Inclusive Citizenship and Societal Reconciliation within Turkey’s Kurdish Issue

Abstract

Using Turkey’s Kurdish issue as an example, this article discusses how conflicts produce problems at multiple levels of relations in multi-ethnic societies and considers how debates about different models of democracy and reconciliation can contribute to addressing these problems. Turkey’s Kurdish issue presents an interesting case to discuss how state-group, state-individual and intergroup relations require different mechanisms when talking about interlinkages between debates on inclusive citizenship and reconciliation, by bringing to the fore the necessity and difficulties of societal reconciliation for a multi-layered peace process. Specific attention will be paid to societal reconciliation and inclusive citizenship mechanisms through different intervention methods and how the lack of these, along with other reasons, facilitated the failure of the peace process in Turkey.