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Image and reputation are key factors in how nations are perceived by global audiences. Current and historical issues can pose as challenges to a nation's reputation prompting the need to save face. The Armenian genocide is one of the most critical issues the Republic of Turkey has had to manage in terms of its global image and reputation. While the vast body of literature on the subject borrows from history and political science focusing on the mechanism of denial, this paper offers a communication framework to understand the rhetoric of Turkey's image repair. Turkey's crisis communication strategies vis-à-vis the centennial of the Armenian genocide are analyzed by employing Benoit's image repair theory through a content analysis of official statements and declarations by the heads of state given in 2014 and 2015. In response to the emerging political crisis, the Turkish government primarily employed image repair strategies of evading responsibility and reducing offensiveness with the aim to appeal to international audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey is fully engaged in its “hydraulic mission,” very extensively and rapidly “developing” water resources throughout its territory. The extensive hydraulic development attempts conducted by the Turkish government create local, national, inter-state, and transnational contestations among the different interest groups. A great deal of scholarly literature has analyzed the rationale behind Turkey’s massive-scale hydraulic development. While some studies link Turkey’s hydraulic mission to its energy and food security, others highlight the importance of domestic conflicts, as in the case of the Kurdish issue in the southeast. However, few works examine the relationship between hydraulic development and state- and nation-making processes in the early period of the republic. This paper seeks to analyze the role of hydraulic development in state- and nation-making in the context of Turkey by looking at the institutional documents published by official authorities and speeches made by key politicians. Drawing mainly upon the theory of water nationalism and its related conceptual frameworks, this study argues that hydraulic development has formed one of the important components of the modernization process in Turkey, thereby playing a significant role in its state- and nation-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The centenary year of the Armenian genocide witnessed an escalation in cultural production and both political and academic focus. This paper looks at some of the sites and spaces, physical and discursive, in which the centenary was marked. In particular, it seeks to assess how the centenary has challenged and possibly altered the context within which we approach the genocide and its continuing legacies. The paper is positioned in the diasporic space – while recognizing that this is fluid and embodies transnational sites between “homelands” in the form of Armenia and Turkey, and “host states” where diaspora communities have resided (at least) since the genocide, in effect their homes. This paper attempts to pick out some of the themes apparent in the discourse and in the activities during 2015, from the perspective of Armenian diasporan actors, and is based on the author’s observations and participation in centenary events in the USA, Lebanon, Turkey, Switzerland, and the UK, as well as interviews with participants and organizers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Jews of Turkey have been applying for citizenship restitution from Spain and Portugal through processes formalized in 2015. Using 29 interviews, I analyze applicant motivations and find that cultural connections play a minor role in applicant decisions. The citizenship application process did not lead to self-questioning of identity for these applicants, unlike Sephardic Jews in other contexts. The more important motivators were Jewish fears about the future of Turkey, the practical benefits of easy travel on a European Union passport, and the desire for global mobility, allowing individuals to chase prosperity wherever it may go. While Jewish fears are mostly in the background, the other two motivations were more pressing. I place these motivations in the context of changing conceptions of citizenship in Europe and the global inequality of citizenship, crystallized in a hierarchy of passports. I find that after acquiring Iberian citizenship, Jews from Turkey relate to their new citizenship solely in practical ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on field theory, this paper aims to shed light on the development and functioning of the Kurdish literary world in Turkey, characterized, in particular, by the use of a non-official language. It argues that this “small literary world” is to be understood in relation to a “double macrocosm”: the sphere of Kurdish politics and the national Turkish sphere, which provide specific constraints and resources. The paper argues that in such a context the emergence of a literary field, autonomous from other social fields and independent from political stakes, follows an unpredictable path, and will not always be achieved political dimension of the literary act stresses its dependency on political stakes and the field of politics. This however does not impede the emergence of autonomous literary institutions. The multilingualism of the actors involved drives also toward another heteronomy: this small literary world is also to be understood in relation to the Turkish literary field. The paper first presents the macrocosms in which Kurdish literary activities developed. It then examines the progressive integration of a field freeing itself from political constraints. Lastly, it focuses on the trajectories of a few writers, the analyses of which show the intertwining of the different worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the development of national identity and the formation of political organizations in the Turkish minority in the early years of the formation of the Bulgarian state from 1878 to the 1940s. It studies transnational aspects of nationalism, which is usually considered territorially bounded, by studying the impact of connections between the Turkish minority and the Ottoman Empire and later with Turkey. In addition to studying inter-state relations and their reflection in the legal and political sphere, this paper studies the flow of ideas across borders, transnational networks among political activists, and the resulting cleavage formation. Findings show that transnational connections and actors played dual roles. The circulation of political activists, contributed to the formation of national organizations which played a crucial role in (re)formulating national identity. Transnational connections increased political activity in the name of the Turkish minority. Through these organizations the community was able to make collective demands from the Bulgarian state. However, transnational connections carried debates and divisions in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. By dividing the community, they decreased the capacity for collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains how the Turkish nation's composition has changed under Justice and Development Party rule. Turkish nationalism and Turkish national identity have dramatically changed since 2010, when the Kurdish Opening process was started by former prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Syrian refugee crisis and the influx of Syrian refugees into Turkey created another change in Turkish national identity. Increasing religiosity in Turkey and the use of Islam by the Justice and Development Party created a flexible nation, where all Sunni Muslims can be considered members even though they are not ethnically Turkish. The author uses primary sources, such as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's speeches since 2010, to show how his discourse became more embracing of non-Turkish Muslim groups and created a dynastic understanding of nationalism based on religion rather than the idea of an ethnically homogenous, secular Turkish nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Turkish State's recent practice of removing pro-Kurdish mayors and appointing trustees in their place without holding new elections. By comparing previous cases of removals of pro-Kurdish mayors to post-2016 practices, it argues that the discursive shift in legitimizing recent anti-democratic governmental practices should be read in relation to authoritarian neoliberalism in Turkey. To this end, it analyzes a Twitter account dedicated to promoting public services of trustee-ran municipalities (oluyor.net) and 89 YouTube videos that feature the trustees themselves. By demonstrating the ways in which the trustees themselves promote their work in Kurdish-populated cities, it underlines the dangers of authoritarian neoliberalism in subordinating democratic mechanisms to economic development and providing better public services. However, by studying the results of the following 2019 local elections in these 89 trustee-appointed municipalities, this article shows that the local people mostly continue supporting democratic mechanisms by electing pro-Kurdish candidates even in unfair electoral conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do perceived threats influence politicians' attitudes towards religious minorities? Examining the Turkish parliamentary records between 1946 and 1960, this study suggests that perceived security threats significantly contribute to Turkish political parties' negative descriptions of Armenians. The research analyzes speeches about Armenians via a mixed-method content analysis. The findings demonstrate that (a) debate about security threats is a reliable predictor of the political parties' negative portrayals, and (b) members of the parliament justify their negative views by labeling Armenians as an enemy. The article concludes that perceived threats evoke negative speeches about Armenians in Turkish politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study makes an important contribution to the literature on labor incorporation in developing areas based on existing historiography and archival material from Turkey. Specifically, we argue that the political incorporation of labor during the early period of state building is strongly influenced by elite preferences over who constitutes the nation. In doing so, we address a neglected dimension by putting the emphasis on ethnoreligious politics: the founders of modern Turkey pushed for a homogenizing program that prioritized Muslim-Turks over other minority groups, eventually paving the way to the state-led incorporation of labor. This is different from the experience of most Latin American countries that the existing literature draws on. Our findings make an important contribution to theoretical debates by highlighting the subtle link between nation-building and the pathways of labor incorporation in developing contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do nationally celebrated holidays play for groups that are not considered—or do not consider themselves—to be part of the majority nation of a state? What function do holidays specific to minority group cultures serve under regimes that discriminate against those groups? This article explores holidays as a forum for contestation for the national identity proposals promulgated by the state in repressive regimes. We argue that national holidays are meaningful sites of identity contestation for four reasons: the role of holidays in heightening identity salience, the malleability of identity narratives, the relative lack of institutional barriers to acts of celebration, and