Kaya, Zeynep
(2012)
Maps into nations: Kurdistan, Kurdish Nationalism and international society.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
This thesis explores how Kurdish nationalists generate sympathy and support for their
ethnically-defined claims to territory and self-determination in international society and
among would-be nationals. It combines conceptual and theoretical insights from the
field of IR and studies on nationalism, and focuses on national identity, sub-state groups
and international norms. In so doing, this thesis presents a comprehensive
understanding of the relationship between the self-determination claims of sub-state
nationalist groups and their interaction with international society. Such assertions for the
control of a specific territory typically embrace, either implicitly or explicitly, ethnic
conceptions of national identity. A three-fold argument is proposed and developed to
explain why these ethnic claims to self-determination gain sympathy and support.
Firstly, political assertions regarding the identity of a specific piece of land and its
cartographical depictions are powerful in influencing outsiders’ perceptions because of
the normative context in which they are framed. The norms related to sub-state
nationalist groups involve both a specific interpretation of self-determination and the
norms of human rights and democracy. Secondly, such claims are further reinforced by
the perception that the history of a territory is identical to the history of the people
living on it. Although a political association between a people and a territory is a
relatively novel link, such associations are often assumed and accepted to exist
throughout all of history. Kurdish nationalists use the maps of Kurdistan effectively to
convey the message. Finally, the diasporal activities of nationalists who, thanks to their
location outside the homeland and their ability to communicate their ideas directly to
international society, play an important role in asserting the rightfulness of their demand
for self-determination and in promoting the idea of an ethnic territory.
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