Minorities and Nationalism in Turkish Law

Dr Derya Bayır holds a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. Her doctoral research, which was awarded the Doctoral Thesis Prize by the Contemporary Turkish Studies Chair at the London School of Economics, offers a critical examination of the intersection between legal frameworks and ethnic nationalism in Turkey. She has held the prestigious Leverhulme Research Fellowship to investigate secular law and religious diversity in Turkey. Dr Bayır has extensive experience litigating before the European Court of Human Rights, including the landmark case of Güveç v. Turkey. Currently, Dr Bayır is an MSCA European Postdoctoral Fellow at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, where her research focuses on minority petitions to the League of Nations, expanding her expertise into historical international legal systems and their impact on minority rights. Dr Bayır’s research interests encompass international legal history, human and minority rights, ethnoreligious diversity in legal systems, nationalism, Ottoman pluralism, Kurdish studies, federal and autonomous legal systems, and linguistic rights. Her work contributes to broader discussions on the role of law in shaping identity and governance in diverse societies.

List of Abbreviations, Acknowledgements, Introduction, 1 The Ottoman Empire and Minorities, 2 Transition to the Turkish Nation-State, 3 Management of Diversity in the Turkish Nation-State, 1923–60, 4 The Myth of the Civic State and Turkish Ethnie in Law, 5 Nation and Minority in the Jurisprudence of the Turkish Constitutional Court, 6 ‘The right to equal concern and respect’: Equality, Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Laws in Turkey, Conclusion, List of Cases and Laws, Bibliography, Index