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The Kurdish Question, which dates back to the Ottoman Era, has been a constituent element of narratives of Turkish nationalism for the past 30 years. The Kurdish Question stands as the most prominent “other” of Turkish nationalism. The members of two groups, Kurds and Turks, became highly politicised throughout 30 years of internal conflict and through their daily encounters, giving way to a constant redefinition of the understanding of nationalism and ethnicity. The encounters and experiences of these two groups have facilitated the development of various narrative forms of personal nationalism in daily life. Accordingly, the daily manifestations of the Kurdish Question and Turkish nationalism have grown as an object of academic interest. The question of how ordinary people produce – and are produced in – personal narratives of nationalism is a subject that still needs to be addressed, and this thesis aims to fill this gap by examining the notion of “personal narratives”. Analysing nationalism through personal narratives enables us to see how hegemonic nationalist ideology is reproduced and practiced by individuals through various dynamics. The thesis finds that the determining theme in the personal narratives of Turks and Kurds follows fundamentally the official ideology of the state about the Kurds, which is based principally on „a strategy of denial‟. The macro political transformations of the 2000s and the increased potential of encountering the “other” in daily life underline the challenging nature of this ideological strategy of denial. Herein, while the Turkish participants define themselves as the benevolent party in their nationalist narratives, they mark Kurdish people as terrorists, separatists and primitives. In contrast, the narratives of the Kurdish participants are characterised by the adoption of a “self-defence” strategy against the dominant negative perceptions of Turkish society about their culture: they assert that they are in fact not ignorant; not terrorists; not disloyal citizens, and so on. The narratives of the Turkish participants about the ethnic “other”, the Kurds, generally follow a strategy of contempt and accusation; yet personal experiences give them the opportunity to politicise the problem on different grounds by empathising or humanising. On the Kurdish side, the subjects of the personal narratives are more often the state and the army than Turkish individuals, and again they construct a narrative that endeavours to reverse the dominant negative perceptions about Kurds. They attempt to negate the denial strategy through both collective and personal stories of the discrimination they have experienced over the years and generations. Vital questions such as through which mechanisms of resistance do ordinary people construct and practice their ethnic identities, again become visible through their personal narratives.

This study is based on the relationship between the Kurds and the Left in Turkey between 1960s and 1990 in Turkey. The question of identity is discussed in terms of the continuities and ruptures in the discourse(s) of the Left in Turkey on the 'eastern question' and 'Kurdish (national) question' in this period. The main question of the research is how the Kurdish identity was constructed in the discourses of Yön, TKSP (Türkiye Kürdistanı Sosyalist Partisi - Turkish Kurdistan Socialist Party), and the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê - Kurdistan Workers' Party). Three sample publications/organizations representative of the leftist discourse in the period were selected to show the Left's treatment of the Kurdish question by using periodical publications, memoirs, clandestine organizational documents and through discourse analysis.

The main topic of this thesis is the influence of the Kurdish Question on Turkey’s relations with Europe and the USA. Aiming to develop a triplex framework of (1) the Kurdish Question in Turkey, (2) Turkey’s Foreign and Security Policy, and (3) Turkey’s Relations with Western Society, this thesis specifically studies the international dimension of the Kurdish Question. It has two basic arguments: first, the Kurdish issue is the major cause of the deterioration in the relationship between Turkey and the West, in spite of alliances that go back over half a century. Second, Turkey’s Foreign and Security Policy is the main catalyst of that long-lasting troublesome relationship. The Kurdish Question is evaluated using empirical data that examines its impact on the relationship between Turkey and the West in the period 1989-2007. Within this the problem is examined by applying a normative approach and analyses that are carried out within a theoretical framework provided by a constructivist approach. In order to present research questions by empirical evidence, discourse analysis is used that goes in hand with the theoretical approach. Three Foreign and Security Policy norms are examined, namely “Sèvres Syndrome”- the suspicion of influence of external powers and interests on Turkey, the principle of “Status Quo” applicable in FSP and internal security arrangements, and finally, the “Westernism” that foresees being pro-Western in foreign policies and internal socio-political field. Findings suggest that those three norms played significant roles in shaping Turkey’s Foreign and Security Policy for decades, while important changes occurred within the recent years.

