Tangible Limits of Liminal Democratization: The EU, Turkey’s Kurdish Question and Blacklisting

This chapter argues that the primary obstacle to Turkey’s democratization has been the securitization of the Kurdish question as a historico-social problem, while the EU’s ambivalence between a liminal democratization agenda and its interest-driven transactional relations with Turkey has mainly contributed to its further securitization. Consequently, the right to resist domination has been criminalized not only in Turkey but also in Europe. I substantiate this argument by examining three periods. First, I analyze the security cooperation between Turkey and Europe, which conditioned the proscription of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Second, I focus on the liminal democratization period in Turkey up to around 2013, where the proscription of the PKK resulted in the criminalization of the Kurdish resistance for fundamental rights. Third, I explore the total abandonment of democratization discourse by both Turkey and the EU, and the European indifference to the peace process, in the face of tangible (geo)political limits.