Settling Softly: Ending War and Making Peace in Divided Societies

Abstract

This paper investigates possible sociopolitical reconciliatory mechanisms to garner support for peacemaking in conflict-torn societies. Building on the Kurdish question in Turkey, associated with a four-decade-long armed conflict that has spilled over into neighboring Syria and Iraq, we identify policies and framing that can attract support for a political solution to the conflict. We highlight the need for a sociopolitical reconciliatory approach that addresses both the hopes of the warring minority and the fears of the majority. The results from an original nationwide survey indicate that minority demands can initially be addressed through a ‘soft settlement,’ lying between individual and collective rights. Our results point to the need to relax the concept of negotiated settlement, which has become the most frequent approach to ending internal armed conflicts in the post-Cold War era.

RESUMEN

Este artículo investiga posibles mecanismos sociopolíticos en materia de reconciliación, que puedan ayudar a obtener apoyos para el establecimiento de la paz en sociedades desgarradas por conflictos. Partimos de la base de la cuestión kurda en Turquía, la cual se encuentra asociada con un conflicto armado de cuatro décadas que se ha extendido a los vecinos Siria e Irak, para identificar políticas y marcos que pueden atraer apoyos para una solución política al conflicto. Destacamos la necesidad de un enfoque sociopolítico reconciliador que sea capaz de abordar tanto las esperanzas de la minoría beligerante como los temores de la mayoría. Los resultados de una encuesta original a nivel nacional indican que estas demandas de las minorías pueden abordarse, inicialmente, a través de un «acuerdo blando», el cual representa un compromiso entre los derechos individuales y colectivos. Nuestros resultados apuntan a la necesidad de flexibilizar el concepto de solución negociada, que se ha convertido en el enfoque más frecuente para poner fin a los conflictos armados internos en la era posterior a la Guerra Fría.

RÉSUMÉ

Cet article examine les mécanismes de réconciliation sociopolitique possibles en vue d’obtenir du soutien à la pacification dans des sociétés rongées par le conflit. En nous fondant sur la question kurde en Turquie, associée à un conflit armé qui dure depuis quarante ans et qui a débordé sur deux pays voisins, la Syrie et l’Irak, nous identifions des politiques et des cadrages susceptibles de faire augmenter le soutien d’une solution politique à un conflit. Nous soulignons la nécessité d’une approche de réconciliation sociopolitique qui réponde à la fois aux espoirs de la minorité en lutte et aux craintes de la majorité. D’après les résultats d’un sondage inédit d’échelle nationale, les demandes de minorité peuvent d’abord être traitées à l’aide d’un « règlement doux des différends », à la limite entre les droits individuels et collectifs. Nos résultats indiquent qu’il est nécessaire d’assouplir le concept de règlement des différends négocié, l’approche la plus courante pour mettre fin aux conflits armés internes depuis la fin de la guerre froide.

Keywords:

• Soft settlement
• ethnic conflict
• peacemaking
• Turkey
• PKK

Palabras clave:

• Acuerdos blandos
• conflictos étnicos
• establecimiento de la paz
• Turquía
• PKK

Mots-clés:

• règlement doux des différends
• conflit ethnique
• pacification
• Turquie
• PKK

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank KONDA Research, Bekir Agirdir, Erman Bakirci, Evren Balta, William Johnson, and Dukhong Kim for their invaluable support and assistance in writing this paper. All remaining errors are own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Respondents who self-identified as Zaza (1.8%) are included in the Kurd category. While speaking a different but not distinct dialect from the main Kurdish dialect spoken by the Kurmanji speakers in Turkey, Zazas are generally considered part of the Kurdish ethnicity.

2 The “Southeast question” (Güneydoğu sorunu) is a codeword for the issues in the conflict by referring to the geographical location it is taking place. The original question in Turkish is as follows: “Sizce Güneydoğu ve Kürt sorunu nasıl çözülebilir? A) Terörü yok ederek; B) Ülkenin genel olarak demokratikleşmesi ile; C) Kürt kimliğinin anayasal olarak tanınması ile; D) Federasyon ve özerklik yolu ile; E) Müzakere yolu ile; F) Ancak Kürtler ayrılırsa çözülür; G) Türkiye’de Kürt sorunu yoktur.”

3 Respondents who refused to answer this question (177 out of 3,506, constituting 5% of the sample) were dropped from the analysis.

4 The original survey question in Turkish is as follows: “Toplumsal huzur için okullar değişik (etnik, ideolojik, dini vb.) grupların kendi kültürel hikayelerini ve tarihlerini öğretmelidir.”

5 About 5.39% (189 out of 3,506) of respondents did not answer this question and were dropped from the analysis.

6 This question was worded as follows: “Aynı hataları tekrarlamamak için milletimizin geçmiş hatalarından ders almalı helalleşmeliyiz.”

7 The Turkish version of the question is as follows: “Kutuplaşmış/çatışma yaşamış kesimler birbirleri ile yeni bir ilişki kurmalı.”

8 About 6% (201 out of 3,506) of respondents did not respond to this question and were dropped from the analysis.

9 Our survey was conducted when the Turkish military was engaged in fierce battles against the PKK in Turkey and Iraq while targeting forces aligned with the PYD in Syria. It also coincided with a campaign of helalleşme (reconciliation, broadly defined) led by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which had formed a coalition of six parties against the bloc led by the incumbent AKP.

10 Participants were asked to respond to the following statement in Turkish: “Türkiye’nin bölünmesinden korkuyorum.”

11 Participants were asked to react to the following statement in Turkish: “Suriye’de Kürtler’in devlet kurmasına engel olunmalıdır.”

12 Given our focus, the HDP variable is excluded from the multivariate models below.

13 A vast majority of self-identified Kurds supported lifting the ban on education in Kurdish, confirming the findings of surveys conducted at different times using various measures to gauge support for Kurdish cultural rights among Kurds (Karakoç and Özen 2020; Yegen, Tol, and Caliskan 2020).

14 We ran the model presented in Table 2 without the partisan variables and obtained similar results (supplementary Table 6, Appendix).

15 https://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html accessed February 3, 2024.