Conference proceedings presenting the first opportunity for leading figures in the burgeoning area of archaeological research in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq to gather and present all the key new projects which are revolutionising our understanding of the region.
Shining a light on how Iraqi Kurds used the aftermath of the 1991 Kurdish uprising to hold elections and form a parliament, and on how Kurdish officials later consolidated their regional government following the 2003 Iraq War, this book considers the political and economic shortfalls of the government and the obstacles facing Iraqi Kurds.
The Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed de facto statehood in the north of Iraq for over a decade but Intra-Kurdish fighting, military incursions by Turkey and Iran and the constant threat posed by Saddam Hussein have plagued this 'democratic experiment'. In this book, Stansfield explores the development of the Kurdish political system since 1991. He examines the difficult and often violent relations between the two dominant powers, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and their relationship with the Kurdish Regional Government in order to understand the current state of Iraqi Kurdish politics and the operation of the state. This topical in-depth study identifies the main dynamics of Iraqi Kurdish politics, analyzes the record and potential of the 'Kurdish democratic experiment', and identifies the present and future Kurdish leaders.
The Kurds of Iraq have been making headlines for many decades: in the eighties and early nineties mostly as victims of brutal suppression, in the mid-nineties as victims of each others heavy in-fighting, and since then mainly through their success in achieving a high degree of independence and prosperity within Iraq. The Kurds of Iraq is a book about the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, governed by the highly autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. The IKR has a 200,000-strong army, its own borders and border patrols, and even its very own stamps. In stark contrast with its volatile past, the IKR, often referred to as The Other Iraq, enjoys a high degree of safety and a booming economy. While most books about the Kurds of Iraq focus solely on military, political and humanitarian issues, this book provides unique insights into their farming methods, the position of women, journalism, telecommunications, life in the villages, leisure and, not least, the magnificent archaeological treasures to be found there.
This edited volume addresses the issues of Iraqi Kurdistan’s political economy with historically grounded, theoretically informed, and conceptually relevant scholarship that prioritizes comparative politics over international relations. The book seeks to explore the dynamics of Iraqi Kurdistan at the stage of referendum for independence from a political economy perspective within its own debates, conflicts, and interests. Overall, the authors contribute to these debates by exploring key questions in novel ways, focusing on comparative methodology that serve to expand the scope of scientific inquiry and place it into more solid understanding.
Due to its primacy in explaining issues of war and peace in the international arena, the discipline of International Relations (IR) looms large in analyses of and responses to ethnic conflict in academia, politics and popular media – in particular with respect to contemporary conflicts in the Middle East. Grounded in constitutive theory, this book challenges how ethnic/ethno-nationalist conflict is represented in explanatory IR by deconstructing its most prominent state-centric models, frameworks and analytical concepts. As much a critique of contemporary scholarship on Kurdish ethno-nationalism as a detailed analysis of the most prominent Kurdish ethno-nationalist actors, the book provides the first in-depth investigation into the relations between the PKK and the main Iraqi Kurdish political parties from the 1980s to the present. It situates this inquiry within the wider context of the ambiguous political status of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, its relations with Turkey, and the role Kurdish parties and insurgencies play in the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Appreciating these complex dynamics and how they are portrayed in Western scholarship is essential for understanding current developments in the Iraqi and Syrian theatres of war, and for making sense of discussions about a potential independent Kurdish state to emerge in Iraq. Iraqi Kurdistan provides a comprehensive and critical discussion of the state-centric and essentialising epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies of the three main paradigms of explanatory IR, as well as their analytical models and frameworks on ethnic identity and conflict in the Middle East and beyond. It will therefore be a valuable resource for anyone studying ethnicity and nationalism, International Relations or Middle East Politics.
Anthropologist Diane E. King has written about everyday life in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which covers much of the area long known as Iraqi Kurdistan. Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’thist Iraqi government by the United States and its allies in 2003, Kurdistan became a recognized part of the federal Iraqi system. The Region is now integrated through technology, media, and migration to the rest of the world. Focusing on household life in Kurdistan’s towns and villages, King explores the ways that residents connect socially, particularly through patron-client relationships and as people belonging to gendered categories. She emphasizes that patrilineages (male ancestral lines) seem well adapted to the Middle Eastern modern stage and viceversa. The idea of patrilineal descent influences the meaning of refuge-seeking and migration as well as how identity and place are understood, how women and men interact, and how “politicking” is conducted. In the new Kurdistan, old values may be maintained, reformulated, or questioned. King offers a sensitive interpretation of the challenges resulting from the intersection of tradition with modernity. Honor killings still occur when males believe their female relatives have dishonored their families, and female genital cutting endures. Yet, this is a region where modern technology has spread and seemingly everyone has a mobile phone. Households may have a startling combination of illiterate older women and educated young women. New ideas about citizenship coexist with older forms of patronage. King is one of the very few scholars who conducted research in Iraq under extremely difficult conditions during the Saddam Hussein regime. How she was able to work in the midst of danger and in the wake of genocide is woven throughout the stories she tells. Kurdistan on the Global Stage serves as a lesson in field research as well as a valuable ethnography.
Examining the interplay between the oil economy and identity politics using the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as a case study, this book tells the untold story of how extractivism in the Kurdish autonomous region is interwoven in a mosaic of territorial disputes, simmering ethnic tensions, dynastic rule, party allegiances, crony patronage, and divergent visions about nature. Since the ousting of Saddam Hussein, the de-facto borders of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have repeatedly changed, with energy interests playing a major role in such processes of territorialisation. However, relatively little research exists on the topic. This book provides a timely, empirical analysis of the intersections between extractive industries, oil imaginaries, and identity formation in one of the most coveted energy frontiers worldwide. It shines a light on relations between the global production networks of petro-capitalism and extractive localities. Besides the strained federal relationship with the Iraqi central government, the transformative effects the petroleum industry has had on Kurdish society are also explored in depth. Moreover, the book fills a gap in the literature on Kurdish Studies, which has devoted scant attention to energy-related issues in the re-imagination of Kurdish self-determination. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the extractive industries, energy studies, conflict studies, Middle Eastern politics, and political ecology.
Exploring a new political phenomenon in the Middle East, this book studies the reconciliation of nationalism and Islamism by Islamic political parties in the context of nation states. Islamism in Kurdistan has become significantly framed by the politics of nationalism. Although the concept of religious nationalism has been discussed substantially before, this work highlights a new brand of religious nationalism that has emerged as a result of intertwining nationalism and Islamism. The focus of this study is on the development of religious nationalism in the continuously tumultuous region of the Middle East. The volume investigates whether Islamism in Kurdistan is limited by the politics of nationalism – which is an accentuated example for the whole Middle East region. By looking at the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), the research studies Islamism in the Kurdistan Region to elaborate on this new type of politics. This is essentially due to the absence of a politically recognised nation state, which renders Kurds to be particularly susceptible to various manifestations of nationalism. Offering an account on the spread of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Kurdistan Region, this original research on Kurdish nationalism will be a key text for students and researchers interested in nationalism, Islamism and Middle East politics.