The Kurdish Liberation Movement in Iraq: From Insurgency to Statehood

The Kurdish Liberation Movement in Iraq: From Insurgency to Statehood Yaniv Voller, Routledge, New York, 2014, 175 Pages.

I read the book entitled "The Kurdish Liberation Movement in Iraq: From Insurgency to Statehood" while I was writing a chapter on the Kurds of Iraq for the Encyclopedia of Modern Ethnic Conflicts in December 2014. What grabbed my attention was the book's research design. It would not be wrong to argue that the vast majority of academic works on the Iraqi Kurds include either chronological or policy-oriented research, however, Yaniv Voller's book covers much more than a historical background and policy implications. That is to say, this study presents a theoretical framework based on the terms de facto statehood, legitimacy and recognition, and applies them to the Kurdish political movement's struggle to have a state apparatus in order to test its hypotheses.

The book has five chapters, excluding the introduction and conclusion. The first chapter deals with the terms sovereignty, de facto statehood, legitimacy and recognition. In this chapter, Voller examines how liberation movements emerge and transform into an institutionalized polity, which is called a de facto state. He argues that warfare is the main condition for a de facto state to exist. Nevertheless, the legitimacy crisis of a de facto state brings a new variable to the forefront. Therefore, Voller...