Securitization of migration in Turkey since 1980: Cases of Kurds of Iraq and Turks of Bulgaria

Turkey has always been an important part of the migratory movements in its region either as sending, or receiving and transit country. This study deals with the immigration aspect of those movements especially after 1980s, defined as a landmark Turkey's migration history. Two initial mass migration events after this period were placed in the heart of this thesis, and separately at the first stage and then comparatively analyzed. Firstly, the Kurds of Iraq flow from then authoritarian repressive regime occurred in 1988, was examined, and secondly – akin to the first case- the Turks of Bulgaria who escaped from the assimilationist communist regime in the country in 1989. Though those events were consecutively experienced, the reception of the migrants in Turkey and the policies regarding them show some noteworthy differences and such differences mirror the level and extent of the securitization in the both cases. Since the main goal of this study is to put forth securitization of two migration group with its actors, sectors and levels, the Securitization Theory of the Copenhagen School is employed in this study. In the light of this theory, the official statements and news pieces from top newspapers are collected and analyzed through the discourse analysis method, thus the securitization which is a form of speech-act is comprehensively elaborated. In the end, the variations in securitizations of two events are comparatively analyzed and finding are evaluated in depth. I believe and hope that this study handling the early immigration movements and benefitting from archive resource, will contribute to better understand and further study the contemporary mass migratory movements towards Turkey such as Syrians in recent years on the grounds of Securitization Theory. Key Words: Securitization Theory, Iraqi Kurds, Bulgarian Turks, securitization, migration, securitization of migration