Turkey’s Kurdish Question in the Era of Neoliberalism

Abstract

This article studies the linkages between economic development, or lack thereof, in the predominantly Kurdish provinces in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia (ESA) and Turkey’s Kurdish question in the era of neoliberalism. It critically examines Turkey’s much lauded development trajectory and strategy in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, which, until very recently, was widely contended to have created auspicious conditions for the resolution of Turkey’s multifaceted Kurdish question. Its central argument is that there is a symbiotic relationship between the Kurdish question in Turkey and the peculiar form of underdevelopment witnessed in ESA, which is accurately captured by the notion of de-development.