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David Romano analyzes Kurdish nationalism in the 20th century from the perspective of social-movement theories. This book is important in two respects. First, it examines a neglected issue in the literature on the Middle East. Second, as the examination of the modern resistance of Kurds in the book is informed by a theoretical framework, Romano's work is not merely another factual narrative.
The book consists of eight chapters. In Chapter 1, Romano examines the theory of social movements in terms of political opportunity structures, resource mobilization, and cultural framing and proposes to build a synthesis of the three approaches as a way to understand Kurdish nationalism.
Chapter 2 provides a structural analysis of the birth and development of Kurdish nationalist opposition in Turkey. Romano focuses on the relative openness or closure of the institutionalized political system, elite support, state capacity and propensity for repression, and the international environment throughout the 20th century. In Romano's view, the Kurdish opposition in Turkey tended to operate legally when the institutionalized political system appeared more open and vice versa. For this reason, Kurdish nationalists resorted to armed struggle in the early republican period and in the post-1970s, whereas, to the contrary, a relative openness during World War I and the Turkish War of Independence led the Kurds to cooperate with Turkish elites. Had the system been less open, Romano implies, the Kurds could have opted for an independent state. Following this, Kurdish opposition in the 1920s and 1930s was backed by a traditional elite composed of tribal leaders and religious shaykhs. The movement remained "conservative, melding religion, tribal politics, and Kurdish nationalism together, but not seeking to transform Kurdish society" (p....