Turkish-Armenian Conflict

Turkish-Armenian Conflict

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Turkish-Armenian Conflict

Introduction

On the nights of April 24th and 25th , 1915 , several hundred Armenian political , financial and intellectual leaders were arrested in Constantinople , deported to Anatolia , and murdered . This event is recognized as the official beginning of the ethnic conflict perpetrated against the Armenians residing in the Ottoman Empire (Adalian 53 Ultimately , the ethnic conflict cost Armenians residing in the Ottoman Empire over half their population (Astourian 113-114 . The Turkish-Armenian ethnic conflict had its origins in the aspirations of

br the dictatorial triumvirate belonging to the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP (Adalian 54 . Enver was Minister of War . Talaat was Minister of the Interior . Jemal was Minister of the Navy and military governor of Syria . In 1913 , Enver , Jemal and Talaat seized the government in a coup and ruled the empire with a Turkish nationalist ideology for the following five years

This project examines elite perceptions and the adoption of an extremist policy of controlled ethnic conflict . Elites hold financial power and have the power to influence and shape the media . Elites control the state and ultimately the elites develop a policy of ethnic conflict utilizing the power they hold . The project addresses two questions in an effort to understand how an extremist policy of ethnic conflict is adopted . The two additional questions are : What makes the ground ripe for ethnic conflict ? How do political elites come to view ethnic conflict as a viable policy solution

Theoretical Background

According to Benjamin Valentino , explanations for the occurrence of ethnic conflict are considered to fall into either the primordial or instrumental theoretical categories in qualitative research or within an empirical model in quantitative research . Valentino (2004 ) provides an overview of explanations accounting for what causes ethnic conflict According to Valentino , three broad categories denote preconditions for the occurrence of ethnic conflict . These categories include : social cleavages , national crises , and the concentration of political power in certain forms of government . Scholars who suggest social cleavages as the precondition to the occurrence of ethnic conflict focus on the presence of deep divisions between different groups living in the same society . They understand conflict to be initiated because of those divisions within society (Valentino 17 . Deep divisions can include religious and ethnic cleavages

Primordialists and instrumentalists offer explanations for the outbreak of violence between groups . Primordialists argue that innate differences account for the violence that is witnessed . Instrumentalists argue that identities are construed to serve political and economic objectives and can become contentious . However , the primordialist explanation does not accurately account for the horrors witnessed in the mass killings that have occurred in the 20th century . The murder of half the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 can be more accurately explained using an instrumentalists understanding of the origins of conflict

Primordialism and instrumentalism frame the theoretical debate explaining the occurrence of ethnic conflict . The primordialist approach suggests that individuals coalesce because of the innate attachments they have formed with each other (Geertz 109 . Instrumentalism suggests...