The PKK’s Ascendancy in Turkey and Syria, but not Iraq: A Comparative Investigation of Kurdish Contentious Responses to Repression

Abstract

This dissertation aims to understand how and why the Kurdistan Workers' Party’s (PKK) was able to establish itself as the foremost prominent form of Kurdish contention in Turkey and Syria, but not Iraq. A comparative historical analysis of Kurdish contention in Turkey, Syria and Iraq will, thus, be conducted. This analysis will be grounded in Vincent Boudreau’s (2004) theoretical framework, which asserts that type of state repression impacts the mode of contention. This study concludes that state repression acts as an important constraint to the modes of contention actors may employ, but how Kurdish actors manoeuvred those constraints dictated who would emerge as hegemonic in Kurdish contention.