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East is worthy of debate by academics who seek to
describe the political landscape of the region.
However, these scholarly debates are limited, as only
time can accurately reveal the next configuration of
the Middle East.
John Cappucci
(Carleton University)
Understanding Turkey’s Kurdish Question by
Fevzi Bilgin and Ali Sarihan (eds). Plymouth:
Lexington Books, 2013. 243pp., £44.95, ISBN
9780739184028
Understanding Turkey’s Kurdish Question is a fine collec-
tion of essays regarding one of Turkey’s longstanding,
protracted issues. The issue gained momentum during
the last 30 years and now it has become one of the
most troublesome issues of the Turkish Republic. The
volume seeks to address, analyse and clarify the com-
plexities of the Kurdish Question from different per-
spectives, which has at its core, as Keyman and
Özkırımlı argue in their essay, the vicious circle of
ethnic Kurdish and Turkish nationalisms.
The greater part of the book focuses on the Kurdish
Question as it has developed over the past 30 years.
However, the authors do not fail to approach the
subject historically and place it in an historical frame-
work. Thus, the first part of the book deals with the
emergence of Kurdish nationalism and the different
stages it has gone through since the mid-nineteenth
century, beginning in Ottoman times when the idea
that the Kurds constituted a ‘nation’ gained ground,
and then later during the Turkish Republic, in which
the Kurds and other ethnic groups were denied rights
of autonomy.
The second part of the book is the longest one and
consists of six chapters. This part covers a wide range
of topics, starting with the emergence of the Kurdish
Question and the establishment of the PKK (Partiya
Karkerên Kurdistan) under the leadership of Abdullah
Öcalan, followed by the violent periods of conflict
between the PKK and the Turkish governments,
which ended with a considerable amount of human
casualties for both sides. Further analysis considers
civil-society initiatives, proposals for a solution to the
issue and the policies formulated by the AKP (Justice
and Development Party) government with the demo-
cratic opening and its subsequent failure.
© 2015 The Authors. Political Studies Review © 2015 Political Studies Association
OTHER AREAS
One of the most important conclusions for the
reader is that the book’s authors acknowledge that a
military solution to the issue is not an option for a
steady and viable solution. The third part of the book
takes as its focus the Hizbullah and Hizmet (Gülen)
movement, their relations and clashes with the PKK,
and the complications which these groups present for
the PKK’s stance.
Finally, the fourth section deals with the interna-
tional dimension of the Kurdish Question. The sig-
nificance of this last part is that it entails the recent
developments following the Arab Spring, and the
implications for Turkey’s domestic and foreign
relations.
In conclusion, Understanding Turkey’s Kurdish Ques-
tion offers a significant contribution to this highly
important issue and it should be seriously consulted
and read by scholars, students and policy makers alike.
It is a signal and valuable contribution to the topic, and
its well-balanced and well-researched essays build upon
and update past literature with current developments.
Nikos Christofis
(Leiden University)
New Capitalism in Turkey: The Relationship
between Politics, Religion and Business by Ayşe
Buğra and Osman Savaşkan. Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar, 2014. 224pp., £70.00, ISBN 978 1783473120
This book investigates the rapid transformation in the
environment of Turkey’s political economy. The rela-
tionship between politics, religion and business is
explored throughout the book. It provides an intensive
overview of markets and market actors in Turkey. The
Islamic dimension in particular, especially the rising
significance of Islam over capitalism in Turkey, marks
the book out as a ‘must-read’ for those who are inter-
ested in Turkish politics. However, I will highlight
four methodological shortcomings which lead the
book to an externalist reading of Turkish capitalism.
First, there is an apparent dualist reading of the state
and civil society and the assumed antagonism between
those spheres. For instance, on page 6, the authors
emphasise their insistence on the ‘society shaping role
of the state’ and the role of ‘business actors’ on the
re-shaping of the business environment. No doubt,
this relation is seen as symbiotic, but the methodologi-
cal separation makes the analysis external. In this way,
Political Studies Review: 2015, 13(3)