Turkey's Kurdish Policy and Its Impact on Development in the Turkey's Kurdish Region, from 1923 to the Present

Abstract

This thesis study focuses on political-economy of the Kurdish Question in Turkey. The current study focusing on the political, economic, and socio-cultural causes and outcomes of the ongoing Kurdish Question since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 presents the political economy of the question by emphasizing the underdeveloped structure of the Kurdish Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia region (the ESA, Northern Kurdistan) compared to other regions of Turkey. In this study, which identifies the effects of Turkish nationalism, the Turkish state's being a unitary nation-state in terms of organization, economic policies of the state to establish and develop the national Turkish capital and capitalists, and the effects of all these policies on the emergence, development, and structuralization of the Kurdish poverty and Kurdish Question as the problem statement, a century-old state policies towards the ESA region were examined in depth. In addition, the ongoing internal conflict/war intensifying from time to time between the Turkish state and the Kurdish military movement organized as a result of the Kurdish discontent that has emerged in response to totalitarian policies aimed at establishing a full dominance over the ESA since the establishment of the Turkish state were examined within the context of the regional development issues. Finally, this thesis study claims to make a significant contribution to the literature in this field with an objective and academic perspective by addressing the ESA's underdevelopment within the historical context of the social, political and economic causes as well as providing a paradigm examining the emergence and development of the Kurdish Question that cannot be solved (or is not solved) until today.