Download or read book The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey written by Cengiz Gunes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an interpretive and critical analysis of Kurdish identity, nationalism and national movement in Turkey since the 1960s. By raising issues and questions relating to Kurdish political identity and highlighting the ideological specificity, diversity and the transformation of Kurdish nationalism, it develops a new empirical dimension to the study of the Kurds in Turkey. Cengiz Gunes applies an innovative theoretical approach to the analysis of an impressively large volume of primary sources and data drawn from books and magazines published by Kurdish activists, political parties and groups. The analysis focuses on the specific demands articulated by the Kurdish national movement and looks at Kurdish nationalism at a specific level by disaggregating the nationalist discourse, showing variations over time and across different Kurdish nationalist organisations. Situating contemporary Kurdish political identity and its political manifestations within a historical framework, the author examines the historical and structural conditions that gave rise to it and influenced its evolution since the 1960s. The analysis also encompasses an account of the organisational growth and evolution of the Kurdish national movement, including the political parties and groups that were active in the period. Bringing the study of the organisational development and growth of the Kurdish National Movement in Turkey up to date, this book will be an important reference for students and scholars of Middle Eastern politics, social movements, nationalism and conflict.

Download or read book Primitive Rebels Or Revolutionary Modernizers written by Paul J White and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 2000-10 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Protests worldwide followed the capture and trial of the Kurdish nationalist leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1999. But where does the PKK come from? What are its aims? Who supports it? What will its future be without Öcalan? And is there hope for a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question in Turkey and a democratic future? This timely book seeks answers to these questions and provides an informative, up-to-date and readable account of the Kurdish reality in Turkey today. Its focus is a critical examination of the Kurdish nationalist movement--especially the largest and most powerful grouping, the PKK.

Download or read book The Kurdish Question in Turkey written by Cengiz Gunes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-23 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost three decades have passed since political violence erupted in Turkey’s south-eastern regions, where the majority of Turkey’s approximately 20 million Kurds live. In 1984, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) initiated an insurgency which intensified in the following decades and continues to this day. Kurdish regions in Turkey were under military rule for more than a decade and the conflict has cost the lives of 45,000 people, including soldiers, guerrillas and civilians. The complex issue of the Kurdish Question in Turkey is subject to comprehensive examination in this book. This interdisciplinary edited volume brings together chapters by social theorists, political scientists, social anthropologists, sociologists, legal theorists and ethnomusicologists to provide new perspectives on this internationally significant issue. It elaborates on the complexity of the Kurdish question and examines the subject matter from a number of innovative angles. Considering historical, theoretical and political aspects of the Kurdish question in depth and raising issues that have not been discussed sufficiently in existing literature, this book is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Nationalism and Conflict, Turkish Politics and Middle Eastern politics more broadly.

Download or read book Ethnic Boundaries in Turkish Politics written by Zeki Sarigil and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kurdish Movement in Turkey’s growing alliance with Islam One of the fault lines of Turkish politics traditionally has been the divide between religious and secular movements. However, as Zeki Sarigil argues, the secular Kurdish movement in Turkey has increasingly become aligned with Islam. As a result, Islam has become part of the movement’s political discourse, strategies and actions. Ethnic Boundaries in Turkish Politics traces the evolving relations between the leftist, secular Kurdish movement and Islam, from an apathetic and/or antagonistic attitude in the 1970s and 1980s to an increasingly Islam-friendly approach in the 1990s to an attitude of accommodation and the rise of Kurdish-Islamic synthesis in the early 2000s. Based on 104 interviews in several provinces in Turkey (primarily Ankara, Diyarbakir, Istanbul, and Tunceli) between 2011 and 2015 as well as ethnographic data, public opinion surveys and statements from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Kurdish leaders, Sarigil shows how the secular Kurdish movement increasingly has been endorsing Islam and Islamic actors. The reasons for this Islamic opening are global, national, and local; Sarigil demonstrates that a group of strategic and ideological factors have encouraged and/or forced Kurdish leaders to redraw symbolic and social boundaries of the movement. Namely, with the end of the Cold War support for Marxist ideas collapsed, creating increasingly more favorable responses towards religion. In addition, the movement’s need to expand its social basis and popularity; electoral politics; and legitimacy struggles against rival political actors were other major factors, which triggered the Kurdish movement’s boundary expansion (i.e. its Islamic opening). The study also shows that the Kurdish boundary making was not without any tension or contestation. The boundary expansion by Kurdish ethnopolitical elites triggered both internal and external boundary contestations. The movement’s embrace of Islam on a more widespread level has major ramifications for politics in Turkey and in the region. Ethnic Boundaries in Turkish Politics has important insight into the PKK, modern Turkish and Islamic societies and highlights the increasing role of Islam in global politics.

