The Justice and Development Party’s Discourse on the Kurdish Question
In: Cultural and Ethical Turns: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Culture, Politics and EthicsSearch for other papers by Nazli Sila Cesur in
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The Kemalist Turkish state discourse has historically excluded Kurdish identity. This attitude has stemmed from the ambition to forge a coherent Turkish identity to ground the modern nation-state. In Turkish politics this approach has often come into conflict with Kurds wishing for recognition as a distinct cultural identity. The Turkish state has typically reacted by refusing to acknowledge the existence of any Kurdish question, declaring instead that there is only terrorism. However the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or, Justice and Development Party), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan, has taken a different approach to the Kurdish question. They have reframed the Kurdish struggle as an issue of the recognition of ethnic identity, strongly related to the improvement of democracy in Turkey. This paper offers an analysis of the shift in official discourse surrounding the Kurdish question in Turkey under the AKP.