A constitutional design for the management of diversity in Turkey: Consociational democracy

This thesis is based on the argument that the modernization and nation-building project carried out in the early republican period and the traditional methods that were a continuation of this project led to a conflict over the fundamental norms and values of the state, and that this conflict overlapped with and followed ethnic, religious and ideological fault lines. In Turkey, a paradigm shift towards a system in which important social groups can assert themselves, have autonomous space, and be proportionately represented at the executive level and in key public positions is considered a necessity for building and sustaining peace and democracy. In this context, it is believed that the mechanisms envisaged by the consociational power-sharing system, which is a constitutional design, is a suitable prescription for transforming conflicts into positive peace in Turkey, which has a divided/polarized social structure.