Bücher der Reihe Kurdish Societies, Politics, and International Relations

In light of the changes that the Kurds and the countries in the Middle East are undergoing, The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics provides a comprehensive analysis of the Kurdish-state relations in the four key Middle Eastern countries.

This book examines how the USA decided, reluctantly at first, to use the Syrian Kurds as a cheap proxy warrior against ISIS and how this partnership evolved, in the end, into a not-so-cheap investment owing to its unforeseen geopolitical implications.

Thriving in the context of political vacuums created by state weakness, the armed non-state actors in the Middle East, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Kurds increasingly demonstrate features of both state and non-state actors and act autonomously in their foreign policy. Rethinking State-Non-State Alliances: Change and Continuity in the U.S.-Kurdish Relationship investigates the growing influence of Middle Eastern non-state actors as agents of foreign policy through an analysis of the U.S.-Kurdish relationship. Ozum Yesiltas analyzes the underlying causes of increased U.S.-Kurdish cooperation since the early 1990s and addresses the extent to which existing approaches in international relations are adequate in explaining the changing political landscape in the Middle East that brought the U.S. and Kurds together in new ways. Yesiltas draws attention to the ways in which U.S-Kurdish interactions contributed to the escalation of Kurdish nationalism as a transnational phenomenon, and how the growing saliency of Kurdish transnational politics reshapes U.S. foreign policy and broader regional order.

This book has two specific objectives. First is to examine the Kurdish regional impacts by looking at the engagement of non-state actors such as Kurds in Syria, the PKK, and ISIS; second is to analyze the challenges and the opportunities raised after 2011 for implementation of the ZPN policy towards Iraqi Kurdistan by Turkey.

A Critical Evaluation of "Territorial Separation" as a Method of Addressing Ethnic Conflicts addresses the question of how to address ethnic conflicts in Kirkuk as a diverse multi-ethnic city. It analyzes territorial separation as a new untested method to address ethnic conflicts in Kirkuk.

Previous researches examine how transnational ethnic ties impact the relationship between host states and diaspora and why states and ethnic minorities in the diaspora may occasionally support violent rebel organizations in the homeland. However, these previous studies do not really consider the relationships among co-ethnic organizations without a homeland government. This book tackles the following important questions: How and when do co-ethnic Kurdish organizations provide open support for each other during conflict-peace cycle events? Moreover, do external threats impact the relationship among co-ethnic organizations? The aim of this research is to identify the causal factors that influence the transnational networks between Kurdish organizations. Research findings reveal that political rationality and external threats seem to be stronger predictors of political behavior than ethnic ties in the Kurdish case. This study helps scholars and policy makers to evaluate the impact of transnational networks between co-ethnic Kurdish organizations in cases of civil war, which may play a crucial role in the escalation and de-escalation of international conflicts. In addition, this research helps to understand the role of co-ethnic organizations in building sustainable peace in areas of conflict.

The author argues that a part of the history of nation building in Iraq through addressing its political characters, different communities, agreements and pan Arab ideology, including the Baath ideology and its attempts to seize power through nondemocratic methods. It is an attempt to approach the essence of the exclusion mentality of the ruling elite in order to understand the process of genocide against the Kurdish people, including all existing religious minorities. This essence of the process has been approached in the framework of the civilizing and de-civilizing process as a main theory of the German sociologist, Norbert Elias. Thus, this book may be considered as one of the comprehensive books to present a study of state-building in Iraq, along with identifying some of the political figures that had an essential impact on the construction. On the other hand, it is a comprehensive study of the genocide, in the sense of searching for the causes and roots of the genocide. The Anfal campaigns took place in 1988, but the process started as far back as the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies of the last century.

Using an in-depth ethnographic study and interviews, Home and Sense of Belonging among Iraqi Kurds in the UK explores how Iraqi Kurds living in the UK conceptualise their sense of home and belonging and analyzes the differences in generational and gendered perspectives within Kurdish communities.

Providing a unique record of the authoritarian, centralist and ultra-nationalist nature of the Turkish state manifested in Erdogan's "New Turkey," Candar challenges stereotyped and conventional views on Turkey and details account of the encounter between Turkey and the Kurds in historical perspective with special emphasis on failed peace processes.

Media and Politics in Kurdistan studies the media system in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). It offers understanding on the internal dynamics of the KRI polity by focusing on the interdependence between the Kurdish political parties and the media.

This book unpacks the diversity of experiences of Kurdishness in Turkey. By doing that, this book fills the gap within the literature on ethnicities.

In Kurdish Identity, Islamism, and Ottomanism: The Making of a Nation in Kurdish Journalistic Discourse (1898-1914), Deniz Ekici argues that the Kurdish periodicals of the late Ottoman period served as a communicative space in which Kurdish intellectuals constructed, negotiated, and disseminated an unambiguous Kurdish ethnic nationalism.

National sovereignty entails exclusive ownership of territories and natural resources, which often leads to uncompromising domination and subjugation of life by a central political authority. In a stark contrast, the Kurdish vision of political community invokes communal sovereignty, which is detached from the nation and the territorial state.

The Kurdish Alevis has only recently attracted the attention of the international world. This volume achieves an understanding of the history and the contemporary situation of the Kurdish Alevis and the particular conditions where it is associated with the Kurdish identity, Alevi religion, and the history of Turkey.

This book assesses the implications of increased use of social media platforms for democratization in a hybrid political system such as Iraqi Kurdistan. It finds that using social media has increased online political participation and political communication, but without a positive effect on the democratization process.

This ethnographic volume features fresh research by junior scholars of contemporary Kurdish studies. The contributions are assembled around four themes: women's participation, paramilitary, space, and infrapolitics of resistance.

The main objective of this book is to understand the extent and the motives behind the shift in Turkey's foreign policy towards the Kurdistan Regional Government from an alternative globalist perspective by examining a ten-year period of Turkey's foreign policy.

The Kurdish Alevis has only recently attracted the attention of the international world. This volume achieves an understanding of the history and the contemporary situation of the Kurdish Alevis and the particular conditions where it is associated with the Kurdish identity, Alevi religion, and the history of Turkey.

This book sheds light on the intricacies of conducting fieldwork on highly politicized and sensitive topics as well as in conflict settings. It addresses both the epistemological and theoretical along with the practical challenges related to such fieldwork in Kurdish Studies.