Thinking Theoretically about the Kurds

Abstract:

Thinking theoretically about three important and recent events affecting the Kurds can help us to understand better their political experiences.¹ These events include (1) The breakdown of the Turkish Government-Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) cease-fire in July 2015; (2) the failure of the advisory referendum on independence that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq held on September 25, 2017; and (3) the Turkish military incursion into northeastern Syria (Rojava or Syrian Kurdistan) in October 2019. I first examine five different theories of international relations as well as the concept of levels of analysis and theories of nationalism. In doing so, I refer intermittently to these three important recent events concerning the Kurds and then describe them more fully to illustrate how thinking theoretically can help explain what happened and why.

Key Words:

• Constructivism
• Feminism
• Kurds
• Liberalism
• Marxism
• Nationalism
• Realism
• Theory
• Turkey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For background to the Kurdish issue, see David McDowall (2004) A Modern History of the Kurds, 3rd edn. (New York: I.B. Tauris). For a more recent analysis, see Michael M. Gunter (2019) The Kurds: A Divided Nation in Search of a State, 3rd ed. (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers).

2 For background, see Karen A. Mingst, Heather Elko McKibben & Ivan M. Arreguin-Toft (2019) Essentials of International Relations, 8th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company), pp. 5–6, and 68–104. In addition, for background on various methodological and theoretical approaches to Kurdish studies, see Bahar Baser, Mari Toivanen, Begum Zorlu & Yasin Duman (eds) (2019) Methodological Approaches in Kurdish Studies: Theoretical and Practical Insights from the Field (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books).

3 Hans J. Morgenthau (1978) Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th ed, rev. (New York: Knopf) generally is recognized as the leading exponent of the modern, post-World War II realist school.

4 Thucydides (1963) The Peloponnesian Wars, Benjamin Jowett (tran.), revised and abridged with an introduction by P. A. Brunt (New York: Washington Square Press, Inc., for Twayne Publishers), p. 181. Similarly, see Rupert Emerson (1971), who observed that “self-determination has from time to time been referred to as the right of the winner in a Darwinian conflict for survival,” In “Self-Determination,” American Journal of International Law, LXV, pp. 459–474, quote at p. 474

5 Ahmed Khani (2008) Mem and Zin, tran. by Salah Saadalla (Istanbul: Avesta ), p. 31.

6 Cited in “The CIA Report the President Doesn’t Want You to Read” (1976), The Village Voice, February 16, pp. 85 and 87–88.

7 Robert O. Keohane & Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (1977) Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little Brown).

8 On these points, see Alexander Wendt (1999) Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).

9 For an insightful interpretation along these lines, see Veli Yadirgi (2017) The Political Economy of the Kurds of Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) as well as some of the earlier writings of Ismail Besikci such as his (1991) Kurdistan & Turkish Colonialism: Selected Writings (London: Kurdistan Solidarity Committee and Kurdistan Information Centre).

10 For background, see Cynthia Enloe (2014) Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press); and J. Ann Tickner (1988) Hans Morgenthau’s Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformulation, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17(3), pp. 429–440.

11 Abdullah Ocalan (2013) Liberating Life: Woman’s Revolution (Cologne, Germany: International Initiative Edition in cooperation with Mesopotamian Publishers, Neuss).

12 Cited in Abdullah Ocalan (2017) The Political Thought of Abdullah Ocalan: Kurdistan, Woman’s Revolution, and Democratic Confederalism (London: Pluto Press), p. 93.

13 Cited in Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) (2019). Available at: [email protected], accessed September 24, 2019.

14 Cited in Rod Nordland, Women Are Free, and Armed, in Kurdish-Controlled Northern Syria, New York Times, February 24, 2018.

15 Kenneth N. Waltz (1954) Man, the State, and War (New York: Columbia University Press); and J. David Singer (1961) The Levels of Analysis Problem, in: James N. Rosenau (ed), International Politics and Foreign Policy, rev. ed., pp. 20–29 (New York: Free Press).

16 For background, see Michael E. Brown, Sean M. Lynn-Jones & Steven E. Miller (1966) Debating the Democratic Peace (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press); and Steven W. Hook (ed.) (2010) Democratic Peace in Theory and Practice (Kent, OH: Kent State University).

17 For background, see John Williamson (2000) What Should the World Bank Think about the Washington Consensus? The World Bank Research Observer, 15 (August), pp. 251–265.

18 See Joseph R. Biden & Leslie H. Gelb (2006) Unity through Autonomy in Iraq, New York Times, May 1.

19 For a sample of almost 50 different scholars, see John Hutchinson & Anthony D. Smith (eds) (1994) Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

20 John Armstrong (1982) Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina).

21 Anthony D. Smith (1986) The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell).

22 Ernest Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? in Hutchinson and Smith (eds), Nationalism, p. 17.

23 Ernest Gellner (1964) Thought and Change, 2nd edn. (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson), p. 168.

