Traditional thinking on security fails to explain the security predicament of Third World states. These states, with their existence assured by international recognition, are not primarily concerned with externally generated threats. Their internal characteristics violate the tenants of the realist theory, because they have more than one nation within their borders. The domestic conditions of these states make them internally insecure and weak---the threat of ethnic conflict great. / As such, placing security in the military sphere alone, ignores these contradictions which lead to an insecurity dilemma. Thus, the concept of security needs to be broadened to include, not merely the military but also the political, societal and economic factors. The threat posed to state security from dissenting ethnic groups is both a domestic and foreign policy issue. It is within this discussion, that the thesis examines Turkey's security predicament with regards to her Kurdish minority.

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This study seeks to analyze the Turkish nation-building process during the early Republican period (1920-1938). In doing this, the substantive focus will be on three main dimensions --language, education, and citizenship -- with particular emphasis on the rhetoric and actions of the political elite. / By looking at language, education, and citizenship policies, and their formulations, the present analysis will make three main propositions: First, and in contrast to the existing literature on nations and nation-building, it will be demonstrated that the process of Turkish nation-building was neither a smooth nor an automatic process. Moreover, during the period under analysis, there were competing definitions of nationhood which were taken up, and discussed by the political elite. The final conceptualization of nationhood --which took an assimilationist form with an ethnic understanding attached to it -- was formed over time. At times, the process was wrought with tensions as illustrated by the heated debates among the political elite. / Second, the present analysis will seek to bring together two different ways of looking at nation formation. More specifically, the analysis will attempt to bridge the gap between those works which only underline the role of ideas in the formation of nations, and those which emphasize the role of structural forces. By paying attention to the "voices" (and actions) of the political elite, this study will demonstrate that it is not only ideas, nor is it only structural forces that matter. Rather, the crystallization of the contents of Turkish nationhood illustrates the interplay of ideological as well as geopolitical and political forces. / Third, a detailed analysis of the trajectory of Turkish nation-building and the formulation of Turkish nationhood reveals the complexity of this process. The existing literature on Turkey tends to treat the Kemalist era as an undifferentiated whole. The present work will remain critical to such an outlook. Instead, and by looking at the shifting conceptualizations of nationhood, it will seek to demonstrate the complexity and contingent nature of the Turkish nation-building process.

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This dissertation examines the origins and development of ethno-national mobilisation amongst the Kurds of the Ottoman Empire in the decades leading up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. It argues that, like other elements of Ottoman community, over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the idea that the Kurds constituted a 'nation' gradually proliferated amongst Kurdish intellectual and political leaders. This nascent 'national consciousness' found concrete expression in the establishment of a series of newspapers, journals and organisations claiming to represent the views and interests of the Ottoman Kurdish community. However, while a growing number of Kurds began to see themselves as part of a 'Kurdish nation', the political implications of Kurdish 'nationhood' remained controversial. Indeed, from its inception the Kurdish movement contained within it a number of factions which held very different opinions on what precisely constituted the Kurds' national interests. This included some who attempted to secure the advancement and development of their people within the framework of the empire (accommodationists) and others who sought national independence (separatists). This study seeks to highlight the diversity within the Kurdish movement and, more importantly, shed light on the reasons behind it. In doing so, it will become possible to create a more nuanced historical narrative of the origins and nature of the Kurdish question, a question which remained a major political issue facing Middle Eastern leaders and statesmen today.