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The paper explores the troubled, often violent relations, between states and prominent minorities and aims to explain the circumstances under which states recognize international norms on minority rights by focusing on two cases: Morocco and Turkey. In October 2001, the Berbers, who form the second largest ethnic group in Morocco after the Arabs, won a major victory in their long struggle for cultural recognition. The Moroccan state, for the first time, declared its recognition of "Berberness" as a principal element of the Moroccan national culture and allowed instruction in Berber language in state primary schools. King Mohammed established 'the Royal Institute of the Berber Culture' and charged it with the research and development of Berber language and culture. These initiatives represented a dramatic reversal in the official definition of national identity. Historically, the Moroccan state viewed cultural and linguistic expressions of Berber identity as threatening to national unity and defined 'Moroccanness" through the Arabic language, culture, and history. Unlike Morocco, the Turkish state's policy in the face of increasing Kurdish demands for cultural rights did not change much. Although the hope of joining the European Union resulted in major legal reforms for greater political freedoms in Turkey in the 2000s, the Turkish state has been highly reluctant to recognize Kurdish cultural and linguistic demands. Today, although some loosening of the reins has occurred, discussion of the Kurdish question remains a taboo, and legal restrictions against the use of the Kurdish language and expression of Kurdish identity are still in place. Why have certain states accommodated ethnic groups' demands and recognized minority rights while others have not? Through a comparison of the Moroccan and Turkish states' minority policies, my paper explores the conditions under which states feel compelled to respond to the cultural demands of ethnic groups and become inclusive of an ethnic minority within their borders. In this paper I analyze the ethnic movements in these two countries. I call attention to the differences between the two ethnic movements in terms of their strategies and structures and explain how these differences translate into their interaction with the decision-makers. I argue that the pluralist character of the Berber movement allowed the moderate activists to take advantage of the political opportunities at times when the regime showed signs of relaxation and to express their demands in a way that would be acceptable to the Moroccan state. The conciliatory manner in which the Berber activists expressed their demands and the existence of mediators, revered both by activists and official circles, helped increase the credibility of Amazigh activism and played an important role in having the state recognize its cultural demands. At a time when there is increased international pressure for the recognition of cultural demands of the Kurds in Turkey, the Kurdish movement, was already dominated by a hegemonic actor, which turned it into more or less a uniform movement that left no room for conciliation with the state. The Kurdish activists did (could) not show the same willingness to conciliate when channels of negotiation with the official figures opened. The Kurdish activists' unwillingness to compromise empowered the hardliners within the Turkish state elite, who perceived the cultural demands of the movement as inseparable from its challenge to the legitimacy of the state boundaries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does a conservative Muslim population come to endorse the establishment of a secular state? This is one of the most intriguing and pertinent questions raised by the emergence of the Muslim nation-state in the twentieth century. If Islamic law has traditionally informed the politics of the Muslim world, we should expect Muslims of various cultures to be particularly resistant to the classically secular notion of the nation-state. Empirical reality, however, does not support this theoretical expectation: the twentieth century witnessed the articulation of a distinctively Muslim nationalism in the Middle East and South Asia. To explore this irony, I apply the concepts of political opportunity and framing from social movement theory to the cases of Turkey and Pakistan. The two countries have individually received significant attention for two very different brands of Muslim nationalism. In 1923, Mustafa Kemal established the explicitly secular republic of Turkey for the dominant community of collapsed Islamic empire. A quarter of a century later, Muhammad Ali Jinnah argued for a distinctively Muslim national identity in order to carve out a secular state for Indian Muslims. Where Kemal had constrained Islam, the Pakistan movement championed it. If an analysis of the political circumstances and choices of these individuals yields significant similarities in the dynamic of state formation, however, we have a richer account of secular politics can thrive on religious grounds. I set as our primary questions in each case: a) how did the contender gain access to power, and b) how did he successfully advance a secular agenda? In answering these questions, I argue that a specific configuration of changing institutional structures and political relationships opened a new window of opportunity to the contender, and that he then propped open this window by reframing a secular political vision in terms that resonated with his religious constituents. I then explore broad commonalities between the two cases (i.e., the West as both model and anti-model, political options discussed in the national discourse, opportunism, and legitimacy) in order to suggest a broader typology for Muslim nation-state formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the puzzle that why Turkey is the most democratic country of the Muslim world while its democracy is the weakest among the Western democracies. In the first section, we elaborate Turkey’s unique position as the freest country in the Muslim world, but the least powerful democracy in OECD by using Freedom House Country Ratings. Second section examines possible variables to explain this uniqueness. Particular attention is given to Kemalist reforms to establish a secular state structure. In the third section we argue that although multiethnicty and the Cold War environment also undermined democratization in Turkey, these factors weakens democratization in general, both in Islamic and non-Islamic societies. Therefore, ongoing struggle between Turkish military and antisecular forces is the key variable to explain the level of Turkish democracy. However, secular state is necessary but not sufficient condition for full democratization as the disappointing level of democratic structure in the Newly Independent States of Central Asia show. Therefore, we conclude that Islam per se is not an obstacle to establish a democratic society as long as Islamic rule does not dominate state’s governance structure. In other words, it is not the Islamic society but Islamic state that prevents the establishment and improvement of democracy. Constitution of a secular state, however, itself is not enough. It is merely the first step for the long journey of democratization in the Muslim world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I use the Boolean method to explain outcomes of conflictual situations in Greece and Turkey (1983-2003). I argue that the making of confrontational policies is a complex phenomenon that does not lend itself to monocausal explanations. My analysis is based on a dataset which includes any crisis between majority Greeks or Turks with either their minorities or neighbors since 1983. The Boolean method allows for testing alternative hypotheses to illustrate whether they are qualitatively true or false, or whether they result in a large number of contradictions. In evaluating current theories, these contradictions suggest whether the theories under review need to be replaced, amended, or complemented with new ones. Among a number of potential theoretical frameworks, I select to test the diversionary theory of war and the security dilemma. These two theories stipulate sets of necessary conditions (variables) which can be operationalized and tested against data collected using retrieval databases (i.e. Lexis/Nexis and FBIS). In brief, my test demonstrates that there is some support for the two theories and that the two are not mutually exclusive. Using Charles Ragin’s probabilistic criteria to assess sufficiency, I conclude that the security dilemma and the diversionary theory are quasi-sufficient explanations of confrontational policies. A number of anomalous cases beg further examination and suggest the need for a complementary third perspective emphasizing ideational factors and learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]