Democracy, Civil War, and the Kurdish People Divided between Them

  • T. David Mason
Chapter

Abstract

The Kurdish people represent the largest territorially concentrated ethnic group in the world that does not have its own nation-state. Thirty to forty million Kurds live in a territory that is divided between Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. They constitute between roughly a fifth of the population in Turkey and Iraq and roughly 10 percent of the population in Iran and Syria (see Introduction—The Kurds as Barrier or Key to Democratization). They are classified by the Minorities at Risk project as an “at risk minority” in all four of these nations, subject to varying forms and degrees of discrimination and violent repression.1 Efforts at forced assimilation in all four countries have engendered among Kurds a strong sense of shared ethnic identity that has served as the basis for mobilizing collective resistance against policies that the Kurds see as a threat to their identity and their cultural survival.

Keywords

Armed Conflict Electoral Rule Ethnic Conflict Electoral District Parliamentary System 
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Notes

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Copyright information

© David Romano and Mehmet Gurses 2014

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  • T. David Mason

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