Official state ideology (Kemalism) whose core principles are Turkish nationalism and secularism excluded Kurds and Islamists from the newly formed social and political structure of modern Turkey. By insisting on a Kemalist modernization project in which assimilation of Kurdish ethnic identity within Turkish nationalism, and a top down imposition of secular policies on public and state affairs, Turkey has had to deal with two profound issues—the Kurdish question, and political Islam. As these social and political rivals of official state ideology present an alternative way of modernization projects, the Kemalist state apparatus has until recently considered their existence and development within Turkish society as a menace to their core existence. That is why the nearly century-long Kurdish question and Islamism (reactionism-gericilik) have occupied the agenda. The striking point of this reality of Turkey is that while Kurdish nationalist and Islamist social and political groups, whether they are legal or illegal, have sought to supersede the official state ideology with their understandings, they have never united or operated joint activities against their, roughly speaking, enemy. The research, because of this focuses on the reasons why these two social and political groups in Turkey did not work together to eliminate their common rival. Regarding pro-Kurdish and pro-Islamic groups, ideological distinctiveness and rigidity led them to consider each other as a part of or as an extension of official state ideology which tries to eliminate its rivals. Despite the fact that they both ideologically and practically confirmed the existence of repression towards Kurds and religious people, the leftist-oriented pro-Kurdish political stream considered religion as a component of denial and assimilationist policy of official state ideology, so that they did not differentiate between Islamist groups and the established state structure, whereas the pro-Islamic political stream refused to co-operate with any member of the leftist-oriented pro-Kurdish stream because of its secular characteristic. The reaction of these groups towards assimilation of Kurdish ethnic origin, and repression over religion, initially embodied itself in several uprisings and revolts in the Kurdish populated eastern areas of Turkey, and religiously sensitive cities, respectively. Thanks to the multi-party system, these groups have found a way in which they can express themselves through political parties, labour unions, associations and foundations so that they have become social movements forcing the Kemalism dominated state to meet their demands. As long as these demands are not met, the interaction between these two social movements and the official state ideology has been hostile. Within this process, the hostile approach to their common enemy reflected in each other’s activities and understandings as they see each other as a part of official state ideology. In the next phase in which their transformation from social movements to a legal political stream competed, the inherited ideological rigidity between pro-Kurdish and pro-Islamic political streams preserved itself. Overall, the research will indicate that since the mid-20th century, ideological barriers between pro-Kurdish and pro-Islamic streams have become the fundamental determinant of how they perceive each other.

The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) of Turkey has reoriented its country's historical Westward-looking foreign policy towards the Middle East because of a freeze in European Union accession, trans-national security issues resulting from the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), and the expansion of its economic interests into the region. The United States should take careful note of these changes in an effort to mitigate any opposition to the AKP’s policies, as well as to better utilize Turkey’s growing clout in the region.

This thesis is concerned with extrapolating some central issues of the so-called Kurdish Question in the Republic of Turkey by applying political anthropological theory and methodologies. It attempts to guage the political identities of five Kurdish University students and understand their perspectives on what constitutes and propogates Kurdish political discontents in the Republic. The following research questions have been addressed: How is Turkey&amp / #8223 / s Kurdish question (K&uuml / rt Meselesi) perceived and defined by Kurdish, post-graduate university students from a university in Ankara? How have individual experiences shaped the participants&amp / #8223 / political identities? What are the relevant macro-level factors informing their political identities and their perceptions of the Kurdish question? For the sample group studied, the Kurdish identity has been found to be a highly political and socially stigmatized identity in Turkey. According to the respondents, the Kurdish identity (both group and personal) and its political overtures have developed in an ongoing dialect with an everchanging official Turkish nationalist doctrine that is executed through a state outfit whose legitimacy is anchored largely in the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atat&uuml / rk. The Kurdish Question itself represents a broad range of issues. According to these university students, these issues are beginning to be addressed in line with attempts at political liberalisation and democratisation in the country that are a part of the EU-accession process as well as a product of developing education and an ever-enlightened population. Despite this, the respondents are hesitant to believe in positive political change for the Kurds in Turkey as much discussion of the &amp / #8222 / Kurdish Question&amp / #8223 / remains focused on the outlawed PKK and ongiing conflict in the South East of the country. Kurdish discontents may also be seen to present and call for the recognition of a historical narrative which is divergent from the official line of state, a narrative which remains highly taboo at state and society levels.

This research examines the relation of scalar arrangements of the statist political orders and the formation of the condition of exile, exemplified in the case of the Kurdish statelessness through a critical reading of Abdullah Öcalan's theory of democratic confederalism. This reading, I will argue, permits understanding the scalar implications of what I call the tyranny of the present of the state. The tyranny of the present refers to the tendency of statist formations to expand the domination of their metaphysical presence through attempting to turn their present into the future of those who are considered less developed and aiming to prevent the perception of any unpredictable future that might interrupt their presence. This temporal hegemony is imposed through a centralized and hierarchical scalar order that determines quantitative multiplication of the diversity of human societies and the order of authority of the structure that brings them together as a whole. Together the scalar-temporal arrangement of the structure implies the ways through which the presence of the state determines the condition of the impossibility of the presence of the stateless and the exclusion of the stateless determines the condition of the possibility of the presence of the state. I will argue that this is the desire to leave the aporetic condition of the state/statelessness binary that leads Öcalan to aim for the destruction of the state and the construction of a communalist structure that permits the non-exclusive existence of time’s pure being in itself. However, his solution, similar to the communalist approaches by whom he is influenced, is limited by his ignorance of the paradoxicality of the creation of communalism externally and the destruction of the state internally and by his underestimation of the state-generating forces of the of rules of securitization in the international system that is not based on communal values. / Graduate