24 Benedict Anderson (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso).

25 Ernest Gellner (2008) Nations and Nationalism, p. 39 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).

26 Cited in Benyamin Neuberger (1977) “State and Nation in African Thought,” Journal of African Studies, 4(2), p. 202.

27 Eugene Weber (1976) Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (Stanford: Stanford University).

28 Martin van Bruinessen (2003) Ehmedi Xani’s Mem u Zin and Its Role in the Emergence of Kurdish National Awareness, in: Abbas Vali (ed), Essays on the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism, p. 44 (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda).

29 A classic study of modern Iranian nationalism, including how the Kurdish minority relates to it, is Richard W. Cottam (1979) Nationalism in Iran, updated to 1978 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press).

30 Hugh Seton-Watson (1977) Nations and States: An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism (Boulder: Westview), p. 148.

31 M. Hakan Yavuz (2001) Five Stages of the Construction of Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey, Nationalism & Ethnic Politics 7 (Autumn), p. 1.

32 Ibid, p. 2.

33 Ibid, p. 3. For further analyses, see M. Hakan Yavuz (1988) A Preamble to the Kurdish Question: The Politics of Kurdish Identity, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 18(1), pp. 9–18; and Robert Olson (1991), Five Stages of Kurdish Nationalism, 1880-1980, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 12(2), pp. 392–410.

34 Hamit Bozarslan (2003) Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey: From Tacit Contract to Rebellion (1919-1925), in: Abbas Vali (ed), Essays on the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism, p. 165.

35 Ibid.

36 For background, see C. J. Edmonds (1957) Kurds, Turks and Arabs: Politics, Travel and Research in North-Eastern Iraq, 1919-1925 (London: Oxford University Press); Wadie Jwaideh (2006) The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Its Origins and Development (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press,);

37 McDowall, Modern History of the Kurds, p. 158. Nevertheless, Sheikh Mahmud did declare himself “king of Kurdistan” in 1922.

38 Cited in Dana Adams Schmidt (1964), Journey among Brave Men (Boston: Little, Brown), pp. 109–110; see also William Eagleton, Jr. (1963) The Kurdish Republic of 1946 (London: Oxford University Press).

39 Gareth R.V. Stansfield (2003) Iraqi Kurdistan: Political Development and Emergent Democracy (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon).

40 For background to this situation, see Michael M. Gunter & M. Hakan Yavuz (2005) The Continuing Crisis in Iraqi Kurdistan, Middle East Policy, 12 (Spring), pp. 122–133.

41 See www.Kurdishmedia.com, May 2, 2006.

42 Cited in “Erbil Turkish Consulate” (DATE) http://erbil.co/listing/erbil-turkish-consulate, accessed October 5, 2017.

43 This citation and the following data were gleaned from Soner Cagaptay et al. (2015) Turkey and the KRG: An Undeclared Economic Commonwealth, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Watch 2387, March 16. http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/turkey-and-the-krg-an-undeclared-economic-commonweahth, accessed October 5, 2017.

44 Ibid.

45 For background, see Mesut Yegen (2011) The Kurdish Question in Turkey: Denial to Recognition, in: Marlies Casier & Joost Jongerden (eds), Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey: Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue, pp. 67–84 (London and New York: Routledge).

46 Mehmet Umit Necef (2013) Barzani and Erdogan Meet in Diyarbakir: A Historical Day, Center for Mellemoststudier, December. (Odense: University of Southern Denmark).

47 Cited in Asli Aydintasbas (2017) Why the Kurdish Referendum Is None of Turkey’s Business, Washington Post, October 2; Available at: https://washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/10/02/why-the-kurdish-referendum-is-none-of-turkeys-business/, accessed April 10, 2021.

48 Galip Dalai (2017) After the Kurdish Independence Referendum: How to Prevent a Crisis in Iraq, Foreign Affairs, October 2. Available online https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2017-10-02/after-kurdish-independence-referendum?cid=int-now&pgtype=qss, accessed October 2, 2017.

49 U.S Department of State (2017) Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government’s Planned Referendum, September 20. Available at: https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/09/274324.htm, accessed October 8, 2017.

50 Cited in Mustafa Gurbuz (2017) Does Turkey Really Want to Punish Iraqi Kurdistan? October 3. Available at: https://Arabcenterdc.org/policy-analyses/does-turkey-really-want-to-punish-iraqi-Kurdistan/, accessed October 4, 2017.

