Amidst refugee flows, irregular migration, and authoritarianism: the politics of citizenship in Turkey

Abstract

With the background of the Syrian crisis, irregular migration, and authoritarianism -strengthened by the collapse of the Peace Process of the Turkish state with the Work­ers' Party of Kurdistan (PKK) in 2015 and the 2016 coup attempt - the Turkish gov­ernment has amended the Citizenship Law, changed policies concerning refugees and irregular migrants, and re-designed access to basic citizenship rights in the last decade. Due to these amendments and changes, tens of thousands of Syrians have been awarded Turkish citizenship. A few millions of them are now settled in Turkey and exercising social and education rights without being Turkish citizens. This state of affairs contra­dicts previous Turkish policies for citizenship and supports the claims that the gov­ernment under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been con­structing a more Islamic and less secular Turkish nationhood. Concomitantly, the basic citizenship rights of Kurds and members of the Gulen community have been massively violated. This indicates that being Muslim or Turkish does not protect citizens from discrimination.