Download or read book Kurdish Politics in Turkey written by Seevan Saeed and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurds were promised their own state. However, several factors meant that this dream never became a reality, and the land of the Kurds was divided. Amid a sense of a loss of identity, the Kurds started to fight for their social and political rights. ‘Kurdish Politics in Turkey’ argues that the Kurdish struggle has largely been a failure, and that the emergence of the Unions of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) has been a direct result of this. The book examines the success of the KCK and how it has transformed this Kurdish struggle in Turkey from a one-dimensional political movement, to a multi-dimensional social movement.

Download or read book Anatomy of a Civil War written by Mehmet Gurses and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anatomy of a Civil War demonstrates the destructive nature of war, ranging from the physical to the psychosocial, as well as war’s detrimental effects on the environment. Despite such horrific aspects, evidence suggests that civil war is likely to generate multilayered outcomes. To examine the transformative aspects of civil war, Mehmet Gurses draws on an original survey conducted in Turkey, where a Kurdish armed group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has been waging an intermittent insurgency for Kurdish self-rule since 1984. Findings from a probability sample of 2,100 individuals randomly selected from three major Kurdish-populated provinces in the eastern part of Turkey, coupled with insights from face-to-face in-depth interviews with dozens of individuals affected by violence, provide evidence for the multifaceted nature of exposure to violence during civil war. Just as the destructive nature of war manifests itself in various forms and shapes, wartime experiences can engender positive attitudes toward women, create a culture of political activism, and develop secular values at the individual level. In addition, wartime experiences seem to robustly predict greater support for political activism. Nonetheless, changes in gender relations and the rise of a secular political culture appear to be primarily shaped by wartime experiences interacting with insurgent ideology.

Download or read book Blood and Belief written by Aliza Marcus and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2009-04 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the inside story of Kurdish guerrilla movement. This book combines reportage and scholarship to give an account of PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

Download or read book Conflict Democratization and the Kurds in the Middle East written by David Romano and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-08-13 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, central governments historically pursued mono-nationalist ideologies and repressed Kurdish identity. As evidenced by much unrest and a great many Kurdish revolts in all these states since the 1920s, however, the Kurds manifested strong resistance towards ethnic chauvinism. What sorts of authoritarian state policies have Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria relied on to contain the Kurds over the years? Can meaningful democratization and liberalization in any of these states occur without a fundamental change vis-à-vis their Kurdish minorities? To what extent does the Kurdish issue function as both a barrier and key to democratization in four of the most important states of the Middle East? While many commentators on the Middle East stress the importance of resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute for achieving 'peace in the Middle East,' this book asks whether or not the often overlooked Kurdish issue may constitute a more important fulcrum for change in the region, especially in light of the 'Arab Spring' and recent changes in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Download or read book Understanding Turkey s Kurdish Question written by Fevzi Bilgin and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-06-20 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume, comprising chapters by leading academics and experts, aims to clarify the complexity of Turkey’s Kurdish question. The Kurdish question is a long-standing, protracted issue, which gained regional and international significance largely in the last thirty years. The Kurdish people who represent the largest ethnic minority in the Middle East without a state have demanded autonomy and recognition since the post-World I wave of self-governance in the region, and their nationalist claims have further intensified since the end of the Cold War. The present volume first describes the evolution of Kurdish nationalism, its genesis during the late nineteenth century in the Ottoman Empire, and its legacy into the new Turkish republic. Second, the volume takes up the violent legacy of Kurdish nationalism and analyzes the conflict through the actions of the PKK, the militant pro-Kurdish organization which grew to be the most important actor in the process. Third, the volume deals with the international dimensions of the Kurdish question, as manifested in Turkey’s evolving relationships with Syria, Iraq, and Iran, the issue regarding the status of the Kurdish minorities in these countries, and the debate over the Kurdish problem in Western capitals.