“Freedom isn't free”; an English expression that Kurds in Iran used it during Iranian revolution (1979) in a new context: a nation who wants freedom and democracy, must pay the price.This study describes what the Kurds as minority have done for freedom and democratization during the Iranian revolution; it analyses later what have the Iranian Kurds get paid. Kurdish question in Iran after the last revolution is the central question here. The purpose is to answer why the revolution as a political opportunity didn’t offer or provide the Kurds demands. The study explains why political situation in Iranian Kurdistan changed for the “worse” after revolution while they participated in the uprising with their hands and hoped for the “best”.A qualitative case study that proceeds Will Kymlicka's theory about minority rights and Robert Dahl's theory of democracy to examine the degree of both the Kurds' capacity to democratize their territory and to describe in-depth understanding of the ability of revolution and the new government to deal with Kurdish question democratically. / <p>2023-01-20</p>

L’entrée de la Turquie dans l’OTAN en 1952 a influencé les relations turco-américaines de façon plus importante que tout autre événement. Pendant la période entre 1950 et 1960 considérée comme la période de « lune de miel » dans l’histoire des relations turco-américaines des derniers cinquante ans, la Turquie est devenue un acteur clé des stratégies de défense de l’OTAN et ainsi des Etats-Unis. Dans la décennie 1960, les deux pays traversèrent une période de turbulence marquée par deux crises. Le retrait du sol turc des missiles Jupiter en 1963 sans consultation préalable du gouvernement fut un tournant important dans l’histoire des relations turco-américaines La deuxième crise éclata dans les relations entre Ankara et Washington lors des premiers affrontements inter-communautaires à Chypre, avec la fameuse lettre de Johnson de juin 1964. En 1973, Washington protesta vigoureusement contre l'autorisation, accordée par le gouvernement d'Ankara, de cultiver le pavot à des fins médicales. La crise chypriote de 1974 avait une nature différente de celle des crises précédentes car son impact sur les relations entre les deux pays ont été finalement de plus longue durée et aussi plus profonds. Dans la décennie 1980 Ankara apparut donc aux yeux des Américains comme un partenaire qui cherchait toujours un équilibre dans ses relations avec ces derniers. Durant la décennie 1990 les relations turco-américaines connurent une transition majeure d’une coopération stratégique étroite établie de longue durée dans la période de la Guerre froide à un nouveau type de relation basée sur le rôle important de la Turquie dans les affaires régionales. A la différence de la crise chypriote de 1974 que nous considérons aussi comme une grande rupture, la crise de la guerre d’Irak de 2003 a laissé les traces les plus marquantes sur les relations bilatérales et a causé des frictions très importantes entre les militaires de haut rang des deux pays et par conséquent, la méfiance s’installa rapidement dans les relations militaires entre les deux pays. / Turkey’s entry to NATO in 1952 influenced the Turkish-American relations in a way more important than any other event. During the period between 1950 and 1960 considered as “honeymoon period” in the history of the Turkish-American relations of the last fifty years, Turkey became a key actor of NATO’s defense strategies and thus of the United States. In 1960’s, two countries crossed a turbulent era marked by two crises. The withdrawal of the Jupiter missiles in 1963 from Turkish ground without preliminary consultation of the government was revolving important in the history of the Turkish-American relations. The second crisis in the relations between Ankara and Washington burst during the first intercommunity confrontations in Cyprus, with the famous letter of Johnson of June 1964. In 1973, Washington protested vigorously against authorization, granted by the Ankara Government, to cultivate the poppy for medical purposes. The Cypriot crisis of 1974 had a nature different from that of the preceding crises because its impact on the relations between the two countries was also deeper. During the eighties Ankara appeared in the eyes of the Americans as a partner who always sought a balance in his relationships to the latter. During following decade which testified to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and thus of the end of the Cold war Turkish-American relations entered a major transition from an established close strategic co-operation long life during the time of the Cold war to a new type of relation based on the big role of Turkey in the regional affairs. With the difference of the Cypriot crisis of 1974 that we also regard as a great rupture, the crisis of the war of Iraq of 2003 left the most outstanding traces on the bilateral relations and because of the very significant frictions between the high ranking soldiers of the two countries a mistrust settled quickly in the military relations between the two countries.