The Kurdish Question and Political Parties of Turkey: A Critical Assessment (provisional title)

In an attempt to explore how political parties approach critical ethnic issues affecting the status of non-recognised minorities in individual states, this paper focuses on the Kurds of Turkey. Since the early 1980s, Turkey has been facing a growing divide caused by ethnic revival and Kurdish demands for greater autonomy. In relation to the origins of the conflict, the proposed paper initially presents a multi-dimensional evaluation of the Kurdish question, including its socio-economic, political and legal aspects. It intends to examine the impact of previous policy practices on the escalation of the conflict until the late 1990s. It later draws attention to a critical juncture in which mainstream political parties’ approach towards the Kurds experienced a significant shift and the role of ethnicity considerably increased in party competition. Given that the Kurdish question has become one of the most closely monitored topics by the European Union (EU), the paper elaborates on the domestic reform process that has accelerated between the declaration of Turkey’s candidacy status in 1999 and the start of accession talks in 2005. Whilst the adoption of a number of institutional and legal arrangements concerning cultural rights and the changing political discourse highlight de facto recognition of the Kurdish minority, the resolution of the conflict has been stalled by a number of internal and external factors, including the re-escalation of the armed conflict, nationalist uprisings and Turkey’s increasingly blurred EU membership prospects. Despite the incumbent Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) proactive stance, which was recently dubbed as the Party’s ‘democratic opening’ (also referred to as ‘Kurdish opening’), this paper asserts that the major four political parties of the current Turkish parliament require a more collaborative policy and a comprehensive legal framework given the current new constitution drafting process. Furthermore, the proposed paper aims at providing a cross party analysis of their specific policy preferences on ethnic-related issues, including their approach to fundamental rights and freedoms, minority political representation, the use of minority languages, regional development, cultural and territorial autonomy. Incorporating the findings of elite interviews conducted with sixteen members of the parliament (four MPs from each political party of the parliament: AKP, CHP, MHP and BDP) and the results of an expert survey undertaken by Edina Szoecsik and Christina Zuber on ethno-nationalism in party competition, this paper finally aims to assess whether appropriative methodological tools, such as consociational democracy model would provide some answers for resolving the long-standing conflict between Turkey and its Kurdish population.