![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article examines the inter-societal security trilemma among political Islamists, Kurdish actors, and the state in Turkey with a special reference to the failures in the Kurdish Opening that was initiated in 2009. While the Kurdish question is undoubtedly a long-standing multi-state and multi-causal ethno-political phenomenon, this study is primarily concerned with the identity–security-politics nexus. It addresses the question of how the politics of identity and dynamics of contra-identity claims produce a persistent security dilemma among different political blocs in contemporary Turkey. Addressing this question helps to explain why the Turkish state has consistently failed to successfully tackle the Kurdish question, as was the case of the Kurdish Opening in 2009.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Tuncay Kardaş is Associate Professor of International Relations at Sakarya University in Turkey. He received his PhD in International Politics from Aberystwyth University in 2006. His main research interests are the Kurdish Question in Turkey, Visual Security Studies, and Foreign Fighters in the Middle East.
Ali Balcı is Associate Professor of International Relations at Sakarya University in Turkey. He received his PhD from the Department of International Relations of Sakarya University in 2010. His main research interests are Turkish Foreign Policy, the Kurdish Question in Turkey, and Counter-Hegemonic Ethnic Movements in the Middle East.
Notes
1. See, for example, Pusane, “Turkey's Kurdish Opening” and Somer and Liaras, “Turkey's New Kurdish Opening.”
2. Aktürk, “Regimes of Ethnicity.” For the political Islamist tradition's understanding of ethnicity, see, Duran, “Approaching the Kurdish Question Via Adil düzen.” For a meticulous analysis of ethnic and secularist character of the Turkish state, see, Yıldız, Ne Mutlu Türküm Diyebilene; See also for Turkification policies of the Turkish state over the Kurds, Yeğen, “Citizenship and Ethnicity in Turkey” and Aslan, Nation-Building.
3. In Turkey, the military enjoyed a tutelary power over the civil governments mainly from its 1960 coup d’état to the resignation of Chief of Staff Isik Koşaner in July 2011 in protest to the Ergenekon court cases, which have led to the imprisonment of top-brass. The year 2009, therefore, saw the Turkish Armed Forces still as one of the most influential power brokers in politics.
4. Herz, Political Realism.
5. Butterfield, History and Human Relations and Wheeler and Booth, “The Security Dilemma.”
6. Posen, “The Security Dilemma” and Roe, “Misperception and Ethnic Conflict.”
7. Roe, “The Intrastate Security Dilemma,” 194.
8. Roe, Ethnic Violence, 8–17.
9. Ibid., 16–23.
10. Al, “Elite Discourses, Nationalism;” Aydinli, “The Reform-security Dilemma;” Somer, “Why Aren't Kurds Like the Scots;” and Yeşiltaş, “The Transformation of the Geopolitical Vision.”
11. Al, “Elite Discourses, Nationalism,” 103 and 109.
12. Aydinli, “The Reform-security Dilemma,” 1147.
13. Somer, “Why Aren't Kurds Like the Scots.”
14. Huntington, “Democracy for the Long Haul,” 9.
15. For an excellent alternative conceptualization and analysis of relations between Kurds and modern Turkish state, see Yeğen, Devlet Söyleminde Kürt Sorunu.
16. Somer, “Moderation and Democracy in Kurdish Question,” 236.
17. Roe, Ethnic Violence and the Societal Security Dilemma, 2.
18. Somer, “Moderation and Democracy in Kurdish Question,” 238.
19. Roe, Ethnic Violence and the Societal Security Dilemma, 3.
20. Balci and Kardas, “The Changing Dynamics of Turkey's Relations with Israel.”
21. Warning and Kardaş, “The Impact of Changing Islamic Identity” and Kardas, “Turkey: Secularism, Islam, and the EU.”
22. This threefold rendering of the parties involved do not, however, refer to discrete or fixed identity groups and as such may not do full justice to flexible boundaries, inner complexities and nuances groups possess. Undeniably, in each group there exists a sub-set of actors, divergent motivations and varying perceptions vis-à-vis other actors and issue areas. For instance, while the Kurdish front incorporates moderate elements sympathetic to a democratic solution and peaceful settlement of the Kurdish problem, its moderate agenda may at times fall prey to the violent strategies of its militant wing, the PKK. Likewise, while the AKP represents Islamist Turks and consents to the aspirations of conservative and Kurdish actors within its rank and file, it may well give ground to the vitriolic politics of Turkish nationalism often betraying its democratic credentials. Similarly, while the state party is a broad church that involves the army, secularist-liberal social forces and socialist-cum-Kemalist politicians, its political agenda is sometimes dominated by the militant and ultra-nationalist discourses and tactics that include toppling democratically elected governments.
23. For more info see the special issue on Ergenekon, Balci and Jacoby, “The Ergenekon Counter-Terrorism Investigation in Turkey.”
24. The AKP issued a booklet to share its ideas on the solution of the Kurdish issue, see Soruları ve Cevaplarıyla Demokratik Açılım Süreci.
25. Hale and Özbudun, Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey, 90–91.
26. Ekmekci, “Understanding Kurdish Ethno-nationalism,” 1613.
27. Quoted in Olson, “Turkish-Kurdish Relations,” 28.
28. Hürriyet, “Başbakan Erdoğan Hakkari'de Konuştu,” November 2, 2008. This nationalist rhetoric of Erdoğan also proved the ideological enmeshment between the state party and political Islamists and the state, which limited further reforms on the Kurdish issue under the AKP rule. See Somer and Glüpker-Kesebir, “Is Islam the Solution?”
29. Cizre, “The Emergence of the Government's,” 9.
30. Polat, “The Anti-Coup Trials in Turkey,” 213.
31. Özcan, “From Distance to Engagement,” 71–92.
32. See Çandar, “The Kurdish Question,” 18.
33. Milliyet, “Şiddet sona ermeli,” August 7, 2009.
34. Milliyet, “Silahlar susmalı,” August 8, 2009.
35. Milliyet, “Silahlar susmalı,” August 8, 2009.
36. Saraçoğlu, Şehir, Orta Sınıf ve Kürtler.
37. Çarkoğlu, “Turkey's Local Elections of 2009,” 1–18.
38. Quoted in Olson, “Turkish-Kurdish Relations,” 33.
39. For two illuminating anthropological field studies demonstrating the increasing chasm between Turks and Kurds in urban Turkey see Watts, Activist in Office.
40. Akkaya and Jongerden, “The PKK in the 2000s,” 157.
41. Watts, Activist in Office, 11.
42. Casier et al., “Fruitless Attempts?,” 116.
43. KONDA, Kürt Meselesini Yeniden Düşünmek, 35.
44. For example, “Tepkiler büyüyor,” Hurriyet, October 23, 2009; “Dalga dalga isyan,” Hurriyet, October 25, 2009; and “İstanbul'da terörü protesto yürüyüşü,” Hurriyet, October 28, 2009.
45. For example, according to a KONDA survey, almost half of the AKP voters (47.8%) stated that they would eschew Kurdish neighbors or business partners. See KONDA, Kürt Meselesi'nde Algi.
46. Pusane, “Turkey's Kurdish Opening,” 88–89.
47. Somer and Liaras, “Turkey's New Kurdish Opening,” 155.
48. Cüneyt Özdemir, “Habur Süreci Nasıl Baltalandı,” Radikal, January 16, 2010.
49. T24, “Öcalan yol haritasını avukatlarına anlattı!,” 2009. Accessed February 10, 2014. http://t24.com.tr/haber/ocalan-yol-haritasini-avukatlarina-anlatti,58828
50. Özhan and Ete, “Kürt Meselesi,” 16–20.