Les politiques ottomane et républicaine au Kurdistan à partir de la comparaison des milices Hamidiye et korucu : modèles institutionnels, retribalisation et dynamique des conflits
The parallel drawn between the militia established by the late Ottoman regime in the 1890’s, the Hamidiye, and the one established in the 1980’s, the korucu, is a commonplace of works on the Kurdish issue since the 1990s. The author aims to develop a more systematic comparison between both institutions. Addressing successively the issues of the internal organisation, the tribalisation of the resources, and the relationship with Kurdish nationalism, the author points out that both militia are fundamentally different. In particular, the Hamidiye is a military corps accumulating resources by predation, as opposed to the korucu, which are much more local units under state control, drawing resources from the state and contraband more than from predation.
Re-Considering State-Society Dynamics in Turkey’s Kurdish Southeast
State-society relations in Turkey’s Kurdish southeast have long been characterized as pitting a powerful and determined state against a reluctant, resistant, but largely overwhelmed population. Such an image of a binary, state versus society relationship is readily substantiated by a myriad historical and contemporary examples: multiple Kurdish rebellions against the central state, cultural and political dissent articulated from poetry to political parties, emergency rule law in Kurdish-major...
Analysis: The Agenda 2007 Proposals: Evolution or Revolution?
On 10 February 2004 the Commission published its proposal for the financial perspective 2007-2013. A week later it adopted the third report on economic and social cohesion. These two documents form the basis of the so-called ‘Agenda 2007 reforms’. They will be the greatest challenge for the enlarged EU after the intergovernmental conference, since they will determine the financial basis for EU policy-making until the middle of the next decade. The Agenda 2007 proposals certainly hint at courageous reforms, because they place a previously unheard-of emphasis on performance and quality. Under the proposals, structural operations should generate value for money, and the funds should focus on projects which generate added value at a European level. Overall the Commission’s proposals point in the right direction, because they balance, on the one hand, solidarity for the new Member States and weak regions in the old Member States with, on the other hand, investments in future tasks. Moreover, they constitute a paradigm shift. For the first time, the Common Agricultural Policy will not be the dominant expenditure category. Now it is up to the Member States to examine the proposals politically and find a compromise between sometimes very divergent interests. It is to be hoped that, during the debate over expenditure limits and division of funds, national interests do not outweigh European interests.