Strategic constructions of national/ethnic identities: the case of Northern Cyprus

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2008

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Arslan Akfırat, Serap

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Present dissertation aims to achieve three related objectives. First, it is aimed at investigating the theoretical view of Reicher and Hopkins (2001) that some people called ‘identity entrepreneurs’ actively try to re-define the limits and the contents of the social categories. For this purpose social political milieu of Northern Cyprus is chosen as it is intended to achieve the ingroup members’ support by portraying national/ethnic identity constructions of National Unity Party, which acknowledges supporting the independence of Turkish Republic of North Cyprus and the Republican Turkish Party, which acknowledges supporting the unification of Cyprus. In accordance with the first objective, the official documents of two parties were analyzed by Structural Analysis of Group Arguments (SAGA) technique. The results confirm that the definitions of Northern Cypriots, the Cyprus Problem, the solutions of the problem, and collective threats and interests were constructed by these parties in the service of their own political projects. Second study purposes to explore the identity constructions of lay Northern Cypriots in order to investigate the relationship between political and lay constructions. By the second objective 19 Turkish Cypriots who were not involved in politics actively (classified as anti and pro-integrationists iv based on their votes at the Referenda of Annan Plan) were interviewed. The results indicate that the lay Northern Cypriots narrated three identities when defining themselves as ‘Turkish’, ‘Turkish Cypriots’ and ‘Cypriots’, each of which implicated different constructions of the Cyprus problem, its possible solutions, and perceptions of collective threats and interests. All the constructions were made in accordance with their identity definitions and their votes at the referenda. The analysis also shows that the political and lay constructions are convergent at a great extent. Lastly, present work aims at investigating the relationship between national/ethnic identities and collective projects, quantitatively. Regarding the third objective a questionnaire study was conducted in North Cyprus, with 206 participants. The data confirmed the model, which proposed that social identities (Turkish, Turkish Cypriots and Cypriots) influenced attitudes towards unification through perceived collective interests and threats.

Subject Keywords

Psychology., Collective behavior., Cyprus, Psychology Phd thesis

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http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12609735/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/17843

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

S. Arslan Akfırat, “Strategic constructions of national/ethnic identities: the case of Northern Cyprus,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2008.