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Small Wars & Insurgencies
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The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)and popular support: counterterrorismtowards an insurgency nature
Mustafa Cosar Unal
aa
Department of Intelligence, Turkish National PoliceVersion of record first published: 11 Jun 2012
To cite this article:
Mustafa Cosar Unal (2012): The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and popularsupport: counterterrorism towards an insurgency nature, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 23:3, 432-455
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The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and popular support:counterterrorism towards an insurgency nature
Mustafa Cosar Unal*
Department of Intelligence, Turkish National Police
The PKK has been a prolonged problem in Turkey, and various measureshave been adopted to diminish and end the violence. In addition to theimpacts on violence, these policies have also had an impact on public opinionand ethnic awareness of Kurds in Turkey. This article analyzes these policiesand their effects on electoral support for the PKK by examining the voteshares of the pro-PKK political parties in national and local elections.It concludes that Turkey has conceptualized the issue solely as a problem of terrorism, but the goal, strategy, organization, and format of violence used bythe PKK reflect the nature of an insurgency. Therefore, it is argued thatTurkey, by ignoring the insurgency features, has disregarded the legitimateparts of the cause and related popular support, and thus has responded mostlywith deterrent measures apart from the reforms of recent years. Results haveshown that policies of deterrence culminated in a steady level of support forthe PKK indicating that low level of legitimacy – as they were perceived bythe people – of the policies resulted in viable popular and political supportfor the PKK. Despite the recent accommodative reforms, the existence of pro-PKK parties rallying electoral support in the political arena providedsustained level activities in the conventional politics in Turkey’s municipaland national political system, in which they pursue pro-PKK agendas,such as ‘Autonomy’ and ‘Confederation’ as well as activities to increase thedistinction in identity around the ethnic consciousness for more popularsupport. Yet, no clear pattern is identified between violence level and popularsupport in the macro-scale.
Keywords:
PKK; popular support; counterterrorism; insurgency; politicalviolence; Turkey
Introduction
Turkey, in its recent history, has faced a high volume of political violence fromdifferentpartsofthepoliticalspectrum.Terrorismhasplacedanenormouscostonthe Turkish Republic, both economically and socially. For the last three decades,terror incidents have been dominated disproportionately by the KurdistanWorkers’ Party (PKK). Since its foundation, the PKK conflict has causedapproximately 35,000 fatalities, around 4800 of which were civilians and 5850
ISSN 0959-2318 print/ISSN 1743-9558 online
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*Email: mcosarunal@yahoo.com
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were security personnel. In the meantime, about 25,000 terrorists were killed,another 1000 were injured, and about 6000 were captured and imprisoned.
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In order to thwart the PKK-initiated violence, Turkish authorities haveimplemented many different countermeasures, ranging from repressive toaccommodative policies. Within the context of ethnicity-based political violence,suchpolicieshaveimpactsinthreemainareas:thelevelofviolence,publicopinion,and ethnic awareness. Analysis of the violence level identifies the response of themovement behind the uprising (in this case, the PKK), while analyses of popularsupport and ethnic awareness reflect the perception and response of the relatedpublic (mainly the Kurdish people).In this article, the impact of macro-level government policies on popularsupport for the pro-PKK political parties between 1990 and 2010 is analyzed. Thecommon theme of the selected policies is that they are wide in their application tothwart terrorism in Turkey. While some of these policies are implementedparticularlyagainstPKKterrorism,othersarebroadpoliciesadoptedintheprocessofdemocratizationandfullmembershipofTurkey intotheEuropeanUnion(EU).However, all of the selected policies, by the concept and scope, have had greateffect on PKK violence in Turkey.This article attempts to identify the nature of Turkish policies and theirimpacts on public opinion/popular support for the PKK. It also provides a brief look at the relationship between PKK-initiated violence and elections. To thisend, first, the characteristics of the PKK and Turkey’s conception of the PKK areanalyzed. Second, the theoretical framework for government policies and popularsupport in the context of terrorism is briefly discussed. Third, the macro-levelstate policies that had potential impact on the PKK issue are examined. Fourth,elections and the pro-PKK political parties are reviewed beginning from the1990s followed by a brief discussion on the complexity of election results inTurkey. Next, using data from the Turkey’s High Election Board (YSK), theofficial database of the Turkish National Police, and a composite dataset from theInstituteofStudiesforViolentGroups(ISVG)andtheGlobalTerrorismDatabase(GTD), the level of electoral support derived by the pro-PKK political partiesagainst the Turkish policies and the employed level of violence are analyzed.
2
The characteristics of the PKK
There exists heterogeneity in the conceptualization of the PKK, whether it is aterrorist organization,
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an insurgent movement, and/or Kurdish guerrillas.
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In thisregard, the PKK’s characteristicsare tobeexaminedtoanalyze andconceptualizethe problem in the right context. The examination of its characteristics indicatesthat the PKK can be considered a guerrilla insurgency using terror and guerrillatactics as briefly discussed in the following paragraphs.As commonly known, an insurgency must have certain essential componentssome of which are (1) pursuit of a specific political goal (mostly territorialseparation or a revolutionary change in the regime); (2) a declared cause against
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