Ayşe Betül Çelik

An Analysis of Reconciliatory Mediation in Northern Albania: The Role of Customary Mediators

Abstract Blood feuds are still festering wounds in northern Albanian society. This study will describe the process and the mechanisms utilised by traditional mediators in resolving blood feuds in northern Albania. It will describe the practice of mediation in northern Albania, and will discuss the reasons why people resort to traditional mediators in blood feuds, what their roles are in the process of mediation, forgiveness and achieving peace and what norms or values are used to influence the parties to make peace.

Future Uncertain: Using Scenarios to Understand Turkey's Geopolitical Environment and its Impact on the Kurdish Question

Abstract In October 2005 the authors organized a workshop in Sofia, Bulgaria, for prominent members of the Turkish academy and non-governmental organization community. Several scenarios detailing how the Kurdish question in Turkey might evolve over the next 10–15 years were discussed. This article draws on those discussions to present and analyse a series of scenarios on the Kurdish question in Turkey. A scenario analysis is used because the basic premise of this article is that the outcome of the four-way interaction between Turkey, the Kurds in Turkey, the European Union (EU) and northern Iraq remains fundamentally uncertain and, therefore, that describing a single future that will emerge is not possible. Instead, given this uncertainty, the key question to ask is what potential scenarios are awaiting Turkey and how and why these scenarios might emerge in response to moves by the state and developments within the EU, northern Iraq and the Kurdish community. Exploring such options can provide a more thorough and nuanced understanding of Turkeys place in the region and opportunities for the transformation of the Kurdish conflict.

Patterns of ‘Othering’ in Turkey: A Study of Ethnic, Ideological, and Sectarian Polarisation

Abstract This study explores who Turkish citizens view as the Other, their perceptions, evaluations, and the degree of Othering of these groups in the private and public spheres. Drawing from varied political science and social psychology literature, it also examines the role of social contact, perceived threat, and the strength of national and religious identification in predicting levels of Othering. Using a national representative sample, the findings reveal that Kurds are the most Othered group in the private sphere, while both Kurds and AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – Justice and Development Party) supporters are the most Othered groups in the public sphere. Regardless of who the Other is, lower social contact and higher levels of perceived threat are associated with higher levels of Othering of Kurds, Alevis, AKP supporters, and AKP opponents in both the private and public spheres.

Ethnopolitical Conflict in Turkey: From the Denial of Kurds to Peaceful Co-existence?

In this chapter the author describes the Kurds as a heterogeneous minority group with shared cultural identity, yet differing religions and languages. This group is estimated to comprise 15–20% of the current population of Turkey. Conflict traces back to the Ottoman Empire, but takes a more ethnic character after the formation of the Turkish state, reaching a peak after 1984. The continuing conflicts, resolution attempts, and suggestions for a peaceful future are outlined.

Ontological insecurity in asymmetric conflicts: Reflections on agonistic peace in Turkey’s Kurdish issue:

This article contributes to the recent literature on ontological security in conflict studies by empirically investigating, through a case study of Turkey’s Kurdish issue, how ontological asymmetry complicates peace processes. Over time, all conflicts become embroiled in a set of self-conceptions and narratives vis-à-vis the Other, the maintenance of which becomes critical for ontological security. In ethnic conflicts, however, these conceptions and narratives also intersect with a fundamental ontological asymmetry, because such conflicts often pit state parties with secure existence against ethnic groups with contested status and illegitimate standing. We argue that peace processes are easier to initiate but harder to conclude in ontologically asymmetric conflicts. Accordingly, we find that during the 2009–2015 peace process in Turkey, ontological (in)security-induced dynamics presented themselves in cyclical patterns of ambitious peace initiatives receiving greater support among the Kurdish public but giving way, at the first sign of crisis, to a rapid and dramatic return to violence, which neither side acted to stem. Moreover, we underscore that ontologically asymmetric conflicts, such as Turkey’s Kurdish issue, are often characterized by a societal security dilemma, where the conditions of ontological security for one party undermine those of the other. Therefore, building consensus around a new shared peace narrative may not be possible or desirable, and a lasting solution to Turkey’s Kurdish issue depends on the development of an agonistic peace around coexisting, multiple and contestatory narratives.

A holistic approach to violence: Women parliamentarians understanding of violence against women and violence in the Kurdish issue in Turkey.

