Activists in Office: Kurdish Politics and Protest in Turkey

Thousands of Kurdish politician-activists have been prosecuted and imprisoned, and hundreds have been murdered for espousing Kurdish political and cultural rights over the past twenty years. The risks are high, yet Pro-Kurdish political parties have made significant gains, as resources afforded by the political system have allowed them to challenge state rhetoric and policies to exercise power at the municipal level, which has helped legitimize and advance the pro-Kurdish movement. Activists in Office examines how these parties, while sharing many of the goals expressed by armed Kurdish groups, are using the legal political system to promote their highly contentious Kurdish national agenda in the face of a violent, repressive state.

Nicole F. Watts sheds light not only on the particular situation of Kurds in Turkey, but also on the challenges, risks, and potential benefits for comparable movements operating in less-than-fully democratic contexts. The book is a result of more than ten years of research conducted in Turkey and in Europe, and it draws on a wide array of sources, including Turkish electoral data, memoirs, court records, and interviews.

Nicole F. Watts is associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University.

"This is the only book of its kind that studies Kurdish politics in Turkey from a perspective that does not solely or overwhelmingly privilege the ongoing armed conflict. Watts does an excellent job of examining the place of Kurds and Kurdish political parties in Turkey and shows that far from being simple challengers, Kurds have been an integral and constitutive element of Turkish politics." -Resat Kasaba, Henry M. Jackson Professor of International Studies, University of Washington

Nicole F. Watts is associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University.