Overview

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.

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9781108971508

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Reviews

'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 '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

Author Information

Francis O'Connor is a Research Associate at the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS), at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Italy, where he focuses on contentious politics and civil wars, covering subjects including anti-austerity protests, Nationalism and referendums, and armed conflicts in Colombia and Turkey. He is the co-author of books including Social Movements and Referendums from Below (2017), and Late Neoliberalism and Its Discontents in the Economic Crisis: Comparing Social Movements in the European Periphery (2016).

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