This paper examines the struggle for control over the city of Halabja’s historic legacy of martyrdom as a lens onto state-society relations in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. About 5,000 Halabjans were killed in 1988 when the Iraqi military bombed the city with chemical gasses, and the city’s fate has since become a cornerstone for legitimating the need for Kurdish self-determination. In late 2013 Kurdish and Iraqi officials approved the designation of Halabja as a province, something Halabjan activists had long demanded and that would bestow new levels of financial support and political representation. The move -- and its accompanying announcements—were a striking departure from typical relations between Kurdish authorities and Halabja residents. Despite Halabja’s prominent place in the Kurdish national narrative, relations between Halabjans and party authorities have been strained and contentious for almost a decade. In 2006 local people protesting the Kurdistan Regional Government destroyed the Halabja Monument of Martyrs built there to honor their own dead. Since then Halabjans have engaged in a variety of extrainstitutional and conventional tactics to try and wrest control of the town’s symbolic legacy—and the material and political aid it bequeathed—from Kurdish political elites. For a brief time in 2011 activists even proclaimed Halabja an independent commune. The paper examines the ways Halabja community members and activists have sought to control the symbolic resource of Halabjan martyrdom. I argue that local activists’ ability to use this resource as leverage in political bargaining with both Kurdish and central Iraqi authorities, and to mobilize through street protest, associational activism, and the media, changed the balance of power between state and society in Halabja. Such changes are evidenced not only in the designation of Halabja as province but in many other material and political developments ranging from how the annual Halabja commemoration ceremony is planned to the paving of roads in the town. The new politics of protest of which Halabja was part also offered a new definition of the Kurdish national interest that went beyond protecting Kurds from external threats and incorporated new demands for better governance at home. The article is based on field work in the Kurdistan region of Iraq between 2009 and 2014. Sources include in-depth interviews, media and official statements, NGO and government reports, and observation.

Every year thousands of children from around the world come to Turkey for two weeks to put their skills in the Turkish language to the test in the “Turkish Olympiads.” They travel across the country and perform in large stadiums, reciting Turkish poems, singing Turkish songs, dancing Turkish folklore, and acting out skits in Turkish. The performances are televised live, covered extensively by the media, and attract thousands of spectators to the stadiums, including state dignitaries, businessmen, and prominent intellectuals. Foreign children’s performances in Turkish evoke a strong sense of euphoria and nationalist pride among the Turkish public. The Turkish Olympiads, organized by a faith-based movement in collaboration with the state, is an effective venue for public relations in domestic politics. Through an analysis of their organization, rhetoric, and symbolism, this paper seeks to explain the popularity of the Olympiads for the Turkish masses and discusses their role as a new venue for public diplomacy and the promotion of a new national image. The Turkish Olympiads provide us important insights into the construction of a new sense of Turkish national identity and state image. They explicitly challenge the defensive, insular, and statist character of the Kemalist nationalist narrative. They depict the Turkish state as a “civilizing power” in underdeveloped contexts and yet a scientifically oriented, culturally tolerant, modern Muslim state in Western contexts. They situate Turkey at the center of global economic interactions and advertise the image of a “Turkish speaking and acting foreigner” as a showcase for Turkey’s growing soft power. This paper underlines how the Olympiads constitute power for the government by energizing the masses and promoting its successes in the international arena. The research for the paper is based on interviews, on-site observations as well as the publications and websites of the Turkish Olympiads.

This paper examines Turkish courts’ approach to honor killings in predominantly Kurdish provinces as a foray into several broader questions about state power, gender, and national identity. First, how do conceptions of ethnic, national, or “cultural” difference translate into structures of authority at the local level? Under what conditions do states recognize or reject the norms and power structure of communities they regard as “different,” particularly when such difference is integrally linked with competing claims to sovereignty? Second, what norms of sexuality and meanings of gender are inscribed into national identity through state practices, such as court decisions and legal discourse on honor killings? This paper attempts to examine these questions through a systematic study of criminal court decisions in Turkey from 1970 on.

The other papers on this panel look at the production and use of symbolic power at the domestic level. This paper carries this analysis a step further by asking ‘when and how can secondary powers like Turkey exert symbolic power at the regional and international levels and act as agents of regime change and models of democratization?’ Observers have generally seen the absence of an appropriate regional democratic model as a factor discouraging democratization in the Middle East. For a brief moment in 2010-2, however, it was possible to imagine a democratic Middle East based on the 'Turkish Model.' Given Turkey’s historically poor relations with its Arab neighbors, its long history of economic and political instability, and its close ties with the West and Israel, the appeal of the Turkish model to Arab activists needs explanation. I highlight the importance of regional environment in explaining regime transitions and the timing of the Arab uprisings and argue that the promotion of the Turkish model by Arab activists and their Western supporters was due to two factors. First, a more nuanced understanding of political Islam and Islamism encouraged the representation of the mildly-Islamist Justice and Development Party (JDP) as model Muslim Democrats and increased the hopes for the emergence of similar groups in other countries. Second the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan not only made the success of the Turkish democracy imperative to American democracy promotion in the region but also focused US security interests in the Persian Gulf region. These shifts in perceptions and US/Western interests provided the JDP with the opportunity to both reform Turkey's domestic politics and to re-brand Turkey as an economically prosperous and democratic Muslim country that could maintain close ties with the West while championing the cause of activists against Western supported regimes. This re-branding of Turkey, however, only bore fruit in North Africa where geopolitical shifts over the previous decade had reduced the risks of regime change but not in the Persian Gulf region where stakes remained high and great powers proved more reluctant to risk instability. The paper utilizes public statements by key actors, governmental and think-tank reports, newspapers, and the vast academic literature on the Turkish model and the Arab uprisings.