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The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity |
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reviewed by Tugay Zehir |
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Author: David Romano |
ISBN:
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Publisher:
New York: Cambridge University Press |
Page:
277 |
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Type:
Paperback |
Price:
$50 |
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Review: |
David Romano had his book, The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity, published by Cambridge Middle East Studies in 2006. While Romano was preparing this book, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Inter-University Consortium for Arab and Middle East Studies in Canada, but is today an Assistant Professor of International Studies in Rhodes College. The book’s content relates to the Kurdish nationalist resurgence and its explanation with some social movement theories, which involve socio-political structures, resource mobilization strategies, and cultural identity. Romano also tries to explain the synthesis of these theories, particularly together with the Kurdish case in Turkey.
After some theoretical explanations, he provides some historical information regarding Iraqi and Iranian Kurds, and compares their cases with Turkey’s under the synthesis of three social movement theories. In conclusion, the author summarizes his assessments regarding theoretical synthesis and about the Kurdish nationalist movement in general.
In the first chapter, Romano begins with an introduction and explains why he chose to study the Kurdish case. After this point he examines the theory of social movements in terms of structural approaches, resource mobilization and rational choice, and social psychology and identity before trying to combine these theories. He emphasizes the main claims of these theories with some examples from different cases and different authors. Furthermore, he adds that the synthesis of these theories or approaches is not merely additive; it places a good deal of attention on the interaction between the structural, strategic, and cultural levels of analysis.
In the second chapter, the author focuses on the usefulness of a structural analysis to explain Kurdish ethnic nationalist opposition to the state in Turkey. He gives some parameters about structural analysis and uses the McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald’s notion of opportunity structure. Romano then begins the analysis with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the opportunity structures of World War I conditions for the Kurdish population in the region. He provides same facts about the significant Kurdish uprisings during that time for instance, the Sheikh Said and Kuchgiri revolts. Afterwards, Romano continues with Turkey’s political structural conditions from the foundation of the Republic of Turkey to 2004. So in this section, the author tries to explain the structural opportunities of the Kurdish population in Turkey in different eras and with different political issues such as coups, democratic developments, and terrorist organizations.
After structural analysis regarding the Kurdish nationalist movement in Turkey, Romano analyzes the same situation with a different social movement theory—rational choice and resource mobilization. According to Romano, if we accept that identity is a dynamic phenomenon and ethnic nationalist movements often play a major role in fostering ethnic identification in the first place, then resource mobilization and rational choice analysis can provide some very useful insights. After establishing some parameters about this social movement theory, he begins to analyze the early years of PKK in Turkey. He tries to examine the foundation of PKK and the response of Turkish state to this organization by using this same theory. The author then continues examining the conditions of the Kurdish population between the state and PKK after the 1980 coup, and analyzes the behaviors of these people with rational choice theory.
Following this section, the author uses cultural framing analysis for the Turkish-Kurdish case. He begins with the definition of framing, which is the conscious strategic effort by groups of people to fashion shared understandings of the world and of them in a way that legitimates and motivates collective action. Then, he provides some information regarding the effect of cultural tools and parameters of this analysis. In continuation, he does not only focus on PKK relations like in the previous section, but tries to examine the entire Republican history of Turkey. In this sense, Romano explains the cultural framing contest between the Turkish state and other forms of social movements since the beginning of the Republic. He gives some examples of laws which are used as cultural tools against other social movements and particularly against the responses of the Kurdish nationalist movement. For instance, the Kurdish political party, KADEK, was the framing response to the state for Romano. He then emphasizes the role of state media, information monopolies, and insurgent media in the framing process with examples from media.
Romano proceeds to evaluate the synthesis of these theories with illustrations regarding society in Turkey. For him, resource mobilization could be useful for defining the PKK, structural opportunities could play an important role in determining the form that movements take and the timing of their challenges to the state, and cultural framing could be helpful in understanding the contest between the state and other social movements.
Prior to the conclusion, the last two sections are not related to Turkey in particular, as Romano explains the main historical cases and issues regarding Iraqi and Iranian Kurds. According to him, the Kurdish case in Iraq and Iran merits the same kind of detailed attention as its case in Turkey has received, but the examinations and comparisons made in these two parts remain simplified and more brief. So he comments on the main and important historical cases regarding Kurds in Iraq and Iran. For instance, he notes the significant revolts, major political actors such as Barzani and Talabani, the international dimension of northern Iraq, and facts about Saddam’s violent policy towards Iraqi Kurds. In Iran’s case, he provides information about some revolts, the trial of the Kurdish state (the Mahabad Republic), and the Shah’s policies towards Iranian Kurds.
In his conclusion, David Romano claims that the synthesis of opportunity structures, resource mobilization, and identity framing is not intended to serve as a falsifiable paradigm or theory. Rather its intent is to focus the analysis of social movements on the most important factors, serving as a theoretical framework of explanation. Thus, the Kurdish case was examined in this work as a sort of heuristic application of these theories and their synthesis. After this explanation, the author summarizes the main point of the work’s chapters. He then evaluates the Kurdish case in comparative way with explanations of three countries: Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Consequently, according to Romano, Kurdish nationalism still suffers from its late development in the world arena. The migration of large numbers of Kurds to other parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and the rest of the world also presents some problems for the territorialization of Kurdish claims to autonomy. The cultural frames and mobilizing strategies of Kurdish groups in these states include very significant differences. Finally, he says there will be no doubting that they will attempt to further develop Kurdish nationalism, but divisions between them will be the Achilles heel of the Kurdish nationalist movement.
In assessment, The Kurdish Nationalist Movement is a useful book in helping to understand the Kurdish issue, especially in Turkey by using social movement theories. For ordinary reading however, this may not be very effective because it has very theoretical terms and explanations. So I believe it could be very helpful for scholars, but as I said, it might be very complicated for other people. In addition, Romano uses comparative ways to explain the situation of other Kurds in Iraq and Iran. This is contributes to the reader becoming more familiar with the Kurds in this region, because as Romano says, the Kurds who are living in different states have different experiences regarding nationalistic issues, making it difficult discuss a uniform Kurdish nationalist movement. Nevertheless, I think there are some departures from the main topic because the first four sections are mainly based on theoretical discussions and especially on Turkey. The other sections’ contents diverge from the rest of this book. The author offers historical information regarding Iraqi and Iranian Kurds, but we cannot see the theoretical assessment of these populations in particular. So as Romano said, the Iraq and Iran cases are helpful in explaining the Kurdish case using a comparative approach, but I think these portions are very brief and could be in another work rather than this book.
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