Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: With the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the Armenians left in the borders of the young Republic became Turkish citizens. But the Armenians and two other groups, the Jews and the Greeks were defined as a ?minority? with the treaty of Lausanne signed in 1923 between the Turkish government and the allies after the establishment of the Republic. Today Turkey?s Armenians are estimated at 60.000 and they are mostly living in Istanbul. Their Armenian identity is still very dominant relative to the national identity and many Armenian citizens of the Turkish Republic strongly consider themselves Armenians. The discriminative actions of the state and the ethnic emphasis on the national identity have prevented the adoption of the national identity over the Armenian sub-identity in Turkey. In this study we will try to explore the effect of speaking and/or reading Armenian language on the cultural existence of Armenian community in Turkey by using the findings derived from the field survey conducted in Istanbul from November 2004-May 2005 among this Armenian community. Questions related to Armenian knowledge such as studying in an Armenian school in any part of their education, using Armenian at home and outside home, reading an Armenian newspaper were asked to understand the level of language knowledge and frequency of using it in daily life.The legal status of Armenians designed by the Treaty of Lausanne gave them the opportunity to establish their own schools, religious and secular organizations, to teach younger generations the Armenian language, to publish books and newspapers in Armenian, to worship in their churches etc. These regulations helped them to live as a community, to maintain their cultural values, i.e. to prolong Armenian identity. These rights as intermediate variables seem to be factors facilitating the level of knowledge and frequency of usage of Armenian language among Turkey?s Armenians.The findings of the survey are based on face to face interviews conducted in eleven different neighborhoods of Istanbul with 228 Armenians with Turkish citizenships. The neighborhoods of the survey were selected because of the dense Armenian population relative to the other neighborhoods in the city they have. The interviews were performed in community organizations, homes, schools, coffee-houses, shops and offices. This study is based on a research encompassing both ?quantitative? and ?qualitative? methods. During the survey, that took about eight months while having face-to-face deep interviews with subjects, we also filled a questionnaire according to the answers of the interviewees. Both the interview and the questionnaire are in Turkish, and no problem was experienced during the interviews, related to knowledge of Turkish. The survey was limited to Istanbul, because today none of the Anatolian or Thrace cities of Turkey has a conscious Armenian community. The study, only one part of which is presented in this paper, consists of four parts. The first part including questions about birth-date, birth-place, marital status, educational level, income etc., and also questions about their perception of self-identity, is designed to picture a general social, cultural and economic profile of Turkey?s Armenians. The second part, including questions such as their knowledge of Armenian language, level of feeling themselves as a member of the community, frequency of visiting Armenian churches etc, aims to understand their social, cultural and religious ties with the Armenian community in Turkey. These two parts are conducted by Dr.Aysegul Komsuoglu and Dr.Birsen Ors. The third part of the study, conducted by Komsuoglu that focuses on ?Political Behavior and Attitudes of Turkey?s Armenians?, while the fourth part conducted by Ors is on ?Perception of Army by Non-Muslim Minorities Living in Turkey? that will also include other minorities; Jews, Assyrians and Greeks living in Turkey, after accomplishment of the first phase of the study on the Armenians.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The starting point for this research is the assumption that endings are not just the opposite of beginnings; endings can have their own logic and their own dynamics. In this paper we focus on how two Armenian terrorist groups moved in the 1980s from fast increasing activity to virtual disappearance in a just a few years. The two groups of interest are the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG). The speed of their decline is particularly notable in contrast with the longevity of most terrorist groups. We use a case study approach to develop several hypotheses about the terrorist activities of these two groups and then test the hypotheses with data from our Global Terrorism Database. We use Cox proportional hazard models to estimate the impact of specific terrorist attacks on the hazard of another attempt for ASALA and JCAG. Our results show that there was a significant decline in terrorist activities by both groups following an especially deadly and indiscriminant attack on innocent civilians in 1985. ASALA?s excesses in targeting and its extortionate fund raising eroded its moral status, an erosion that was speeded by criticism of ASALA evils by rival Armenian groups. Perhaps the most general and simple lesson from ASALA?s rise and fall is that the most important audience of terrorist activity may be not the enemy but the terrorists? own sympathizers and supporters.