ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the linkages between economic development, or lack thereof, in the predominantly Kurdish provinces in eastern and south-eastern Anatolia (ESA) and Turkey’s Kurdish question in the era of neoliberalism. It critically examines Turkey’s much-lauded development trajectory and strategy in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, which, until very recently, was widely contended to have created auspicious conditions for the resolution of Turkey’s multifaceted Kurdish question. Its central argument is that there is a symbiotic relationship between the Kurdish question in Turkey and the peculiar form of underdevelopment witnessed in ESA, which is accurately captured by the notion of de-development.
