Partisan power-sharing and the outbreak of the 1994-1998 Civil War in Iraqi Kurdistan
Date
2024
DOI
Authors
Gordon, Gideon
Version
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Reconstructing a functioning polity after civil war or state collapse often requires the former combatants to share power in a new political system. Existing literature on post-conflict power-sharing tends to assume that co-ethnicity facilitates efforts to share power. In my research on the Kurdish civil war in northern Iraq (1994-1998), I challenge these assumptions, exploring how power-sharing can fail catastrophically within a single ethno-nationalist movement. I trace the establishment and disintegration of power-sharing institutions between the main Kurdish parties in the early 1990s, and argue that their informal “50-50” power-sharing arrangement lacked the strength to manage partisan resource conflicts. Each party continued to feel existentially threatened even with the agreement in place, and once the balance of power within Iraqi Kurdistan shifted, power-sharing institutions collapsed.
Description
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International