicity-related constraints.

This information can be accessed at http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=24855

People's Labor Party (HEP), 1990-1993; Democracy Party (DEP); People's Democratic Party (HADEP), 1994-2003; and most recently the Democratic Society Party (DTP), 2005–2009.

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/pdf/key_documents/2004/rr_tr_2004_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2006/nov/tr_sec_1390_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2010/package/tr_rapport_2010_en.pdf

A report of the TUSIAD on constitutional reform can be accessed at http://www.tusiad.org

These data are taken from World Bank.