Communal violence and ethnic polarization before and after the 2015 elections in Turkey: attacks against the HDP and the Kurdish population

O’Connor, Francis G.; Başer, Bahar

doi:10.1080/14683857.2018.1451035

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(26 reference statements)

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“…Pro‐Kurdish political parties operate and participate within the Turkish legal system, but have often been accused by the state of being a “mouthpiece” or a “front” for the PKK. As a result, many Kurdish political parties have been shut down by Turkey's Constitutional Court in the past two decades, while supporters and members of these parties have increasingly faced imprisonment and assassination (O'Connor and Baser 2018).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion and Armed Conflict: Evidence from the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

Gürses

Öztürk

2020

Scientific Study of Religion

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This article examines the effectiveness of religion as a solution to ethno-nationalist conflicts, drawing on the case of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan [PKK]) in Turkey. We utilize an original data set that contains data on Turkey's state-sponsored mosques between 1980 and 2016 to test for the purported peacemaking potential of religion. Results from this data set, coupled with an alternative measure of the state's involvement in religion, show that increased Islamization has no discernible impact on lowering support for the ethno-nationalist Kurdish political parties or insurgency.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion and Armed Conflict: Evidence from the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

Gürses

Öztürk

2020

Scientific Study of Religion

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“…The ideology shaping the political project of Erdoğan and his core supporters can be described as a combination of Turkish nationalism with Islamism, centered around Ottoman nostalgia and Sunni Muslim identity (White 2012). They ascribe to an ethnocentric and exclusionary form of nationalism, which is especially suspicious and repressive towards the Alevi and Kurdish minorities in Turkey (Bozan 2021, O'Connor andBaser 2018), but also envisage the nation as part of an international (Sunni) Islamic community. This commitment to Islamism as both a domestic revolutionary project and a supra-national identity has been consequential, including in the decision to welcome millions of Syrian refugees in the country and in the AKP voters' greater propensity to accept the refugees compared to other parties' voters (Getmansky, Sınmazdemir and Zeitzoff 2018).…”

Section: A) Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Erdoğan Government's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Performance and Actuality in an Authoritarian Context

Laebens

Öztürk

2022

Gov. & oppos.

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This article analyses the Erdoğan government's policy response to the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the abundant use of moral antagonisms in his discourse, Erdoğan did not attempt to politicize the pandemic, instead framing it as a global health crisis and presenting the government's public health policies as expert-driven and competent. However, this expert-driven approach was largely a performance. Without a system of democratic oversight or a free media to scrutinize government policies, the Erdoğan government could systematically undercount COVID-19 cases and disregard its own public health restrictions, all the while spreading its narrative of competence and success. Competitive policymaking by opposition-controlled municipalities and criticism from a strong doctors' association had relatively limited ability to discredit the government. The public opinion data we present reveal broad-based support for the government's COVID policies. Our article highlights how authoritarian institutions allow governments to sustain a gap between performance and actuality, granting their leaders greater possibilities to claim policy success.

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“…Moreover, there were several events in the wake of June elections, which might have led some opposition voters to feel angry. These events include the break-up of the peace negotiations between the government and PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) in March-April, the re-escalation of violence against Kurds (Ercan, 2019), criminalization of HDP (O'Connor & Baser, 2018), multiple blasts and attacks against HDP's election offices and pre-election peace rallies (Esen & Gümüşçü, 2016), the continuing legal prosecution of CHP's ex-and by-the-time deputies allegedly for plotting against Turkish government (i.e. Ergenekon and Sledgehammer trials), and the criminalization of CHP's media organs and deputies for exposing the government's corruption scandals and secret military involvement in the Syrian proxy war (Öniş, 2016).…”

Section: Repeated Elections In 2015mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…coalition, the majority rule decided a snap election on 1 November, which served the ruling party to consolidate power and thereby potentially escalating opposition voters' sense of injustice (O'Connor & Baser, 2018). Accordingly, we also explored the role of perceived injustice in the second election.…”

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confidence: 99%

Routes to Collective Action among Opposition Voters: Testing Efficacy, Anger and Injustice in Turkey's Repeated Elections

Coskan¹,

Baysu²,

Koç³

2022

Examining Complex Intergroup Relations

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Political elections can set the scene for strong political identifications and increased motivation for collective action (Turner-Zwinkels & van Zomeren, 2020). This can take the form of institutional or conventional collective action such as membership to political parties, joining political party rallies or protest voting (Otjes et al., 2019), but it can also take noninstitutional and unconventional forms such as street protests, and raising voice collectively. Indeed, as recently exemplified in the sustained post-election protests of opposition voters against the authoritarian Belarus regime, unsatisfied by the election results or disagreed with the newly elected government's policies, opposition voters can mobilize with the goal of demonstrating dissent and pursuing social change (Tucker, 2007). However, less is known about what determines the routes to collective action in a post-election period from the side of opposition voters.We thus focused on opposition voters in Turkey in a post-election period, and we sought to test a social identity model of collective action whereby a (politicized) social identity is associated with stronger anger and efficacy feelings and in turn collective action (van Zomeren et al., 2004;van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, 2008). We went beyond previous research on collective action in several ways. First, rather than focusing on a single social identity, we focused on contextually-relevant diverse political identifications that correspond to existing cleavages in Turkey, i.e., leftist, secular and liberal (Baysu & Phalet, 2017).Second, we tested this model in two studies that immediately followed the repeated Parliamentary elections of 2015. Turkey's 2015 repeated election cycle presented a unique context for testing the role of changing dynamics between identity, anger, and efficacy for collective action. Specifically, the first election that took place on 7 June resulted in the ruling party's majority loss in the parliament, potentially giving a sense of efficacy for opposition voters. However, under the pretext of the parliamentary failure to form a political

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Communal violence and ethnic polarization before and after the 2015 elections in Turkey: attacks against the HDP and the Kurdish population

Abstract: This document is the author's post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.

Cited by 14 publications

References 40 publications

Religion and Armed Conflict: Evidence from the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

Religion and Armed Conflict: Evidence from the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

The Erdoğan Government's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Performance and Actuality in an Authoritarian Context

Routes to Collective Action among Opposition Voters: Testing Efficacy, Anger and Injustice in Turkey's Repeated Elections

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