DERYA BAYIR, MINORITIES AND NATIONALISM IN TURKISH LAW (original) (raw)

Representation of the Kurds by the Turkish Judiciary

Although the tensions around Kurdish ethnic identity throughout the history of the Turkish Republic and the extent of human rights violations against Kurds are well documented, little research exists about the role played by the Turkish judiciary in relation to the legal position, demands, and identity of the Kurds. An analysis of the role of the judiciary is demanded, especially given its position as one of the guardians of the foundational values of the Turkish state. This article analyzes how Turkey’s judiciary has navigated the demands of Kurdish people, how it has represented Kurds, and to what extent it has accommodated their alterity in its jurisprudence.

Juan Carlos Razo Jr., Review Essay: "Understanding the Dynamics of Turkish Nationalism", NETSOL, Vol 1/1, April 2016, pp.47-54, http://www.netsoljournal.net/

NETSOL, 2016

Derya Bayir, Minorities and Nationalism in Turkish Law, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013. Carter Vaughn Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity: A History, 1789-2007, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Jenny White, Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.

Turkey: Conceptual Framework. Ideology, Strategic Culture, and National Security

This manuscript was started in July 2014 with the sole purpose of tendering mostly the psychological disposition of the Turkish people and the reasons for that disposition as I understand it owing to my paternal heritage. Nonetheless, events mostly in the Middle East forced me to modify some parts of the paper. Furthermore, the indicated monograph attempts to provide information to help the reader understand the topic of the strategic culture of the Republic of Turkey, as well as the reasons that brought forth principles as the ideology and particular aspects of Turkey’s dimensions of national security. Strategic culture refers to widely shared normative beliefs, attitudes, and policy preferences as they pertain to a country's foreign relations. It is the psychological personality of a country. It simply offers information that one needs to know in order to understand why Turkey as a whole behaves in certain ways and to explain its national personality.

Political Participation of Turkey’s Kurds and Alevis: A Challenge for Turkey’s Democratic Consolidation

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2006

This paper focuses on the political participation of Turkey’s two largest minorities, the Kurds and the Alevis. It argues that the political participation of Kurds and Alevis is disproportionately weak compared with their population size both for historical reasons and due to state practices. Creating an environment conducive to strong political participation of Turkey’s Kurds and Alevis will comprise a decisive step in the course of Turkey’s transformation from a procedural to a substantive democracy. Political integration of Kurds and Alevis would also mean the removal of a potential source of domestic conflict and enhance the long‐term stability of the Turkish political system.

An Anatomy of Nationhood and the Question of Assimilation: Debates on Turkishness Revisited

Scholars have primarily debated the anatomy of Turkishness within the framework of an ethnic versus civic dichotomy. Arguing that such an approach would be inconclusive and less explanatory, this article approaches Turkishness from a singularity/plurality framework. First, the article emphasizes the singular nature of Turkishness – defined as monolithic nationhood – in the early Republican years that rejected any alternative identity approaches other than the definition of the state elites. Second, the article argues that the homogenization of the nation by the new state targeted those who considered themselves Turks as well, especially those who did not fit the ‘ideal’ or ‘imagined’ Turk (i.e. Muslim but secular, urban, and Western). The final section analyses the persistence and change in the monolithic nationhood in Turkey throughout the twentieth century and considers the implications of the state's recent identity policies on the meaning of Turkishness (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sena.12121/abstract).

Islam, ethnicity and the state: contested spaces of legitimacy and power in the Kurdish-Turkish public sphere

2019

The pro-Kurdish nationalist mobilization in Turkey was mostly built on the right to self-determination aligned with the Marxist-Leninist ideology for the insurgent Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the early 1980s and ethnic minority rights for the secular-leftist pro-Kurdish legal parties in the 1990s. The Turkish state mostly framed the legal and illegal pro-Kurdish mobilization as ‘the enemy of the state’ and ‘the enemy of Islam’ in its counter-insurgency efforts. However, in the 2000s, the PKK and the pro-Kurdish legal parties became more tolerant and inclusive toward Islamic Kurdish identity by mobilizing their sympathizers in events such as ‘Civic Friday Prayers’ and a ‘Democratic Islamic Congress’. This move aimed to function as an antidote to the rising popularity of the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Kurdish Hizbullah in the early 2000s. In other words, Islam and pious Muslim identity has increasingly become contested among Turkish Islamists, Kurdish Islamists, and the secular Kurdish nationalists. This article seeks to unpack why, how, and under what conditions such competing actors and mechanisms shape the discursive and power relationships in the Kurdish-Turkish public sphere.