Religion and armed conflict: evidence from the Kurdish conflict in Turkey

Gurses, Mehmet and Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi (2020) Religion and armed conflict: evidence from the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 59 (2). ISSN 1468-5906

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Abstract / Description

This paper examines the effectiveness of religion as a solution to ethno-nationalist conflicts, drawing on the case of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK) in Turkey. We test for the purported peacemaking potential of religion building on an original dataset that contains data on Turkey’s state-sponsored mosques between 1980 and 2016. Results from this dataset, coupled with an alternative measure of the state’s involvement in religion – the number of religious schools (imam-hatip) per province – show that increased Islamization has no discernible impact on lowering support for ethno-nationalist Kurdish political parties or insurgency.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	armed conflict; Kurds; peacemaking; religion; Turkey
Subjects:	300 Social sciences > 320 Political science
Department:	School of Social Sciences
Depositing User:	Ahmet Ozturk
Date Deposited:	30 Apr 2020 10:08
Last Modified:	30 Apr 2020 10:08
URI:	http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/id/eprint/5747

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