The collective production of challenge

How do regional dissidents thwart authorities and create insurgent political enclaves? How do such contenders marshal the resources to resist official sanctions and repression, and to gain and hold local office in defiance of national trends? This chapter explores these questions through an analysis of pro-Kurdish parties ¹ and their social footing in the city of Diyarbakır, one of the largest cities in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish southeast and often viewed as the unofficial capital of the country’s Kurdish region. Pro-Kurdish parties have performed better in Diyarbakır than almost anywhere else in Turkey since they first began participating in electoral contests in 1991. From 1995 to 2011, at least 45 percent of the province’s votes for parliamentary deputies went to Kurdist candidates and parties, and the city has consistently elected Kurdist mayors since pro-Kurdish parties first competed in municipal elections in 1999. ² All of this flies in the face of repeated state efforts to suppress the parties and is in stark distinction to the performance of the parties outside the southeastern region, i.e. in western Turkey or Anatolia, where it has been uncommon for them to receive more than 5 percent of the total vote.