Download or read book Turkey s Kurds written by Ali Kemal Özcan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK) is examined here in this text on Kurdish nationalism. Incorporating recent field-based research results and newly translated material on Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK's long-time leader; it explores the nature and the organizational working of the party, from its growth in the late 1970s to its recent shrinkage. A variety of issues are addressed including: * the views and philosophy of Abdullah Ocalan * the successes and failures of the PKK in bringing about the Kurdish opposition in Turkey * the role of PKK's philosophy of recruitment, organizational diligence, use of arms and other contextual factors in Kurdish resistance * factors involved in the development of the nationalism of the Kurds in Turkey. The text also reappraises the Kurdish movement in Turkey and presents insights into the nature of Kurdish social structure, thinking, and the particularities of the Kurdish ethnic distinctness.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Turkish Politics written by Günes Murat Tezcür and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 865 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of politics in Turkey : new horizons and perennial pitfalls / Güneş Murat Tezcür -- Democratization theories and Turkey / Ekrem Karakoç -- Ruling ideologies in modern Turkey / Kerem Öktem -- Constitutionalism in Turkey / Aslı Ü. Bâli -- Civil-military relations and the demise of Turkish democracy / Nil S. Satana and Burak Bilgehan Özpek -- Capturing secularism in Turkey : the ease of comparison / Murat Akan -- The political economy of Turkey since the end of World War II / Şevket Pamuk -- Neoliberal politics in Turkey / Sinan Erensü and Yahya M. Madra -- The politics of welfare in Turkey / Erdem Yörük -- The political economy of environmental policymaking in Turkey : a vicious cycle / Fikret Adaman, Bengi Akbulut, and Murat Arsel -- The politics of energy in Turkey : running engines on geopolitical, discursive, and coercive power / Begüm Özkaynak, Ethemcan Turhan, and Cem İskender Aydın -- The contemporary politics of health in Turkey : diverse actors, competing frames, and uneven policies / Volkan Yılmaz -- Populism in Turkey : historical and contemporary patterns / Yüksel Taşkın -- Old and new polarizations and failed democratizations in Turkey / Murat Somer -- Economic voting during the AKP era in Turkey / S. Erdem Aytaç -- Party organizations in Turkey and their consequences for democracy / Melis G. Laebens -- The evolution of conventional political participation in Turkey / Ersin Kalaycıoğlu -- Symbolic politics and contention in the Turkish Republic / Senem Aslan -- Islamist activism in Turkey / Menderes Çınar -- The Kurdish movement in Turkey : understanding everyday perceptions and experiences / Dilan Okcuoglu -- The Transnational Mobilization of the Alevis of Turkey : from invisibility to the struggle for equality / Ceren Lord -- Politics of asylum seekers and refugees in Turkey : limits and prospects of populism / Fatih Resul Kılınç and Şule Toktaş -- A theoretical account of Turkish foreign policy under the AKP / Tarık Oğuzlu -- US-Turkey relations since WWII : from alliance to transactionalism / Serhat Güvenç and Soli Özel -- Turkey and Europe : historical asynchronicities and perceptual asymmetries / Hakan Yılmaz -- Turkey's foreign policy in the Middle East : an identity perspective / Lisel Hintz -- Turkey and Russia : historical patterns and contemporary trends in bilateral relations / Evren Balta and Mitat Çelikpala -- Citizenship and protest behavior in Turkey / Ayhan Kaya -- Gender politics and the struggle for equality in Turkey / Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat -- Human rights organizations in Turkey / Başak Çalı -- Truth, justice, and commemoration initiatives in Turkey / Onur Bakiner -- The politics of media in Turkey : chronicle of a stillborn media system / Sarphan Uzunoğlu -- The AKP's rhetoric of rule in Turkey : political melodramas of conspiracy from "ergenekon" to "mastermind" / Erdağ Göknar -- The transformation of political cinema in Turkey since the 1960s : a change of discourse / Zeynep Çetin-Erus and M. Elif Demoğlu -- Political music in Turkey : the birth and diversification of dissident and conformist music (1920-2000) / Mustafa Avcı.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of the Kurds written by Hamit Bozarslan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-22 with total page 1027 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge History of the Kurds is an authoritative and comprehensive volume exploring the social, political and economic features, forces and evolution amongst the Kurds, and in the region known as Kurdistan, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. Written in a clear and accessible style by leading scholars in the field, the chapters survey key issues and themes vital to any understanding of the Kurds and Kurdistan including Kurdish language; Kurdish art, culture and literature; Kurdistan in the age of empires; political, social and religious movements in Kurdistan; and domestic political developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Other chapters on gender, diaspora, political economy, tribes, cinema and folklore offer fresh perspectives on the Kurds and Kurdistan as well as neatly meeting an exigent need in Middle Eastern studies. Situating contemporary developments taking place in Kurdish-majority regions within broader histories of the region, it forms a definitive survey of the history of the Kurds and Kurdistan.

