Lions and Donkeys: Conflict and Cooperation among Kurdish Factions

• In Event: Rebel Group Fragmentation

Abstract

Why do factions within ethno-nationalist groups sometimes fight? When do rival factions sometimes cooperate? Given what we may infer from the ethnic conflict literature, cooperation among co-ethnics is generally more frequent than conflict. This paper does not claim that this assumption is inherently wrong but explores conditions when factional conflict or cooperation may occur. Hypotheses grounded in the literary fields of organizational conflict, state manipulation of ethno-nationalists, and proxy warfare will be applied to four instances in which Kurdish factional rivalries were interrupted by external encroachment and experienced varying levels of factional conflict and cooperation. These include the KDP-PUK war, the KDP-PKK rivalry that ran concurrently to the Islamic State conflict, the KDP and PUK responses to the aftermath of the independence referendum of 2017, and the PYD-KNC rivalry in Syria amidst Turkish intervention. Interviews, Kurdish-language documents, and spatial analysis of conflict data tentatively support the notion that factional warfare is often driven by external alliances, while rival ethno-nationalist factions may temporarily cooperate when neutral co-ethnics are threatened by external actors because of domestic political considerations. Interestingly, these cases suggest that the outbreak and severity of factional warfare may be reduced through increased democratic participation, though the same mechanism may shift the processes of violent political contestation to more clandestine means.

Author

• Michael Pfonner, University of Southern California