This study offers the first systematic analysis of ethnic and regional dimensions of state and political power in contemporary Turkey. It builds on an original dataset to measure ethnic and regional imbalance in the executive, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy. The dataset contains biographical information (i.e., birth province and district, birth year, gender, education, previous appointments, etc.) collected from a variety of online and printed sources about ministers, governors, high court judges, and high-ranking generals since 1950 with a focus on the post-1980. In total, around 2,000 individuals who occupied such powerful positions in Turkey are included in the dataset. On the basis of this dataset, this study examines the access of the ethnic Kurds to state and political power. It uses birth provinces as proxies of ethnic identity. Using birth provinces as a proxy of ethnicity is justified for two reasons. Birth province is a reliable indicator of Kurdish ethnicity because, as stated earlier, Kurds are geographically concentrated in southeastern Turkey. Second, around two-thirds of the Kurds continue to live in this area despite a sizeable Kurdish population that has migrated to large cities in the last decades. As the dataset covers civil servants and politicians who were all born before 1970, it is very unlikely that it includes a considerable number of ethnic Kurds who were born outside of eastern provinces. The study reaches several findings with significant implications. First, Kurds are severely underrepresented in echelons of power. This finding challenges the conventional wisdom suggesting that Kurds reach higher echelons of power as long as they do not openly express their ethnic identity. While the state rhetoric distinguishes between the “law-abiding” Kurds and those “terrorists” rebelling against the state, Kurds regardless of their political attitudes and behavior seem to be excluded from power. This exclusion persists despite a series of reforms in the recent years and a relatively democratic process which has provided room for upward mobility for groups who were underrepresented in the past. Next, this ethnic imbalance or discrimination has politicized and strengthened ethnic identity. Provinces with markedly low access to political power provide higher level of support for ethnic insurgency and vote for ethnic parties. State policies turn ethnic structure into a politicized ethnic identity and thus so laying the ground for conflict.