the significance of refusing to participate in celebrations. We collected the data through interviews and participant observation of the Hui in China and the Kurds in Turkey. We employ ethnographic observation and intertextual analysis to compare these identity narratives. We find that the Hui legitimize their group's existence by co-opting the traditional Spring Festival, or by outwardly insisting they are not celebrating while still engaging in festivities. In contrast, Turkey's Kurds resist the government's co-optation of the spring celebration of Newroz as a Turkish national holiday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the approaches and challenges to Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Accommodation of Kurdish rights via autonomy arrangements has a long history as an idea but negotiating actual autonomy agreements was often a fruitless task. However, the weakening of state power in Iraq since 1991 and in Syria since 2011 has created opportunities for Kurdish movements in these states to develop and consolidate their autonomous administrations. Consequently, in recent years, the debate on Kurdish autonomy in the Middle East has taken center stage in the regional political discourse. This article first discusses the literature on approaches to autonomy to set out the main models and assess their strengths and weaknesses. It then provides accounts of the models of autonomy that are either practiced or proposed by Kurdish actors or entities in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. The final section assesses the ability and suitability of the proposed or practiced models for the accommodation of Kurdish rights and demands and develops insights into how the current difficulties preventing the accommodation of Kurdish rights in the Middle East may be overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the ways in which the spread and the overwhelming popularity of Turkish television series in Southeastern Europe influence the change in perception of Turks and Turkey, as well as how the serials are transforming the image of the Balkans and the Ottoman legacy in Turkey. Television serials significantly contributed to the shifting popular image of the "other," and initiated interactions unimaginable even a decade ago. These exchanges are both following and encouraging the breakdown of geohistorical boundaries that were set by the nationalist narratives in these regions at the turn of the 20th century, toward a more nuanced understanding of a shared past and a postnational future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkish nationalism has long presented a study in contrasts. The nationalist movement that created the Republic of Turkey sought to define the nation in explicitly civic and inclusive terms, promoting a variety of integrationist reforms. Those same nationalist politicians, however, endorsed other policies that were far more exclusionary, expelling many religious and ethnic minorities from the new nation and imposing harsh restrictions on those who remained. The seemingly contradictory nature of Turkish nationalist policies has been mirrored by much of the scholarship on Turkish nationalism, which has often viewed Turkish nationality through the lens of the “civic/ethnic divide,” with various scholars arguing that the Turkish nation is exclusively civic or ethnic. This article seeks to transcend this dichotomous way of looking at Turkish nationalism. I argue that the policies previously seen as being exclusively civic or ethnic are in fact both examples of boundary-making processes, designed to forge a cohesive nationalist community. Seen through a boundary-making perspective, the seemingly contradictory nature of Turkish nationalist policies in its early years is not paradoxical at all, but represents a multidimensional effort to construct a cohesive national community that could replace the defunct Ottoman state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article analyzes theStone Dreamsnovel by the famous Azeri writer Akram Aylisli. Published in the Russian literary journalDruzhba Narodov(Friendship of the People) in December 2012, it condemned anti-Armenian pogroms in the republic and in the cities of Baku and Sumgait in particular at the end of the 1980s. The novel also refers to the massacre committed by Turkish troops on Christmas of 1919 in the midst of the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1923. At that time, Turkish commander Adif-bey ordered the mass execution of the Armenian population in the author’s home village Aylis (Agulis in Armenian). Almost all Armenians were killed, with the exception of a few young girls who by the late 1980s had turned into gray-haired women. The writer knew them when he was a young man, and the whole of his narrative was based on the stories that were told by the older people in the village. The novel caused mass outrage in Azerbaijan, for allegedly being one-sided. This included mass demonstrations in front of the author’s house and the public burning of his books. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Is Turkish nationality one singular identity that does not permit ethnic modifiers? Or can it be understood as pluralistic, with identities nested – “hyphenated” – with Turkishness? Then, are Turkish and Kurdish identities necessarily mutually exclusive? Such questions over the boundaries of Turkishness have long been framed in the civic versus ethnic dichotomy – an approach that does not ask whether Turkish nationhood is monolithic or pluralistic. In response, this article aims to advance the public and scholarly debates over nationhood in Turkey by turning to the question of ways in which Turkishness can be hyphenated with other identity categories in Turkey, most particularly Kurdishness. First, we reframe the debate over identity by using the combinatorial approach to ethnicity to outline how Turkishness and Kurdishness can be overlapping and nested, or a hyphenated identity. Second, we draw on public opinion data to show that such a hyphenated identity is both theoretically possible and potentially salient in Turkey today. Together, these steps deconstruct the primordialist understandings of Turkishness and Kurdishness, on the one hand, and the taken-for-granted civic claims of Turkishness, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

