The Politics of Negotiating the Kurdish Self-Determination Conflict: Failure by Design?

This study explores the long-standing conflict over Kurdish self-determination as it played out in three cases of negotiations conducted between the governments of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, and the representatives of Kurdish movements from the 1970s onwards. Drawing on conflict and negotiations studie...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bezwan, Naif (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2022
In: International journal of conflict and violence
Year: 2022, Volume: 16, Pages: 1-19
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Summary:This study explores the long-standing conflict over Kurdish self-determination as it played out in three cases of negotiations conducted between the governments of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, and the representatives of Kurdish movements from the 1970s onwards. Drawing on conflict and negotiations studies, the paper seeks to explain (a) why efforts at negotiating the conflict in question have not been successful and (b) what reasons account for this failure. To this end, the study first conceptualizes the Kurdish question as a constitutive conflict of self-determination grounded in a dynamic contest between direct rule and self-rule. Second, it systematically links the failure of negotiations to the absence of substantive commitments by the states involved, the lack of collective action on the part of the Kurdish actors, and negative third-party involvement. The objective is to provide a theoretically guided and empirically informed conceptual approach to the failed politics of negotiating the Kurdish self-determination conflict.
ISSN:1864-1385
DOI:10.11576/ijcv-5777