En 2005, après la chute du régime baassiste de Saddam Hussein, les autorités irakiennes, mises en place par la Coalition menée par les États-Unis, ont instauré en Irak un nouveau régime démocratique, parlementaire et fédéral, et adopté la première Constitution permanente du pays depuis la fin de la monarchie en 1958. Le système fédéral ne s’applique encore aujourd’hui qu’à une seule entité fédérée : la région du Kurdistan d’Irak, qui trouve dans ce régime une autonomie de jure succédant à l’indépendance de facto acquise quatorze ans plus tôt lors de la Deuxième guerre du Golfe. La démocratie pourra-t-elle être appliquée à un pays empreint de la culture arabo-musulmane et encore marqué par près de quatre décennies de dictature ? Le fédéralisme est-il la réponse aux divisions ethniques et religieuses profondément ancrées dans la société irakienne, en particulier entre les Arabes chiites, les Arabes sunnites et les Kurdes ? Saura-t-il constituer une solution capable de satisfaire les ambitions nationales du Kurdistan d’Irak et de résoudre les conflits qui opposent ce dernier au gouvernement central irakien ? En analysant le texte de la Constitution irakienne de 2005 et le projet de Constitution de la région du Kurdistan de 2009, en examinant les institutions fédérales de l’Irak et les institutions régionales kurdes, en étudiant la répartition des pouvoirs dans le système fédéral, et à la lumière de l’évolution de l’Irak au cours des années qui se sont déjà écoulées depuis la transition, ce travail a pour ambition de déterminer la viabilité et la pertinence du régime constitutionnel fédéral pour l’Irak et pour le Kurdistan. / In 2005, after the fall of the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi authorities, installed by the American-led coalition, inaugurated in Iraq a new democratic, parliamentary and federal regime and adopted the first permanent Constitution for the country since the end of monarchy in 1958. Today, the federal system still only applies to a single federated entity: the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, which found in this new regime de jure autonomy following a de facto independence acquired fourteen years earlier in the wake of the Second Gulf War. Can democracy be applied to a country stamped by Arab Muslim culture and scarred by almost four decades of dictatorship? Is federalism the answer to ethnic and religious divisions that are profoundly anchored in Iraqi society, in particular those between Arab shi’ites, Arab sunnis ad Kurds? Will it be a satisfactory solution for the nationalist ambitions of Kurdistan and the conflicts that oppose that region to the Iraqi central government? By analysing the text of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution and of the 2009 draft Kurdish constitution, by examining the federal institutions of Iraq and the regional institutions of Kurdistan, and in light of the evolution of the new regime since it was established, this work attempts to evaluate the viability and the pertinence of the Iraqi constitutional regime for both Iraq and Kurdistan.

L'objectif de notre étude est d'analyser le rôle prééminent du Parti des travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK) pour l'avancement de la cause kurde. Ce mouvement politique a été mis en place par des Kurdes vivant en Turquie, et dont le leader n'est autre qu'Abdullah Öcalan, il nous apparaît central de limiter notre travail à la partie kurde de la Turquie. Mentionnons aussi que la question kurde est l'un des obstacles les plus sérieux auxquels fait face la Turquie, pour son développement démocratique et économique et bien sûr pour son entrée dans l'Union Européenne. Afin de mieux comprendre la question kurde et surtout le rôle joué par le PKK pour la reconnaissance de celle-ci qui prend racine dans le Kurdistan du nord, il est essentiel de présenter les origines du peuple kurde. Dans cette partie que nous jugeons incontournable pour la compréhension de notre sujet, nous allons également aborder d'autres éléments tels: le cadre géographique, la langue, les croyances, les relations du peuple kurde avec l'Empire Ottoman durant la Première Guerre mondiale et durant les années 1920 ainsi que les causes de sa partition entre quatre États résultant du partage de l'Empire Ottoman par la Société des Nations (SDN) suite au Traité de Lausanne de 1923. Quant à la deuxième partie de notre recherche, elle porte essentiellement sur le rôle du PKK dans la reconnaissance du problème kurde. Entres autres, nous examinerons d'une part, l'origine du PKK, son idéologie et le rôle joué par le leader Öcalan, d'autre part nous nous interrogerons sur l'impact de ce mouvement politique dans la revendication de l'indépendance du Kurdistan ainsi que sur les conséquences positives ou négatives de sa lutte armée. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Kurdistan, Turquie, PKK, État, Indépendance, Conflit, Revendication, Traité, Nationalisme.

