Ethnic Minorities in Israel and Turkey (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics)

Ethnic Minorities in Israel and Turkey: Inside Outsiders offers a compelling comparative analysis of state- minority relations, revealing how national identity is constructed and contested through the lens of two of the region’s most enduring ethnic conflicts.

Through extensive fieldwork and elite interviews, this book investigates how Israeli and Turkish political elites have responded to the political mobilization of their largest minorities – Palestinians and Kurds. It traces the historical trajectories of nation-building, examines the securitization of minority rights, and explores the ways in which demands for autonomy, recognition, and equal participation are interpreted as existential threats to national unity. Drawing on the ethnic boundary-making framework, the chapters analyse how divergent strategies – exclusion in Israel and forced assimilation in Turkey – have shaped patterns of inclusion and exclusion, with particular attention to the symbolic role of trans-border kinship, collective rights, and political representation. By highlighting the narratives of political elites, this book illuminates how ethnic minorities come to be treated as “inside outsiders,” navigating the tensions between national loyalty and ethnocultural affiliation.

Essential reading for scholars of comparative politics, nationalism, Middle East studies, and ethnic relations, this book deepens our understanding of how contested identities are negotiated in the modern nation-state.

Z. Aslı Elitsoy received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Bilkent University and holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from Tel Aviv University. She is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. Her research is based on extensive fieldwork in Turkey and Israel with a focus on ethnicity, nationalism, minority politics, and migration. Her work has been published in international academic journals such as Security Dialogue, New Perspectives on Turkey, and Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies.