Akturk discusses how the definition of being German, Soviet, Russian and Turkish radically changed at the turn of the twenty-first century. Germany's ethnic citizenship law, the Soviet Union's inscription of ethnic origins in personal identification documents and Turkey's prohibition on the public use of minority languages, all implemented during the early twentieth century, underpinned the definition of nationhood in these countries. Despite many challenges from political and societal actors, these policies did not change for many decades, until around the turn of the twenty-first century, when Russia removed ethnicity from the internal passport, Germany changed its citizenship law and Turkish public television began broadcasting in minority languages. Using a new typology of 'regimes of ethnicity' and a close study of primary documents and numerous interviews, Sener Akturk argues that the coincidence of three key factors – counterelites, new discourses and hegemonic majorities – explains successful change in state policies toward ethnicity.
ISBN: | 9781107021433 |
Publication date: | 19th November 2012 |
Author: | ener Assistant Professor, Koç University, Istanbul Aktürk |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Format: | Hardback |
Pagination: | 322 pages |
Series: | Problems of International Politics |
Genres: |
Comparative politics Ethnic groups and multicultural studies |