Den här uppsatsen undersöker den kurdiska diasporan i Sverige, utifrån intervjuer med studenter vidStockholms universitet som engagerar sig i den kurdiska diasporan genom medlemskap i kurdiskaföreningar och genom online-nätverk. Syftet är att undersöka transnationella aktiviteter ochgränsöverskridande relationer i diasporan utifrån en intressant väl avgränsad grupp och hur deförmedlar positiva och negativa implikationer, samt känslor utifrån Irakiska Kurdistan som referens.Frågeställningen och utgångspunkten för uppsatsen är: Hur förhåller sig studenter vid Stockholmsuniversitet som engagerar sig i den kurdiska diasporan till Irakiska Kurdistangenom transnationella aktiviter och gränsöverskridande relationer?Metoden som används är semistrukturerade intervjuer, analyserade med diasporabegreppet somett teoretiskt ramverk. Genom att se hur respondenterna förhåller sig till Irakiska Kurdistan genomaktiviteter och relationer undersöks den kurdiska diasporan. Studien redovisas med citat frånintervjuerna och det framgår tydligt att det finns ett engagemang för Irakiska Kurdistan hosrespondenterna. Resultatet visar att flera respondenter är medlemmar i kurdiska föreningar och allarespondenter är engagerade i den kurdiska diasporan via online-nätverk. Alla respondenter svarar attde följer politiska och ekonomiska händelser i området. Flera av respondenterna har röstat i Irakiskaval, en transnationell aktivitet som visar ett starkt kollektivt engagemang och hur viktig relationenmellan Sverige och Irakiska Kurdistan är.Att Irakiska Kurdistan är viktigt för den Kurdiska diasporan i Sverige tydliggörs också genomresor till området och genom en uttryckt återvändarrörelse där människor flyttar till eller tillbaks.Det uttrycks även att Irakiska Kurdistan är en fristad för människor och en arena för kurdisk kultur.Kritik som framgår är relationerna till grannländerna som ett nödvändigt ont och kritik omkorruption, något som bidragit till ökade klyftor i samhället. Den kurdiska flaggan som symbolbehandlas utifrån respondenternas olika perspektiv. En respondent nämner drömmen om Kurdistansom ett arv. Tydligt för studiens resultat är att Irakiska Kurdistan utgör en referens där varje individi diasporan upprättar sin egen kontext. Något som innefattar gränsöverskridande relationer,transnationella aktiviteter och en ständigt föränderlig identitet.

What leads a person to become an armed guerrilla? This qualitative case study utilizes select elements of a hermeneutic and existential phenomenology—through a lens of Freirean critical theory and transformative research—to investigate the commonalities in the material, psychological, artistic, and spiritual motivations behind Kurdish guerrillas in the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). Other key elements are the search for an incipient turning point in their early pre-guerrilla lives that placed them on the road to rebellion, and the grounded theory that there exists an ‘Guevarian Archetype’ (derived from Che Guevara) personified by those who are driven to join the PKK. Through an in-depth dissection of Turkey’s historical oppression of Kurds in occupied Northern Kurdistan (southeastern Turkey), and extensive use of direct quotations by those affected, the author hopes to provide practitioners in the discipline of conflict analysis a new holistic template with which to analyze the metastasizing components behind other armed insurgencies. This prism includes comparison of the testament dataset acquired through in-depth focused interviews with 20 veteran PKK guerrillas, against corresponding testimony of their opposition in the Turkish Army, an anecdotal narrative of episodic vignettes, and a literary exegesis of several metaphysical concepts with their own original definitions. Drawing on the ideas of diverse theorists, philosophers, and past revolutionaries, the author hopes to provide a revelatory milieu for exploring the PKK’s governing ideology of democratic confederalism as espoused by imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, and the emancipatory avant-garde impulses that counterintuitively lead compassionate guerrillas to defensively kill out of universal love.

This thesis examines the role of the media in the Kurdistan Region focusing on developments since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 in order to identify the challenges which have faced journalists there, and the construction of national identity and the potential opportunities which this sector presents for shaping public opinion and strengthening the nascent democracy in the region. After tracing the history of the Kurdish media against the broader backdrop of Iraq, using an interdisciplinary approach, this thesis analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the Kurdish media, with particular reference to regulation, examining the Press Law (2008). It concludes with a series of recommendations regarding the growth and development of new opportunities in the Kurdish media. In addition, it will present arguments to support the urgent need to develop a legal and regulatory framework which is fit-for-purpose for the media in this style democracy.

En 1991, suite à la fin de la deuxième guerre du Golfe, un État de facto a été établi au Kurdistan irakien. Cette mutation d’un acteur contestataire kurde en un État de facto s’est avérée un gain sans précédent pour le « mouvement nationaliste kurde ». Néanmoins, malgré son importance historique, ce gain d’autonomie ne permit pas pour autant de dépasser les divisions présentes au sein du mouvement nationaliste kurde. Ce mémoire tente ainsi de comprendre les raisons du maintien de ces divisions. L’hypothèse proposée est que la raison pour laquelle la création d’un État de facto kurde en Irak n’a pas permis de dépasser les divisions du mouvement nationaliste est que ce dernier a poursuivi un projet de construction étatique similaire aux États de facto. Pour vérifier cette hypothèse, la recherche fait le lien entre la littérature sur les États de facto, le comportement du Kurdistan irakien et les divisions du mouvement nationaliste kurde. La recherche démontre dans un premier temps que la poursuite d’un projet de construction étatique a amené le Kurdistan irakien à prioriser sa légitimation interne plutôt que l’unité du mouvement nationaliste kurde. Elle démontre dans un deuxième temps qu’afin de réaliser ce projet, le Kurdistan irakien a employé des stratégies externes qui ont nui au reste du mouvement nationaliste kurde. / In 1991, following the end of the Second Gulf War, a de facto state has been established in Iraqi Kurdistan. This transformation of a protest actor into a de facto state has been an unprecedented gain for the « Kurdish nationalist movement ». However, despite his historic importance, this gain has failed to overtake divisions within the « Kurdish nationalist movement ». This thesis attempts to identity the reasons why the divisions have not faded away. The assumption is that the reason why these divisions have not been overtaken is because Iraqi Kurdistan has pursued a state-building project similar to those of de facto states. To test this hypothesis, this research links de facto state’s literature, Iraqi Kurdistan behaviour and the divisions of the « Kurdish nationalist movement ». This thesis first demonstrate that this project has led Iraqi Kurdistan to establish other priorities that the « Kurdish nationalist movement » unity. It then shows that to realize this state-building project, Iraqi Kurdistan has used external strategies that have affected the rest of the movement.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the expulsion of the Ba’ath Party, sweeping political reforms dramatically changed the Republic of Iraq and how government protects and manages its cultural resources. The slow rise of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the rapid invasion of the Islamic State (ISIL) have upended current cultural property policies. I study the varying and overlapping constraints on heritage management practice in Iraq since the 2011 withdrawal of United States-led Coalition forces in three separate articles. The first article discusses the emergence of the Kurdistan Regional Government General Directorate of Antiquities (KRG-GDA) in Erbil as a parallel institution to the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) in Baghdad, and how its legally ambiguous status introduced change to Iraqi cultural resource management policy and practice. I compare and contrast the organizational structure and antiquities laws KRG-GDA and SBAH and I deduce how the existence of two occasionally conflicting bureaucratic entities may negatively affect political relations between Erbil and Baghdad. In the second article I study how regional economic fluctuations in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have a direct impact on the local protection of archaeological resources in the area of Soran. I review the emergency excavations conducted by Rowanduz Archaeological Program (RAP) and how real estate development, infrastructure expansion, agriculture, and unemployment pose tangible threats to archaeology. In light of these pressures, I recommend policy solutions to be incorporated into future economic and political reforms proposed by the KRG. The final article discusses the rise of the ISIL and its iconoclastic campaign against places of worship, archaeological sites, educational repositories, and their contents in Syria and northern Iraq. I analyze noteworthy episodes of intentional destruction perpetrated by ISIL and I discuss how the organization both tactically and economically profits from these attacks. I also discuss how diplomatic reactions to these attacks on culture may inadvertently support fundamentalist ideology, and I propose more effective governmental responses to erode support for ISIL that also reduce the profitability of destruction, vandalism, and looting. / 2018-12-01T00:00:00Z

