By 1930, the ‘golden era of the Circassian diaspora’ seemed destined to be a distant memory. Consequently, when the CHP’s oppressive one-party rule was ended by the opposition Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti; DP) in a landslide victory in the general election of 1950, the Circassian political consciousness, collective political knowledge and organisational capacity accumulated in the Circassians’ first five decades of existence in Turkey had dramatically diminished. Therefore, at a time when the political life of the country was being overhauled, Circassian diaspora politics could not remain unaffected by this process. Against the refreshing atmosphere of multi-party democracy and the rapidly changing socio-political realities of the now pro-Western NATOmember Turkey, Circassian diaspora politics began to re-emerge, initially timidly but later robustly. In this chapter, I will look at three distinctive political traditions that

dominated the scene of diaspora politics from the 1950s until well into the 2000s, when informal groups began to emerge. They are United Caucasianism, Islamic-orientated activism, and the Centralist tradition with its two distinct variants: Returnism (Dönüs¸çülük) and Diasporism. I will examine these schools of thought through the formal organisations that represented them, which are, respectively, the cluster of United Caucasianist organisations, the Caucasus Trust, and the Federation of the Caucasian Associations (KAFFED). I believe that study of these groups is imperative in order to understand the political pedigree of the contemporary Circassian diaspora’s activism and dynamics.