According to theories of nonviolent resistance, violence is counterproductive and undermines the ability of a movement to achieve mass support. At the same time, studies of ethnic insurgencies suggest that violence is the only available method of mobilization in political systems characterized by entrenched ethnic hierarchies. Engaging with these arguments, this article addresses a historical puzzle: What factors explain the timing and ability of the PKK's (Partiye Karkerên Kurdistan) rise as the hegemonic Kurdish nationalist organization in Turkey between the late 1970s and 1990? The article argues that studies that identify Kurdish nationalism as a reaction to repressive policies of the Turkish state without paying attention to prevailing social conditions and oppositional strategies fail to provide a satisfactory response. It argues that the rise of the PKK was primarily a function of its ability to gain support among the peasantry in deeply unequal rural areas through its strategic employment of violence. It also identifies four causal mechanisms of PKK recruitment based on rich archival and field research: credibility, revenge, social mobility, and gender emancipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following World War I, the Allied Powers signed Minority Treaties with a number of Central and Eastern European states. These treaties delineated the status of religious, ethnic and linguistic minorities in their respective countries. Turkey would be one of the last states that sat down to the negotiation table with the Allied Powers. In the Turkish case, the Lausanne Treaty would be the defining document which set out a series of rights and freedoms for the non-Muslim minorities in the newly created nation. The present article explores how and why the non-Muslim minorities were situated in the fringes of the new nation. In doing so, the article highlights the content of the discussions in the Lausanne Conference and in the Turkish Grand National Assembly with an emphasis on the position of the Turkish political elite. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is unprecedented domestic and international interest in Turkey's political past, accompanied by a societal demand for truth and justice in addressing past human rights violations. This article poses the question: Is Turkey coming to terms with its past? Drawing upon the literature on nationalism, identity, and collective memory, I argue that the Turkish state has recently taken steps to acknowledge and redress some of the past human rights violations. However, these limited and strategic acts of acknowledgment fall short of initiating a more comprehensive process of addressing past wrongs. The emergence of the Justice and Development Party as a dominant political force brings along the possibility that the discarded Kemalist memory framework will be replaced by what I call majoritarian conservatism, a new government-sanctioned shared memory that promotes uncritical and conservative-nationalist interpretations of the past that have popular appeal, while enforcing silence on critical historiographies that challenge this hegemonic memory and identity project. Nonetheless, majoritarian conservatism will probably fail to assert state control over memory and history, even under a dominant government, as unofficial memory initiatives unsettle the hegemonic appropriation of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given its economic success and the political transformations of the last decade, it is not surprising that Turkey is now charting an ambitious course in foreign policy. This article provides a sober assessment of some of the shortcomings becoming evident in Turkish foreign policy, and argues that if these problems are not addressed, Turkey is due to fall short of its regional leadership ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outcome of Turkey's June 2011 elections temporarily quelled – though by no means entirely put to rest – growing concern over the creeping autocratic tendencies of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). To ensure that democracy remains durable, the AKP must now clearly demonstrate that it is willing to shun heavy-handed tactics and instead engage the opposition in a genuine dialog regarding important matters of constitutional change, especially those related to individual rights and identity issues. A slide toward autocracy has been an all-too-common pitfall in Turkish politics over the years. Should it so choose, the AKP is well poised to break the cycle at this critical juncture in Turkish politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bulgarian majority and Turkish minority relations have remained peaceful in the post Communist era despite a significant potential for civil strife. These antagonisms were a product of Bulgaria's historical political development.The most recent episode of forced assimilation policies under the Communist regime was a critical grievance contributing to the democratic transition in 1989. Unlike in neighboring Yugoslavia, communal ethnic conflict did not escalate to violence with political liberalization and the emergence of democratic political competition. A critical factor in the political formula for maintaining interethnic peace in Bulgaria has been Turkey's comparatively constrained behavior as a 'motherland state' with regard to the Turkish Diaspora in Bulgaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]