ABSTRACT
According to the commonly accepted nationalist paradigm, minorities do not form part of the unity that nations aspire to. In a way, their existence runs counter to the supposed will of the nation and their very existence is tolerated but not accepted by the majority. While the nineteenth-century nationalist dream of a so-called pure nation seems to have resurfaced in the twenty-first century, this dream has become nearly impossible to achieve in Europe, for at least three reasons. First, the progressive denationalization of governance has imposed the transfer of sovereignty to supranational political, cultural and economic structures. Second, access to transportation, although it exposes the huge and persistent gap in wealth between North and South, has empowered transnational communities. Third, there has been a shift towards micro or autonomous entities (e.g. regions, federate entities, Euroregions), which has promoted the ongoing creation and reshaping of entities within the nation. Thus, the democratization process of a country, especially in the case of Turkey, can be seen in its attitude towards minorities. The treatment of minorities becomes a measure of the degree of democratization.
