The Political Psychology of Securitization: The Case of the Kurdish Question in Türkiye

A sudden and indiscriminate attack by an ethnic minority on a majority group shocks society and provokes feelings that demand a response. Among the majority group on the receiving end of the attack, a sense of victimhood is aroused, ethnic identity is stimulated, and the desire to eliminate the threat and restore social order is heightened. Political leaders take the side of the victims of indiscriminate attacks, verbally condemn the attackers, and promise to eliminate the threat and restore order. The Copenhagen School of security studies calls this phenomenon of focusing on identity-related threats ‘securitization’, in which politicians politicize threats through linguistic acts and majorities gain a sense of unity or exhibit attitudes that exclude minorities. Using the Türkiye society with the Kurdish problem as a case study, this study aimed to explore the political-psychological characteristics of people in the context of securitization through an empirical approach. Securitization research has been dominated by qualitative analysis of political discourse. The unique feature of this study is that it brings an empirical dimension to securitization that has been lacking in securitization using quantitative methods. The results of this study show that in contemporary Türkiye society, government securitization measures are strongly internalized by citizens who support President Erdoğan and tend to support attacks on Kurdish armed groups abroad and restrictions on activities against Kurdish political parties.