The ethnic question in an environment of insecurity: the Kurds in Turkey

This article examines the effect that a poor structural context, what we te rm an "environment of insecurity", has on the Kurdish ethnic nationalist mo bilization in Turkey. The empirical evidence for this analysis is based on data from the 1993 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey [TDHS]. The data p rovide, to the best of our knowledge, the first reliable and representative figures on the situation of Kurds in Turkey. Our key claim is that the Kur dish population in Turkey is relatively much worse off than the Turkish pop ulation in the country. This claim is strongly supported by the data. Many other factors also account for the ethnic nationalist mobilization, but we argue that the Turkish Kurds' environment of insecurity, materially and non materially, stands out as a key package of both causal and intermediate var iables behind the ethnic revival.