This paper examines the geographical and historical patterns of access to state power and their political implications in Turkey. It focuses on the Turkish armed forces as a long-standing dominant political institution, and the Kurds, the largest and only ethno-mobilized ethnic minority group in Turkey. Drawing on original historical demographic data, my research investigates the representation of the Kurds in the security forces and its implications on the relations between the Turkish state and Kurds from 1923 until 2015 and particularly on the Kurdish insurgency since 1984. I preliminarily find that the Kurds have long been excluded from the positions of power in the Turkish military and their persistent exclusion has contributed to both onset and durability of the Kurdish ethno-mobilization and the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish army. The paper seeks to understand and explain first what accounts for the persistent Kurdish underrepresentation in Turkish security forces, and second how Kurds’ exclusion from state power affected their relations with the central government and the Kurdish insurgency. A spatial and temporal analysis of military recruitment patterns compared to rebel recruitment patterns in the Kurdish-majority provinces between 1984 and 2015 suggests a strong relationship between ethnic exclusion from state power and Kurdish ethnic mobilization. I suggest that exclusion from state power has been indeed an important factor that has contributed to both the outbreak and resilience of the PKK-led armed rebellion of Kurds. In investigating the social representation in the armed forces, I primarily draw on original historical demographic data on 9,850 general staff officers and 2,500 flag officers across the three major services of the Turkish armed forces—the army, the navy, and the air force—from 1923 until 2015. The data was collected from the military archives and libraries, as well as from national newspapers and court-martial records in Turkey. 2-year ethnographic research between 2016 and 2019 in Ankara and Istanbul including 50 in-depth interviews with active duty and retired officers accompany the archival work.