Ethnic Alliances Deconstructed: The PKK Sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Internationalization of Ethnic Conflict Revisited

Abstract

This article presents a critique of how the dominant paradigms in international relations (IR)-neo-realism, neo-liberalism and systemic constructivism-approach and explain ethnic conflict. It deconstructs one of the most prominent explanatory frameworks that mainstream IR has contributed to the analysis of the internationalization of ethnic conflicts, the ethnic alliance model, and demonstrates theoretically and empirically, by way of a case study of the Kurdistan Workers' Party sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan, the epistemological and ontological deficiencies of this approach. Furthermore, by dissecting the inherent 'groupism' of this model and related frameworks, it problematizes how scholars as co-protagonists of ethnic conflicts substantialize and reify the ethnicized discourse and politics of ethnic division, and thus contribute to the construction of a normativist and essentialist 'reality' of the conflicts that they set out to describe.

A közeli kelet: Törökország és iraki Kurdisztán kapcsolatának átalakulásai (1991–2017)

“…Törökország és az iraki kurdok közti kapcsolat elemzése már legalább 1991 óta felkeltette a nemzetközi kutatás figyelmét, 2003-at követően pedig a téma hangsúlyosan jelen van az elemzések között. (Al-Tugdar 2018;Aras 2011;Balcı 2015a;Balcı 2015b; Barkey 1994, Barkey 2005; Barkey 2011;Barkey 2014;Barkey 2015;Bengio 2014;Černy 2014;Černy 2018;Charountaki 2012;Charountaki 2019;Coşgun 2011;Dal-Belder 2015;Demir 2018;Demir 2012;Demiryol-Pekşen 2018;Dogan-Demir 2015;Ertem 2015;Frahm 2007;Gasparetto 2020;Gourlay 2016;Gözkaman 2013;Gunter 2005;Hale 2007;Harunoglu 2015;Kesgin-Kaarbo 2010;Kumral 2016;Larrabee-Nader 2013;Lindenstrauss 2014;Lundgren 2007;Marr 1996;Migdalovitz 2002;Müftüler-Baç 2014;Özcan 2011;Özdemirkıran 2015;Park 2008;Park 2012;Park 2014;Phillips 2009; Pusane 2020) A török-iraki kurd bilaterális kapcsola...…”