Download or read book Kurdish Hizbullah in Turkey written by Mehmet Kurt and published by State Crime. This book was released on 2017 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyses Kurdish Hizbullah as a social movement, charting Hizbullah's development from its origins in violent militancy to its move towards a more ambiguous 'civic' mode of engagement.Mehmet Kurt explores Hizbullah in Turkey's many paradoxes: notably its political rise and the apparent power of Islamism in a region in which leftist Kurdish political movements dominate political discourse; and its composition, which in its Sunni and Kurdish makeup, differs from the Shiite Hizbullah in Lebanon.Through his unique position as an anthropologist, theorist and former Imam, Kurt produces a work of extraordinary insight: an ethnography comprised of extensive interviews with leaders, members and supporters of Hizbullah, revealing the manner in which Islamic civil society has taken root in a region where ethnic identity has been the primary organising tool against a repressive and violent state.

Download or read book Activists in Office written by Nicole F. Watts and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thousands of Kurdish politician-activists have been prosecuted and imprisoned, and hundreds have been murdered for espousing Kurdish political and cultural rights over the past twenty years. The risks are high, yet Pro-Kurdish political parties have made significant gains, as resources afforded by the political system have allowed them to challenge state rhetoric and policies to exercise power at the municipal level, which has helped legitimize and advance the pro-Kurdish movement. Activists in Office examines how these parties, while sharing many of the goals expressed by armed Kurdish groups, are using the legal political system to promote their highly contentious Kurdish national agenda in the face of a violent, repressive state. Nicole F. Watts sheds light not only on the particular situation of Kurds in Turkey, but also on the challenges, risks, and potential benefits for comparable movements operating in less-than-fully democratic contexts. The book is a result of more than ten years of research conducted in Turkey and in Europe, and it draws on a wide array of sources, including Turkish electoral data, memoirs, court records, and interviews.

Download or read book Turkey s Kurdish Question written by Henri J. Barkey and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kurds, one of the oldest ethnic groups in the Middle East, are reasserting their identity—politically and through violence. Divided mainly among Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, the Kurds have posed increasingly sharp challenges to all of these states in their quest for greater autonomy if not outright independence. Turkey's essentially democratic structure and civil society_ideal tools for coping with and incorporating minority challenge_have so far been suspended on this issue, which the government is treating almost exclusively as a security problem to be dealt with by force. For the West the situation in Turkey is particularly significant because of the country's importance in the region and because of the economic, political, and diplomatic damage that the conflict has caused. If Turkey fails to find a peaceful solution within its current borders, then the outlook is grim for ethnic and separatist challenges elsewhere in the region. This study explores the roots, dimensions, character, and evolution of the problem, offers a range of approaches to a resolution of the conflict, and draws broader parallels between the Kurdish question and other separatist movements worldwide.

Download or read book Democratic Representation in Plurinational States written by Ephraim Nimni and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-12-28 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines modalities for the recognition and political participation of minorities in plurinational states in theory and in practice, with a specific reference to the Republic of Turkey and the resolution of the Kurdish question. Drawing on the experience of Spain and Eastern Europe and other recent novel models for minority accommodation, including the Ottoman experience of minority autonomy (the Millet System), the volume brings together researchers from Turkey and Europe more broadly to develop an ongoing dialogue that analytically examines various models for national minority accommodation. These models promise to protect the state’s integrity and provide governmental mechanisms that satisfy demands for collective representation of national communities in the framework of a plurinational state.

Download or read book The Kurds of Turkey written by Cuma Çiçek and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-22 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In fact, Kurds in Turkey have many diverse political and ideological orientations. Focusing on the elites of these informal groups - national, religious and economic - Cuma Cicek analyses the consequences of the divisions and subsequent prospects of consensus building. Using an innovative theoretical framework founded on constructivism, the 'three 'I's' model and various strands of sociology, Cicek considers the dynamics that affect the Kurds in Turkey across issues as diverse as the central state, geopolitics, nationalism, Europeanisation and globalisation. In so doing, he examines the consensus-building process of 1999-2015 and presents the possible route to a unified Kurdish political state.Cicek's in-depth and meticulously researched work adds an indispensable layer of nuance to our conception of the Kurdish community. This is an important book for students or researchers with an interest in the history and present of the Kurds and their future in Turkey and across the Middle East.