51 Cited in Aydintasbas, “Why the Kurdish Referendum is None of Turkey’s Business.”

52 Cited in Al-Jazeera. (2017) Iraqi Kurds Vote in Independence Referendum, September 25. Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/iraqi-kurds-vote-independence-referendum-170925032733525.html, accessed September 27, 2017.

53 Dalai, “After the Kurdish Independence Referendum.”

54 Murat Yetkin (2013) “A Rare Chance in the Kurdish Problem,” Hurriyet Daily News, January 7. Available at: http:www.hurriyetdailynews.com/a-rare-chance, accessed January 14, 2013. For recent, excellent background, see Cengiz Candar (2020) Turkey’s Mission Impossible: War and Peace with the Kurds (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books).

55 Hurriyet Daily News (2013) 100 PKK Militants to Lay Down Arms: Report, January 29. Available at: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/100-pkk-militants; accessed January 29, 2013; and Hurriyet (2013) PKK: Disarmament & Ceasefire in February?, January 29. Available at: http://www.mesop.de/2013/01/29/pkk-disarmament-ceasefire, accessed January 29, 2013.

56 The following analysis is largely based on Hurriyet Daily News (2013) PKK Leader’s Letter to Kandil Reaches Northern Iraq: Report, February 28. Available at: http://www/mesop.de.de/2013/02/28/pkk-leaders-letter , accessed March 1, 2013; and Ayla Jean Yackley (2013) Kurdish Rebel Leader Ocalan Airs Frustrations in Turkey Peace Process, Reuters, March 1. Available at: http://www.mesop.de/2013/03/01/Kurdish-rebel-leader, accessed March 1, 2013.

57 Today’s Zaman (2013) Turkey’s Erdogan Calls for More Support for Peace Move, February 26. Available at: http://www.todayszaman.com/news-308165-turkey’s-erdogan, accessed March 1, 2013.

58 Hurriyet (2013) Leak of Imrali Record Sparks Controversy over Its Source, February 29 [sic]. Available at: http://www.mesop.de/2013/02/28/leak-of-imrali-record, accessed March 1, 2013.

59 Cited in Ian Traynor & Constanze Letsch (2013) Locked in a Fateful Embrace: Turkey’s PM and His Kurdish Prisoner, The Guardian, March 1. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/01/turkey-pm-kurdish-prisoner-peace, accessed March 1, 2013.

60 The data were taken from Ian Traynor (2013) Turks and Kurds Look to Good Friday Accords as Template for Peace, The Guardian, March 1. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/01/turk-kurd-good-friday-accords, accessed March 1, 2013.

61 Hemin Khoshnaw (2013) Salih Muslim’s Ankara Visit Marks Major Policy Change, Rudaw, July 29. Available at: http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/29072013, accessed April 10, 2021.

62 Fulya Ozerkan (2013) Turkey Softens Stance on Syria’s Emboldened Kurds after Launching Peace Process at Home, Daily Star (Beirut), August 9. Available at: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/ArticlePrint.aspx?id=226577, accessed April 10, 2021

63 This and the following citation and data were adapted from Jonathan Burch (2013) Syrian Kurds Take Fragile Steps toward Autonomy, Daily Star (Lebanon), August 3. Available at: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Aug-03/226122-syrian-kurds-take-fragile-steps-toward-autonomy.ashx, accessed April 10, 2021

64 See, for example, Hande Firat (2017) We Will Not Allow a Kurdish State on Our Borders: Erdoğan, Hurriyet Daily News, August 24. Available at: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/we-will-not-allow-a-kurdish-state-on-our-borders-erdogan-.aspx?pageID=517&nID=117059&NewsCatID=352, accessed August 30, 2017. Erdoğan is quoted as declaring that the term “Kurdish state” is an “insult to my Kurdish brothers. . . . We will send those who want to break this nation [Turkey] apart to the grave.”

65 See, for example, “Barzani” No US ‘Support’ for Kurdish Referendum if Postponed (2017) Rudaw, November 11. Available at: http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/11112017, accessed November 15, 2017.

66 For background on Kirkuk, see Liam Anderson & Gareth Stansfield (2009) Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press).

67 For further penetrating thoughts on the KRG’s miscalculations, see Denise Natali (2017) Iraqi Kurdistan Was Never Ready for Statehood, Foreignpolicy.com, October 31. Available at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/31/iraqi-kurdistan-was-never-ready-for-statehood, accessed November 15, 2017; and Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi (2017) Iraq Kurdistan’s Crisis: A Failure of Strategy, The American Spectator, October 22. Available at: http://www.meforum.org/6976/iraqi-kurdistan-crisis-a-failure-of-strategy, accessed November 15, 2017.