Özden Melis Uluğ
Jacobs University Bremen
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Publication
Featured researches published by Özden Melis Uluğ.
International Journal of Conflict Management | 2017
Özden Melis Uluğ; J. Christopher Cohrs
Purpose Exploring the understandings of conflict held by Members of Parliament (MPs) provides a meaningful picture of a conflict in a particular society. The aim of the study is to explore the Kurdish conflict understandings among MPs in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach The current research used Q methodology, which is a suitable method to identify socially shared perspectives and to identify intra- and inter-group differences, and Entman’s (1993) frame analysis to explore subjective understandings of the Kurdish conflict. Data were collected from 23 MPs from four political parties. Findings The analysis revealed four qualitatively distinct viewpoints: Turkish Nationalist view, Social Democratic view, Conservative-Religious view and Pro-Kurdish view. Originality/value This study contributes to the understanding of political parties’ perspectives on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey by representing each political party’s priorities and concerns. The meaning of these priorities and concerns, implications for conflict resolution and the usefulness of the Q methodology for exploring conflict understandings are also discussed.
International Journal of Conflict Management | 2017
Özden Melis Uluğ; Özen Odağ; J. Christopher Cohrs; Peter Holtz
Purpose Conflict understandings of lay people mirror society in miniature. Although lay people and their conflict understandings in society may shape the course of an ongoing conflict, little scholarly attention is so far given to the understandings of everyday discourse in Turkey’s ongoing Kurdish conflict. The present research aims to examine the views of lay Kurds and Turks in two politically polarized cities in Turkey, Mersin and Diyarbakir. Design/methodology/approach To examine these views, the authors used focus group discussions and open-ended questionnaires with a total of 64 lay people from Mersin and Diyarbakir. Findings Qualitative content analysis revealed more conflict understandings than presented in the existing academic literature. Furthermore, multiple correspondence analysis suggested that both ethnic identity and the city in which people live are important factors influencing how people perceive the conflict. Originality/value The meaning of novel themes, differences and similarities within and between ethnic groups and two cities, and the usefulness of qualitative methods to examine lay people’s viewpoints are discussed.
Archive | 2015
J. Christopher Cohrs; Özden Melis Uluğ; Lea Stahel; Reşit Kışlıoğlu
Bar-Tal’s (1998, 2007) “ethos of conflict” is a powerful concept to account for the socially shared nature of conflict-supporting beliefs in societies involved in protracted conflict. We first briefly review studies on ethos of conflict and its consequences in the Jewish Israeli society and other societies that have used Bar-Tal’s conceptualization. Then we introduce our own approach, which builds on social representations theory (Moscovici, Psychoanalysis: Its Image And Its Public, 1961/1976) and a recent conceptualization of political ideology (Cohrs Oxford Handbook of Intergroup Conflict, pp. 53–71, 2012). Our approach adopts a more bottom-up strategy that considers specific belief contents related to conflict and can account for qualitative differences within a society. We argue that it is important to go beyond distinguishing between people, who are high versus low on a dimension of ethos of conflict and to identify qualitatively different ideological subgroups in a conflict. To achieve this, we rely on Q methodological techniques. We illustrate the feasibility and usefulness of our approach by summarizing results from studies on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey and the Israel–Palestine conflict as represented by conflict outsiders, namely Swiss residents. Finally, we discuss the relative merits and shortcomings of the different approaches to conflict-related shared beliefs, possibilities for their integration, and some suggestions for future research in this area.
Conflict Management and Peace Science | 2017
Özden Melis Uluğ; J. Christopher Cohrs
Societies in conflicts develop an ‘ethos of conflict’, a set of socially shared beliefs about the conflict. We argue that the ethos of conflict can be based on different representations of the conflict, and exploring such representations helps to analyze similarities and differences between and within conflict parties. We explored representations of the Kurdish conflict among 45 laypeople in a multi-ethnic city in Turkey based on comprehensive models of conflict analysis using an approach based on Q-methodology, which is suitable for uncovering socially shared viewpoints. Representations of conflict were conceptualized along three domains: causes and issues; relationships between the groups, processes and dynamics; and possible solutions. An integrated analysis across these domains revealed five qualitatively distinct viewpoints toward the conflict. The meaning of these viewpoints, their possible links to the ethos of conflict, differences and commonalities within and between conflict parties, the usefulness of our methodological approach to explore conflict viewpoints, and implications for conflict resolution are discussed.
Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology | 2017
Özden Melis Uluğ; Yasemin Gülsüm Acar
Over the last few years, large-scale social movements and the consequences of these movements from the perspectives of protesters have been gaining increased attention across the globe. Psychological research has tended to focus on individual or group level change; however, understanding the consequences of these social movements involves realizing that social movements bring about change in different ways: at the individual level, the group level, and the systemic or policy level. The current research attempts to examine not only the individual and group level change but also system level change from the perspective of participants of the Gezi Park protests in İstanbul, Turkey. The consequences of the protests in the subsequent 3 years will be discussed through a series of expert interviews. Overall, results indicate that a number of gains occurred on all 3 levels, but there were overall losses over time. With the impact of other political factors, many of those gains were lost as well.
Archive | 2016
Özden Melis Uluğ; J. Christopher Cohrs
Positive intergroup contact is effective in reducing prejudice in both high- and low-status groups. However, it is important to study the impact of contact between groups in conflict-ridden societies on additional outcomes, such as attitudes toward reconciliation and peace-related policies. The current conditions in Turkey offer the opportunity to study the relations between intergroup contact, endorsement of conflict narratives, and peace-related attitudes in 3 different groups: (a) the ethnic majority (Turks); (b) a subgroup within the ethnic majority who feel excluded due to their political preferences (i.e., participants in the recent Gezi Park protests who developed a common identity as “çapulcu” [looter]); and (c) the ethnic minority (Kurds). Bivariate correlations and multigroup path analysis suggested that intergroup contact may not lead majority-status groups to support prominority conflict narratives, but may lead them to support prominority policies, whereas it may lead majority-status groups who feel excluded to support both prominority narratives and policies. Results also indicated that contact may be counterproductive for minority groups by altering their endorsement of specific conflict narratives, which then reduces their support for changes that would benefit their group.
Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology | 2016
Özden Melis Uluğ; J. Christopher Cohrs
Journal of Social and Political Psychology | 2016
Yasemin Gülsüm Acar; Özden Melis Uluğ
Journal of Media Psychology | 2016
Özen Odağ; Özden Melis Uluğ; Nevin Solak
Archive | 2015
Özden Melis Uluğ; Yasemin Gülsüm Acar