Understanding Insurgency
Popular Support for the PKK in Turkey
- Author: Francis O'Connor, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence
- Date Published: June 2024
- availability: Not yet published - available from February 2025
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781108971508
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No insurgent movement can survive without some degree of popular support, but what does it mean to support an armed group? Focusing on the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), which has come to global attention in recent years for its efforts in resisting ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but has been present and active in the region for much longer, Francis O'Connor explores the first three decades of the PKK's insurgency in Turkey. Looking at how the relationship between armed groups and their supporters should be conceptually understood, how this relationship varies spatially and what role violence has in their relationship, he draws on Civil War, Social Movements and Rebel Governance literatures to outline how the PKK survived a military coup in 1980 and slowly won popular support through incipient forms of rebel governance, the targeted use of violence and a nuanced projection of its ideology and objectives. In doing so, it provides an historical narrative to an organisation which has managed to successfully resist NATO's second largest army with limited weapons for decades and has become a key player of Kurdish rights in the wider region.
Read more- Provides an historical narrative to the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), the armed group which has found global attention in recent years for its efforts in resisting the push of ISIS and its involvement in Iraq and Syria
- Brings together distinct literatures on Civil War, Social Movements and Rebel Governance to look at the relationship between armed groups and their supporters
- Of interest to students and scholars of Kurdish and Turkish politics, and wider audiences interested in Iraq, Syria
Reviews & endorsements
'Francis O'Connor's clearly argued and deeply grounded book provides a comprehensive overview of the PKK and its support networks, merging a meticulous empirical overview of the Kurdish awakening and struggle with theoretical frameworks drawn from social movements and political violence literature. His work offers an original and informative source for understanding the mobilisation dynamics of an armed group and the urban and rural dynamics of an enduring conflict from a socio-spatial perspective. An analytically acute, beautifully written and timely book.' Bahar Baser, University of Coventry
See more reviews'O'Connor has made a significant contribution to the study of insurgency. His thoroughly researched book explains the multi-layered practices and interactions through which an insurgent movement establishes and maintains its rural and urban constituency. While taking the Kurdistan Worker Party PKK as case study, the author does not lose sight of the wider theoretical implications of his work.' Joost Jongerden, Associate Professor, Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University
'O'Connor's book brings our understanding of the PKK insurgency in Turkey to the next level. Theoretically informed, very well researched and eminently readable, O'Connor's study explains how a group like the PKK has been able to withstand the full might of the Turkish state for the last forty years.' David Romano, Thomas G. Strong Chair in Middle East Politics, Missouri State University
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×Product details
- Date Published: June 2024
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781108971508
- length: 296 pages
- dimensions: 229 x 152 mm
- weight: 0.434kg
- availability: Not yet published - available from February 2025
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Kurdistan in twentieth-century Turkey
2. Theories of insurgent support
3. PKK pre-conflict mobilisation (1974–1984)
4. PKK and rural insurgency
5. PKK insurgency and the city
6. The PKK in western Turkey
7. Conclusion.
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