At the start of the twenty-first century, Turkey's state institutions are increasingly unable to keep up with the complex changing structure, needs, and demands of a heterogeneous Turkish society. Despite strong centrifugal tendencies along ethnic, religious, and national lines among the population, Turkish nationalism or its more recent version, the so-called Turkish-Islamic synthesis, is still promoted as a unifying force (Bozarslan 1996). In its practical functioning the state has been forced…