ABSTRACT
This chapter, as opposed to Chapter 4, analyzes the policies’ impact on PKK violence from the PKK’s internal dynamics to verify the findings from analyses conducted from the perspective of the policies. It lays out a historical and process-oriented approach to portray the evolution of the PKK. In other words, it analyzes how the violence carried out by the PKK in Turkey since 1984 relates to the internal dynamics of the PKK. Mainly, it identifies the form, purpose (including target status), and level of violence and relates them to the PKK’s strategic shifts over time as it evolved. Ultimately, political violence-based conflict (between the ruling and non-ruling entity) occurs in a context of interaction and unfolds as a structural and strategic response. In this regard, identifying the dynamic process of strategic interaction between the Turkish state and the PKK is crucial to understanding the organizational/institutional behavior of both the PKK and the government. To do the analysis, this chapter examines the PKK’s devised strategies during the entire process, and in this way it discusses the PKK’s perception of the policies as well as its responses to them.
