Nation-Building in Turkey and Morocco
Governing Kurdish and Berber Dissent

This book compares the relatively peaceful relationship between the Berbers and the Moroccan state with the violent relationship between the Kurds and the Turkish state.

Senem Aslan (Author)

9781107695450, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 February 2018

249 pages, 8 b/w illus.
23 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.37 kg

'Nation-Building in Turkey and Morocco is elegant, compelling and utterly readable. Aslan's comparative analysis of the different ways local communities responded to state plans for their integration into the nation-state offers a fascinating corrective to the way we typically think about central authority and fills a critical gap in studies of nationalism and state-society relations. It is impossible to read this work and to ever think about state power the same way again.' Nicole F. Watts, San Francisco State University

Why do some ethno-national groups live peacefully with the states that govern them, whereas others develop into serious threats to state authority? Through a comparative historical analysis, this book compares the evolution of Kurdish mobilization in Turkey with the Berber mobilization in Morocco by looking at the different nation-building strategies of the respective states. Using a variety of sources, including archival documents, interviews, and memoirs, Senem Aslan emphasizes the varying levels of willingness and the varying capabilities of the Turkish and Moroccan states to intrude into their citizens' lives. She argues that complex interactions at the ground level - where states have demanded changes in everyday behavior, such as how to dress, what language to speak, what names to give children, and more mundane practices - account for the nature of emerging state-minority relations. By taking the local and informal interactions between state officials and citizens seriously, this study calls attention to the actual implementation of state policies and the often unintended consequences of these policies.

1. Governing areas of dissidence
2. Policies of extreme makeover: state-Kurdish relations in the early Turkish republic
3. State building and the politics of national identity in Morocco
4. The making of an armed conflict: state-Kurdish relations in the post-1950 period
5. The rise of the Amazigh movement and state co-optation in Morocco
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Regional government [JPR], Political structure & processes [JPH], Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP]