Promotional Information

Nicole F. Watts sheds light not only on the particular situation of Kurds in Turkey, but also on the challenges, risks, and potential benefits for comparable movements operating in less-than-fully democratic contexts.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction: Other Routes of Resistance

1. Early Routes: Conditions of Kurdish Electoral Mobilization

2. New Collective Challengers: The Institutional Trajectory of Turkey’s First Pro-Kurdish Party

3. Resources of the System

4. Characteristics of Coercion: Obstructing Access to Resources

5. Producing Competing Truths

6. Creating a New Kurdish Subject

Conclusions: Assessing a Challenger’s Impact

Notes

References

Index

About the Author

Nicole F. Watts is associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University.

Reviews

"This is the only book of its kind that studies Kurdish politics in Turkey from a perspective that does not solely or overwhelmingly privilege the ongoing armed conflict. Watts does an excellent job of examining the place of Kurds and Kurdish political parties in Turkey and shows that far from being simple challengers, Kurds have been an integral and constitutive element of Turkish politics." -Resat Kasaba, Henry M. Jackson Professor of International Studies, University of Washington "This is an important and thoroughly researched account of the role of Kurdish identity and politics in the Turkish governmental system, where Kurdish parties are regularly closed down and politicians arrested. The book demonstrates quite clearly that the incorporation of a movement into the system doesn't necessarily lead to its moderation, but that democratic participation initiates sometimes unpredictable and contradictory, but important trajectories of transformation. This is a must-read book for understanding Kurdish politics in Turkey." -Jenny White, author of Islamist Mobilization in Turkey