This chapter assesses the evolution of demands by the Turkish Kurdish community from secession to devolution in the context of the most recent negotiations between the Turkish state and Kurdish leaders. The chapter begins by offering background on the Kurdish community with an emphasis on Turkish Kurdistan and the priority placed on decentralization by the Kurdish leadership in that country. This context sets the stage for a close examination of the reconciliation or “peace” process in Turkey between 2009 and 2015 and the evolution of Kurdish leaders’ views on decentralization that emerged over the course of that period. In the third section, the chapter engages with the published political tracts detailing the theory of democratic confederalism that encapsulates the innovative thinking that has emerged over the last two decades among the Kurdish leadership about the potential for devolution to serve their goals of self-governance. The final section of the chapter considers from the perspective of the comparative literature on federalism and devolution the implications of Kurdish theorizing about decentralization as a form of self-determination and the potential of the political experimentation underway in Turkish Kurdistan seeking to implement those theories on the ground.

This chapter discusses and compares two different understandings of self-determination in Kurdistan against the background of administrative centralization and nationalization of populations occurring in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is argued that as a result of the intertwining of centralized-territorial state formation and nationalism a new order emerged that saw Kurds turned into a surplus population confronted with assimilation and erasure. Initially Kurdish movements responded to this new political reality by embracing the very principle by which they were excluded: the idea that a population, defined as a nation, is entitled to a state exercising exclusive territorial control. It was in this context that Kurdish national liberation movements emerging after World War II mostly declared the establishment of an independent state in which to build a postcolonial society as an ultimate goal. Towards the end of the twentieth century, and following a critique (and self-critique) on the character of national liberation struggles, a vein in the Kurdish movement started to tie self-determination not to the establishment of a state, but rather to the development of peoples’ capacities to govern themselves. These two understandings are compared and discussed as responses to the nation-statification of society.

Chapter 7 focuses on the two entities most often considered instances of revolutionary state formation after 2011 and which came into conflict with one another: the ISIS caliphate founded across Syria and Iraq, on the one hand, and the autonomous cantons ruled by the Kurdish PYD party in ‘Rojava’, or the Kurdish areas of north-eastern Syria, on the other. The chapter acknowledges that in attempting to create new forms of state – ‘democratic confederalism’ in the case of Rojava, and a Sunni Caliphate in the case of ISIS – these instances do resemble previous cases of revolutionary transformation. Yet their relationship with the revolutionary uprisings of 2011 is more complicated. In the case of ISIS, the chapter demonstrates that the caliphate is better thought of as a form of counter-revolution against that uprising, while in Rojava the PYD maintained an ambiguous relationship with the regime against which it was directed. For both the PYD and ISIS, international intervention proved decisive as the former were able to ally with the United States to defeat the latter – only then to suffer Turkish invasion once US support was withdrawn.

The final chapter summarises the book's argument that insurgent groups’ ability to maintain popular support and legitimacy is a key dimension of their success or failure. It shows that the PKK, notwithstanding its ever decreasing military capacity, has proven resilient because of the strength of its relationship with its supportive constituency. It proceeds to assess the strength of the argument, explaining the challenges in demonstrating causality in the field of conflict studies. It further assesses whether the book's framework could possibly explain the evolution of the movement in the period after the timeframe of this book. It briefly gives an overview of changes in the PKK since Öcalan’s capture in 1999, including its dramatic ideological transformation, reconfigured structures, the growth of an affiliated Kurdish civil society, the strength of Kurdish political parties and their relationship with the PKK. It also looks at the PKK’s role in Syria and how its experiences there have shaped the conflict in Turkey.

Chapter 1 examines the social and intellectual backgrounds of the pro-league of nations movement. Although previous research has focused on the movement’s activity predominantly during the inter-war period, the post-war plan emerged from an older European intellectual tradition. This chapter, therefore, contextualises the pro-league movement into this rich legacy by exploring two broader contexts: the immediate backdrop to the evolution of the movement and the history of ideas about war and peace. In the pre-1914 period, the future pro-league activists already had networks of influence that became the basis of a pro-league movement. While they drew upon a European intellectual legacy, the problems they faced differed from those of their predecessors – the breakdown of the Concert of Europe and the rise of nationalism. These problems led the pro-leaguers to not only develop fresh perspectives on the causes of war, but also conclude that a new world order should be established.