Although the beginning of terrorism in Turkey can be traced back decades, the question of how terrorism should be studied is still rarely asked. The methodological problems, one of the most important problems that terrorism studies has difficulty in overcoming, is felt more in academic studies in Turkey than in the rest of the World. While a significant part of the studies are in the form of repetition that contain general descriptions and explanations, there is often the problem of repeating each other and not producing data in those studies written with the claim of including case study analysis. This study has two main arguments. The first argument is that most of the academic studies on terrorism in Turkey lack of methodological approach that makes the studies scientific. The second argument is the case studies of terrorist organizations operating in Turkey are insufficient compared to their potential. In order to verify these arguments, postgraduate studies written in Turkey were scanned and awareness of methodology and which research method was used were determined. In addition, the studies on terrorist organizations operating in Turkey were examined and the situation of case studies was revealed.

Since its establishment, Turkey, which has been the target of various domestic and foreign terrorist organizations that differ from each other in terms of their goals, motivations, methods, opportunities, and capabilities, brought together the knowledge and experience accumulated for decades in the fight against terrorism with the academia at a very late stage. In fact, although Turkey’s academic awareness of terrorism studies increased at an earlier stage; it is possible to say that mental transformation and preparation are not parallel to the process and level of institutionalization. The main reason for this is the late emergence of the institutionalization of terrorism studies in Turkey and the ongoing effort for institutionalization. As a matter of fact, this article examines why the academic interest in terrorism and terrorism-related issues, which has been gradually increasing in Turkey since the early 2000s, still cannot take institutionalization to the desired level as well as its concrete output reflected in graduate thesis studies at the same time. The quantitative findings revealed by the data collected on graduate thesis studies suggest that Turkish literature on terrorism is rapidly enriching; however, the scope and content of dissertations, the inadequacy of academic programs, academic experts and curriculum indicate a pessimistic outlook for the quality of the future terrorism research.

When the concept of radicalism is evaluated with the phenomenon of terror, violence is the main agent that correlates these two conceptualizations. In literature, the decision to participate into a terrorist organization is framed as a process enhanced by radicalism. However, every terrorist organization has unique characteristics, which make it difficult to derive a common pattern for individual-organization relationship. In this study, the subject of relation between radicalization and participation decision into the PKK is analyzed through the organizational documents of the PKK, member recruitment techniques, participation age of the individuals, and the characteristics of the regions that mostly the participation to the PKK occurs. The methodology of the study is discourse analysis. Through the qualitative analysis of the documents, it is detected that participation processes to the PKK basically depends on the psychological and socio-economic positions of the individuals, which are manipulated by the propaganda techniques of the PKK. Hence, it is concluded in the study that for some group of individuals, decision to participate into the PKK is not for the perpetuation of the violence based on the ideology of the PKK but because of the illusory mental image of the organization depends on the promised alternative life.

The aim of this study is to examine the terrorism and radicalization literature in Turkey by comparing the academic articles published in peer-reviewed journals in Turkey with those published internationally in terms of quantity and content. For this purpose, academic articles published in peer-reviewed national journals which constitute an important part of the Turkish literature, were compared with the articles published internationally. Academic articles published in Turkish national peer-reviewed journals on terrorism and radicalization was searched on the “TR Dizin” website, which operates under The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. The data was analyzed with the “content analysis” method, which enables large volume texts to be reduced to sub categories. The titles and abstracts of the articles listed by “TR Dizin” were collected under a word document; frequently repeated words were identified and visualized with word clouds. It is among the results of this research that terrorism and radicalization studies in Turkey is mostly behind the studies published in foreign publications in terms of quantitative terms, and that they mostly repeat the articles published in foreign publications in terms of their content.

Son on yilda meydana gelen olaylar, Türkiye ve çevresinde simdiye kadar görülen en büyük göç dalgasini tetikledi. Suç örgütleri kârliligi nedeniyle insan kaçakçiliginda önemli bir rol oynamistir. PKK gibi terör örgütleri de maddi ihtiyaçlari nedeniyle insan ticareti ve kaçakçiligi isleriyle ugrasmaktadir. PKK terör örgütü de çesitli amaçlarla insan ticareti ve göçmen kaçakçiligi suçlarinda yer almakta, bu suçlari dogrudan islemekte veya bu amaçla diger suç örgütleri ile iliski kurmaktadir.

Considering the scarcity of studies on terrorism based on primary data, there is a need for more fieldwork in armed conflict zones. This study aims to explain how fieldwork can be conducted in such areas. In the study, the conceptual explanations were supported by the experiences gained in the fieldwork conducted in Colombia between 2020 and 2021. The first part of the study focuses on why there is a need for fieldwork in areas of armed conflict. Second part examines the methods that could be used is fieldwork, namely participant observation, interviews, and focus group study, and evaluates the implementation of these methods in armed conflict zones. Since fieldwork includes direct contact with human beings, research ethics is an important issue in these studies. For this reason, the third part of the study discusses the ethical issues and presents practical information about ethics committee processes. The final part of the study discusses the dangers of conducting fieldwork in armed conflict zones and the security measures that can be taken against these dangers. This part also explains the measures taken in the fieldwork in Colombia on the security of the researchers, the security of the participants, and the security of data.

This article has been written with the aim of introducing the Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS), which emerged as a reaction to the problems seen in terrorism studies and the "orthodoxy" in traditional terrorism studies, and to reveal the effects of this research agenda on the terrorism literature in Turkey. For this purpose; in the article, first of all, in the context of the emergence of terrorism studies, the characteristics that dominate traditional terrorism studies will be revealed, and then the emergence process of CTS, which are not very well known in Turkey, and their criticisms of mainstream terrorism approaches will be mentioned. Finally, the effects of CTS on terrorism studies in Turkey have been tried to be determined through the literature review for postgraduate theses prepared on the relevant subject and articles in periodicals.