The Kurdish Model of Political Community: A Vision of National Liberation Defiant of the Nation-State

(Hardback)

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The Kurdish Model of Political Community: A Vision of National Liberation Defiant of the Nation-State undertakes a task long due in Kurdish studies: addressing common misunderstandings about and outlining theoretical implications of Kurdish politics. Hanifi Baris develops his arguments with an historical examination and finds apathy towards and a resistance to state-building in Kurdistan. Accordingly, Baris argues, this tendency to establish self-government with distaste to state-building has enabled major Kurdish movements in Turkey and Syria to develop a form of political community that constitutes a viable alternative to those based on theocratic, imperial and national sovereignty. Thus, Baris concludes, rather than being a conflict between competing nationalisms, the current Kurdish conflict in Turkey and Syria is between competing visions of political community.

Reviews

This book argues that Kurds in Turkey and Syria should strive to achieve self-determination not via ethnonationalism or a national state, but rather by means of libertarian municipalism.... The "Kurdish model" [the authors] advocate should increase understanding of citizenship, cultural/territorial boundaries, and autonomous/self-rule.

Author Bio

Hanifi Baris is research fellow at the University of Aberdeen.