Curbing Kurdish ethno-nationalism in Turkey: an empirical assessment of pro-Islamic and socio-economic approaches

Abstract

Within the debates on curbing Kurdish ethno-nationalism in Turkey, the pro-Islamic approach puts emphasis on empowering the notion of ‘Islamic brotherhood’ between Turks and Kurds. The socio-economic approach, on the other hand, draws attention to improving the socio-economic status of the Kurds. By using World Values Survey data, this study tests these two distinct approaches. Logit estimates provide strong support for the socio-economic approach. Individuals with a better socio-economic status (i.e. higher level of education and income) are less likely to support Kurdish ethno-nationalist formations while religion-related factors do not have a significant impact. Some theoretical and policy implications are also provided.

Keywords:

• Ethno-nationalism
• Kurds
• Islamic brotherhood
• income
• education
• logit

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Martin Van Bruinessen, Umit Cizre, Cenap Cakmak, Jay Fisher, Michael Gunter, Metin Heper, Hasan Kirmanoglu, Robert Olson, Michael Wuthrich, Hakan Yavuz, the reviewers and editors for their very helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. In the early 1980s, an armed conflict erupted between the security forces and the separatist PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party, Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan, established in 1978). The number of people killed between 1984 and 1999 is estimated to have been around 30,000 (half of them PKK members, one-quarter civilians and one-quarter security members). The cost of fighting, during this period, was more than 100 billion dollars. Although its intensity has declined dramatically since the capture of PKK leader Ocalan by Turkish security forces in 1999 in Kenya, the fighting resumed in the spring of 2005.

2. For more on the evolution and impact of Kurdish ethno-nationalism in Turkey, see Entessar (1992), McDowall (1996) and Olson (1996).

3. It is important to indicate that this approach was rather different from the official state position, which treats Kurdish, Bosniak, Albanian and Chechen identities as sub-identities under the Turkish identity (Yavuz and Ozcan 2006, p. 112). In the following period, the Turkish military expressed its concerns about such an initiative. The military argued that the treatment of the Turkish identity as an ethnic sub-identity was contradictory to the unitary nature of the Turkish nation-state.

4. Author's interview, Oran-Ankara, 25 December 2005.

5. It is argued that Kurds constitute 70 per cent of the population in the eastern and south-eastern parts (see Mutlu 1996).

6. The party participated in the 1995 and 1999 national elections. Although it could not pass the nationwide election threshold (10 per cent), the party received the majority of votes in the south east, populated mostly by Kurds (Bozarslan 1996, p. 18; Kurkcu 1996, p. 4). Moreover, in 1999 municipal elections, HADEP's candidates won most of major cities and towns in the region (Barkey 1998; Guney 2002).

7. For a similar measurement of ‘religiosity’, see Baslevent, Kirmanoglu and Senatalar (2005, p. 554).

8. One might argue that we should also control for ‘ethnic origin’ because it might well be expected that ethnic Kurds should be more likely to be supportive of pro-Kurdish formations. However, it is a fact that not all pro-Kurdish actors are ethnic Kurds and not all Kurds are pro-Kurdish (Watts 2006, p. 132). Therefore, the exclusion of ethnic origin does not pose a major problem in terms of model specification.

9. The World Values Survey data set is produced by the European Values Study Foundation and World Values Survey Association. The goal of the project is to learn more about values and cultural changes in societies all over the world. It is a highly used data set in scholarly analyses of public attitudes and values. The data source is: European and World Values Surveys Four-Wave Integrated Date File, 1981–2004, v.20060423, 2006 (Turkey, November–December 2000). For more information, see http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ The survey data for Turkey were collected by Bogazici University in November–December 2000.

10. During the July 2007 national elections, the AKP received 45 per cent of total votes in provinces mostly populated by Kurds (Diyarbakir, Van, Siirt, Sanliurfa, Mus, Mardin, Hakkari, Sirnak, Batman, Bitlis). The pro-Kurdish DTP, however, received 40 per cent of the votes in those places. The openly pro-Islamic SP performed rather poorly.

11. Author's interviews with: Ahmet Turk (co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, DTP); Edip Polat (the Chairperson of Kurdish Writers Association); Mustafa Sezgin Tanrikulu (the President of the Bar of Diyarbakir); Osman Baydemir (DiyarbakIr Mayor); Selahattin Demirtas (the Chairperson of Human Rights Association, DiyarbakIr Branch); Servet Deniz (Kurdish Institute); Songul Erol Abdil (Tunceli Mayor); Yusuf Alatas (the President of Human Rights Association) in Ankara, Tunceli and Diyarbakir, in June–July 2006.