While women in Turkey and around the world are commonly engaged in civic activism for peace and violence reduction, they are seriously underrepresented in formal politics; thus, not much has been written about their potential to affect decisions made to reduce violence in their societies. This study aims to understand how women politicians view violence in general and their solutions for two specific types of violence in Turkey: (1) the increasing levels of violence against women, and (2) violence created through the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Turkish politicians have become increasingly concerned about both of these issues in recent years and have designed many policies and strategies to address them. This study argues that studying the women parliamentarians’ linkage (or its absence) between the two types of violence will help understand what accounts for the differences (if any) among women MPs in their understanding of different types of violence and their solutions to them.

Explaining the micro dynamics of the populist cleavage in the ‘new Turkey’

ABSTRACT Over the last decade, the literature on populism has flourished as it has sought to account for the causes, definitions, and consequences of the significant support and prolonged political success of populist leaders and parties. However, the political and emotional reception of populist performance is still an under-researched subject and research on populism mostly remains at the macro level focusing on the policies and discourses of the populist leaders/parties. In this article, by focusing on Turkey, we shift our emphasis to how populism is received, reproduced, and reflected in the political framework of the diverse electorate and how the impact of certain events, leaders, and crises is magnified by their emotional content. Based on 71 in-depth interviews conducted in Istanbul, Turkey, this article argues that populism creates diverging emotional maps that overlap with political polarization among the populist-leaning constituents and detractors of populism. Taking Turkey’s 15 July failed coup attempt as a ‘crisis’, we study how crisis situations strengthen populist leaders.

Beyond Islamic versus Secular Framing: A Critical Analysis of Reproductive Rights Debates in Turkey

Reproductive rights are shaped by different political ideologies and remain a hotly contested policy issue in most parts of the world. In Turkey the disputes concerning these rights have grown since 2002, when a conservative government assumed power. Analyzing how both governmental and civil society actors have discussed and framed reproductive policies primarily in reference to religion since the ascension of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party; AKP), this article focuses on debates that took place in 2012 about abortion and caesarean birth. The critical discourse and frame analysis, based on online speeches and media articles of these actors from November 2002 through 2014, reveal a remarkable diversity both in the interpretation of Islamic teachings and in a group of actors with similar ideological orientation. The article concludes by arguing for the need to move beyond the Islamic versus secular divide and to denaturalize and dehomogenize the role of religion in the public sphere.

The Armenian socialist Paramaz: Armenian socialists and genocide from Abdulhamid to progress and union party

The name Paramaz became known in Turkey with the tragic death of a young Turk fighting in Rojava against ISIS. This, in fact, can be considered an injustice to Matteos Sarkissian, an Armenian socialist, who adopted the alias Paramaz. Kadir Akın, in his book, tells the story of Paramaz and his 19 comrades, who were hanged on 15–16 June 1915 in the Beyazit district of Istanbul. They carried out internationalist socialist ideas that respect cultural diversity and seek equality in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire. The book aims to bring the underestimated characteristics of Armenian socialism in Turkey, which are not much known and appreciated, to the attention of the socialists in Turkey. Its other objective is to contribute to confronting the past attempts in Turkey for the recognition of the Armenian genocide in its centennial. The book starts with the history of the Armenian massacres in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, from the Abdulhamid era to the leadership of the Progress and Union Party (PUP). The first chapter also describes the emergence of the socialist organizations in Turkey after the new constitution declared in 1908 (known as the Second Constitutional Monarchy)—a bourgeois revolution, according to Mete Tunçay (p. 80). The leaders of the PUP were the pioneers of the Turkification policies and assimilation of the minorities, whose legacies are still painfully present in Turkey. Akın argues that the PUP’s massacres started with a Greek genocide along the coastal lines and peaked with the Armenian one. The book narrates the PUP’s Turkification polices in the specific context of Paramaz’s life. In the second chapter Akın analyses the relationship between the Armenian socialist party, the Socialist Democratic Hunchakian Party (SDHP), and the PUP. Although he pays specific attention to the SDHP, he also describes the activities of Dashnaksutyun (the Armenian Revolutionary Federation). These two Armenian parties were members of the Second Socialist International and cooperated with the socialists and liberals in Turkey against the PUP, sometimes through mass protests and armed actions. During the Abdulhamid era, the Dashnaksutyun fedayis (Armenian self-defence units/militia) made their voices heard by the European public through their raid of the Ottoman Bank. Towards the end of June 1914, the founders, executives and Istanbul members of the SDHP were arrested and put into custody after an allegation that the party took a decision to organize the assassination of PUP president Talat Pasha, during its seventh party congress which took place in the Romanian town of Constanta on 17 September 1913. Although the party, in this congress, decided not to carry out that assassination, Paramaz and his 19 comrades were put in prison, tortured and eventually hanged after an unlawful trial that lasted for 17 days. They were found guilty of: