Political Recognition of Cultural Diversity in Turkey on the Way to the European Union

Abstract

‘Diversity’ has become one of the catchy words of the contemporary political philosophy. Diversity, in its recent forms, be it cultural, political, ethnic, or religious, is a byproduct of the processes of globalization, which make the movements of people/groups in the ethnoscape easier. It is apparent that the management of diversity has posed a great challenge for the nation-states as well as for the international and supranational organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union (EU). This paper shall touch upon the management of ethnic diversity in both national and supranational levels with particular reference to Turkey and the EU. The work will make a separation between ‘diversity as a phenomenon’ and ‘diversity as a discourse/ideology’ in the Turkish context, and will claim that the state and the various ethnic groups in Turkey have been inclined to employ the ‘diversity as a discourse/ideology’ in the aftermath of the EU Helsinki Summit in 1999 in compliance with the prevailing discourse of ‘unity in diversity’ within the EU circles.