IDENTITY, IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP IN NORTHERN CYPRUS A thesis submitted to Lancaster University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences December 2016 Mustafa Cirakli, MA, BA Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion TABLE OF CONTENTS1 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ABSTRACT DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. The Case Study ................................................................................................. 1 1.2. Focus and Timeframe....................................................................................... 5 1.3. The Conceptual Framework ............................................................................. 9 1.4. Methodology ................................................................................................... 10 1.5. Scope, Limitations and Contribution.................................................................... 16 1.6. Thesis Overview ............................................................................................. 18 2. IDENTITY CONTESTATION AND SETTLER POLITICS IN THEORETICAL CONTEXT 2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 21 2.2. Collective Identity: A Review of the literature .............................................. 22 2.2.a. The Social Constructivist Paradigm ................................................. 23 2.2.b. Discursive Approaches .................................................................... 28 2.3. Connecting Identity and Immigration ............................................................ 37 2.3.a. The Securitization Approach ........................................................... 44 2.4. Collective identity and the ‘settler debate’ in northern Cyprus .................... 48 2.5. Operationalising the hypotheses ................................................................... 51 2.6. Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 62 3. THE ‘SETTLER DEBATE’ IN THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT 3.1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 65 3.2. Historical Legacies: Early conceptions of Turkishness in colonial Cyprus ...... 70 3.3. Turkish-Cypriot conceptions of identity after partition: ‘A Turk comes, another Turk goes’? .............................................................. 83 3.4. The EU and collective identity in northern Cyprus (1995-2013) ................... 94 3.5. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 106 1 Word Count: 79861 i 4. PARTY POLITICAL DISCOURSES ON IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP 4.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 111 4.2. Turkish-Cypriot political parties: An Overview ............................................ 112 4.3. The framing of immigration and citizenship on the eve of the (anticipated) EU accession ................................................................................................. 127 4.4. Identity politics in the post-2004 period ..................................................... 139 4.5. The impact of immigration across the political party narratives (1995-2013) ................................................................................ 153 4.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 162 5. TURKISH-CYPRIOT CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE ‘SETTLER DEBATE’ 5.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 165 5.2. Civil Society in northern Cyprus: An Overview ............................................ 167 5.3. Nationalist Responses .................................................................................. 174 5.4. ‘This Country is Ours’: Trade Unions and the immigration-settlement debate .......................................................................................................... 179 5.5. Immigrant Civil Society Organisations (ICSOs) ............................................. 186 5.6. Radical Perspectives ..................................................................................... 190 5.7. Evaluating civil society narratives (1995-2013) ........................................... 193 5.8. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 201 6. FRAMING OF IDENTITY, IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE PRINT MEDIA 6.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 203 6.2. Turkish-Cypriot print media: A Brief overview ............................................ 204 6.3. Media discourses on immigration on the eve of anticipated European Integration .................................................................................................. 211 6.4. The framing of Turkish migrants/settlers in the post-2004 period ............. 222 6.5. Identity (re)construction and the immigration-settlement debate in the Turkish- Cypriot newspapers (1995-2013) .................................................. 238 6.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 245 7. CONCLUSION 7.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 248 7.2. Nation, identity and differentiation: Dynamics of Change .......................... 249 7.3. Looking back: Research question and hypotheses revisited ....................... 260 7.4. Identity politics and kin-state relations: Contribution of the thesis............ 276 7.4.a. Relations between Turkey and the Turkish-Cypriot community .............................................................................................. 277 7.4.b. Identity politics and kin-state relations in non-recognised states ....................................................................................................... 279 ii 7.5. Conclusion: Looking ahead .......................................................................... 282 APPENDIX 1. ‘COMMUNAL SURVIVAL MOVEMENT’ LIST OF PARTICIPANTS 286 APPENDIX 2. ‘COMMUNAL SURVIVAL MOVEMENT’ DECLARATION 287 APPENDIX 3. ARCHIVAL PICTURES (1930-1960) 288 APPENDIX 4. SELECTED NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS (1985-2013) 289 APPENDIX 5. INDICATIVE STRUCTURE OF INTERVIEWS 293 APPENDIX 6. LIST OF INTERVIEWEES 294 BIBLIOGRAPHY 294 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1. Analytical timeframe and salience of immigration-related identity narratives ............................................................................................ 8 FIGURE 2. Research focus and the main signifiers of Turkish-Cypriot Identity .............................................................................................. 54 FIGURE 3. Domains of empirical investigation ..................................................... 56 FIGURE 4. Settler representations — securitizing logic ........................................ 59 FIGURE 5. Cyprus map — administrative divisions ............................................... 67 FIGURE 6. Turkish-Cypriot party positions .......................................................... 117 FIGURE 7. Turkish-Cypriot parliamentary elections (1976-2013) ...................... 125 FIGURE 8. Electoral performance of the mainstream parties over the selected timeframe (1995-2013) .......................................................126 FIGURE 9. Typology of the Turkish-Cypriot civil society ......................................169 FIGURE 10. Newspaper positions on immigration-settlement ........................... 209 iii ABSTRACT This study investigates the impact of Turkish ‘settlers’ on conceptions of collective identity in northern Cyprus during the period 1995-2013. It traces the discursive effects of immigration and the citizenship status of populations from Turkey on competing identity narratives in the context of Cyprus’s EU accession by focusing on three distinct empirical domains: political parties, civil society and the print media. Inspired by the conceptual framework of the poststructuralist discourse theory and constructivist readings on nationalism and immigration, the investigation seeks to explain the discursive mechanisms of identity construction and transformation in relation to immigration from Turkey which represents a key element in the narration of identity in northern Cyprus. More specifically, the thesis explores how the presence of populations from Turkey has been framed within the dominant narratives on identity along two antagonistic versions: Turkishness and Cypriotness. Using qualitative methodology based on discourse analysis, the empirical sections trace the continuity and change in these narratives and their framing of the ‘settler issue’ in the course of Cyprus’s EU accession and the ongoing anticipation on part of the Turkish-Cypriot community for eventual membership. The purpose of the investigation is to reveal the logic of securitization within both discourses that compete to attach a meaning onto identity in northern Cyprus. The findings demonstrate that the discursive space of the Turkish-Cypriot community is dominated by these competing, securitised versions of subjectivity and