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Did the massacres of Armenians during World War I in the Ottoman Empire constitute genocide? This is the central disagreement in the nearly century-long Turkish - Armenian conflict. A number of different methods have been employed in the past as well as the present time to transform this conflict, such as governmental or scholarly exchange, and workshops to develop common cultural projects. Each approach has its own strength. This paper analyzes an intercultural dialogue group in order to demonstrate that the core problem is the conflicting collective memories as the undercurrent of the deep mistrust and animosity between the two societies. The collective memories of the respective communities are not challenged in the reproduction process since the Turkish and Armenian societies are fully isolated from each other, and this is a major obstacle to rapprochement. This paper attempts to combine the theories of collective memory with those of conflict resolution in order to better explain the identity-based conflicts which have their roots in a particular historical event. It offers an analysis of the collective memories of Turkish and Armenian communities, and claims that a better understanding of the other party’s common consciousness would create an environment conducive to reconciliation at the societal level, even when political antagonism persists. Thus, the paper suggests that the discourse ethics is a useful mean to produce new forms of communication between/among the two parties. The authors aim to test this hypothesis by examining the work of the Turkish-Armenian Dialogue Group, a student project held in Boston, USA in 2005-2006.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In many respects deterrence and extended deterrence in ethnic conflicts seem very unlikely to succeed. There is a fundamental difficulty in deterring low-level violence since effectively delivering the threat to the opponent is hard; most of the time, the actors on the opposing side are not fully aware of what the consequences will be should deterrence fail. This problem stems not only from the multiple actors and interested parties that may be involved in such a conflict – a situation that complicates the ability to make a credible threat – but also from the fact that part of the violence in such conflicts is a result of spontaneous acts of local mobs and independent actions of extreme factions. There are, however, cases in which an ethnic group did not cross what could be defined as one of the red lines of an opposing group. One such case occurred in 1992 and then again in 1993, in Nakhichevan, a landlocked exclave of Azerbaijan bordering with Armenian territory. Although there was some violence between the sides, the Armenians did not act to conquer Nakhichevan. While this conflict can also be presented as a conflict between the states of Armenia and Azerbaijan, it was directly linked to the ethnic struggle in Nagorno-Karabakh, and neither the Azerbaijani nor the Armenian government had complete control over events in Nakhichevan and Nagorno-Karabakh.Our claim in the paper will be that it is exactly this blurriness between the state and the ethnic group as actors in the conflict, and the great dependence of a warring ethnic group on outside assistance from a state, that could be taken as an advantage in conducting a successful practice of (extended) deterrence, as was exercised by Turkey with regard to Nakhichevan. In addition we claim that it is important to address identity-linked issues when discussing the Turkish deterrence since the Turkish threats embodied also references to a possible partial repetition of what the Turks inflicted on the Armenians in World War I. By highlighting these two factors that strengthened the Turkish deterrence, i.e. threatening the state actor linked to the ethnic conflict, and raising identity-related fears in the threats themselves, we show the advantages of using a broader deterrence theory for understanding developments in ethnic conflicts.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper is an initial attempt to address questions about the sources of change in states' official narratives of controversial historical events. In the paper, I analyze changes and continuities in the official Turkish narrative of the Armenian question, as reflected in 23 Turkish high school history textbooks published between 1950 and 2000. In the paper, I outline three distinct phases in the official Turkish narrative of the Armenian question, and highlight differences in the content of the narrative in each of these phases. Additionally, I situate these changes in the official narrative within the broader context of relevant political and social events in Turkey, and international and domestic factors that are likely to have influenced these changes.