This thesis examines the transformation of the Kurdish national struggle in Turkey from a political movement to a social movement. The Thesis will argue that the Kurdish national struggle during the Twentieth Century in Turkey was largely a failure, and that the emergence of the Unions of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) has been a direct and concrete response to this failure. The thesis will track how the KCK has transformed a one-dimensional political nationalist struggle into a multi-dimensional one, including politics, culture and society for the Kurds living in Turkey. The focus here will be on the period from March 2005, when the KCK was established, until July 2011 when the KCK announced its Democratic Autonomy project. In order to explain how and why the KCK has emerged, the Thesis takes an approach based on social movement theories to analyse the KCK as a social and cultural nationalist movement that deploys various approaches and techniques. The KCK is shown to take this new and more popular and successful tact through a comparison of the discourse surrounding the Kurdish national struggle before and after the establishment of the KCK. The ‘new discourse’ of multi-dimensional struggle is, in particular, compared with the old unadulterated discourse of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which was a straight reaction to the Turkish state policy towards the Kurds and their struggle. The analysis of this process is accomplished through an examination of numerous contemporary resources such as the PKK and the KCK policies and literatures, government intelligence reports, books, journals, and through conducting tens of qualitative interviews alongside comprehensive observation during my fieldwork for this thesis. Ultimately, the Thesis will argue that the transformation of discourse for the KCK from the PKK is evident in its “Democratic Autonomy model”. The KCK proposes this model as an alternative to the nation state model in Turkey.

The year 2017 has gone into history for being an interesting year when it comes to regional struggles for independence. That is because in that year two referendums were proposed. One by the Catalans in Spain and the other by the Kurds in Iraq. Both referendum proposals were unsuccessful. However, the struggle for autonomy and self-determination in an already sovereign state, is still an interesting area to study. Especially in the case of the Kurds, which are divided amongst four states in the middle east. The reasons behind that struggle and what they can tell about the independence claim as a whole, is something relevant to study in the area of political science. The objective of this study is to apply both classic and modern theories of secession on the Kurdish struggle for independence in the states of Iraq and Iran, to see if there is a covariance in the studied variables. The methodology of the study is a comparative analysis of the Most Similar Systems Design method, whereas the theory of the analysed objective is the theory of secession which has been created with the basis of Wood five criterions of secession. In addition to this analytical framework other theoretic aspects such as regional stability, the international community and economic factors have been added to support the secession theories and thereby creating a better degree of explanation. The analysis concluded that there could be seen a covariance of the secession theory and the regional self-determination and it concluded that Wood’s first criteria, the preconditions of secession, is the most important variable to study. The study couldn’t conclude which one of Wood´s preconditions that seemed to be the most important.

<p>The aim of this bachelor thesis is to make a theoretical analysis of the democratic development in the Iraqi Kurdistan and to distinguish its democratic character. It has occurred a radical change in the political structure after the Kurdish uprising in the northern region of Iraq in relation with the Kuwaiti war in 1991. The situation in the Kurdish region became more and more acute when they where exposed of international sanctions mandated under UN and economic embargo by the Baghdad regime. This political vacuum led ironically to the establishment of the political institutions in the region. The theoretical framework is constructed thru the democratic theory presented in Robert Dahls discussion of polyarki and Arend Lijpharts theory of consociational democracy. Thus my method of this thesis is a qualitative case-study research. The empirical sources contain one interview and the rest is different types of documents. The result of the study shows that the Kurdish democracy contains elements of polyarki and consociational democracy, but it fails on the fundamental democratic principle: freedom of speech. Even though there are insufficiencies in the freedom of speech, the Kurdish democracy can be classified as a developing democracy.</p>