On 17 March 2016 the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (Partîya Yekîtî ya Dêmokrat, PYD) unilaterally proclaimed the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria in three cantons, Afrin and Kobane in northern Aleppo province, and Jazira in Hassakeh.Footnote 1 Autonomy had already been announced in the earlier phase of the Syrian war in January 2014. The PYD managed to consolidate its position as the most well-organized group in much of northern and eastern Syria following the intervention of the US during the siege of Kobani in September 2014 against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The PYD is the Syria affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK), designated a terrorist organization by the US, EU and NATO and has run a four-decade-long insurgency against Turkey. Attacks carried out by the PKK have resulted in non-combatant casualties in Turkey, including government staff, teachers, imams, mayors, district governors, and the families of village guards.
The PYD established governing structures in northern Syria and professed that its ideology, ‘democratic autonomy’, embodies ‘the true expression of democracy’ and complies with democratic values.Footnote 2 The party's internal bylaws defend gender equality, freedom of expression and prohibitions against torture or cruelty (Acun and Keskin Reference Acun and Keskin2016: 14).Footnote 3 The PYD has provided civilians in areas under its control with a range of public goods, including a degree of stability and order, under the strenuous conditions of war. Party ideology claims to endorse the participation of civilians and certain Arab tribes and minorities into its governance councils. The PYD also promotes gender equality and provides public space for women as long as they do not seek autonomous feminist goals. This challenges entrenched local practices that are likely to condone under-age marriages and limit women's education, employment and political representation.Footnote 4
However, there is a significant gap between the organization's rhetoric and reality. The PYD and its armed militia, the Peoples' Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG) and the Women's Defence Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin, YPJ), have committed violence against civilians and have installed one-party rule, which is substantiated by reports in Arab-populated areas documented by Human Rights Watch and other organizations of human rights abuses against civilians and minorities – including Assyrian and Turcoman communities and political opponents – and of forced deportation. Given its stated normative commitments and ideas on democracy, this gap between ideology and practice begs the question: what factors facilitated the PYD to conform to its democratic pronouncements on power-sharing and inclusivity under certain conditions and, conversely, what factors permitted their abandonment or violation?
By analysing the governance record and strategies employed by the PYD in northern Syria between 2012 and 2018 the core argument advanced here is as follows: the PYD displayed a mix of democratic adherence and transgression in its governance practices. In the context of general war dynamics in Syria, this has meant that the PYD engaged hybrid mechanisms of democracy-building, coercion, displacement and violence in order to consolidate territorial control and assert ideological hegemony. I argue that complex networks of local, state and third-party interests complicate Kurdish self-rule in Syria, requiring a multilevel approach to understand the interrelated challenges to democratization in the post-war transition. I identify four major types of relations that have influenced the PYD's hybrid governance practices: intra-organizational factionalism; relations between civilians and rebels, especially in mixed demographic areas; international sponsors and rivals; and relations between rebels and regime. The desire for international recognition and how cross-border threats and, conversely, foreign sponsorship change the context, need to be understood more closely if we are to evaluate the trajectory of rebel ideas on democracy and governance.
This article proceeds in three parts. The first section brings into conversation the literatures on rebel governance in the context of self-determination rebels on one hand and rebel-to-party transformation on the other, with the aim of making a case for the need to scrutinize more closely the governance strategies of ethno-national autonomist rebels, as well as the internal and external factors that influence the actual structures they put in place. The next section identifies and analyses four major types of relations that explain the PYD's governance strategies to illustrate how rebel self-governance is a complex and multidimensional process that is driven by interlinked causal factors at multiple levels of interaction. The conclusion reiterates the tension between democratic adherence and violation, or the gap between democratic rhetoric and reality, operating through each of the four sets of relations.
The research relies on qualitative analysis of public statements issued by the PYD and PKK politburo, official websites and news agencies and a range of secondary sources. In addition, I conducted personal interviews with 10 Kurdish youth (aged between 19 and 29) between 2014 and 2018 from Turkey and Syria who were affected by the war, and who reside in London, Istanbul and Diyarbakir, Turkey. Interviews were also conducted with Turkey-based security and foreign policy experts with intimate knowledge of the Syrian war context. As of writing, the war in Syria is ongoing, posing considerable challenges to research and access to the site of study. Nonetheless, this is one of the first interventions to offer a systematic analysis of the interlinked and multilevel drivers of the PYD's hybrid governance strategies and trajectories. An integrated, multilevel approach can inform policymaking on the inclusion of other armed groups in post-war transitions by identifying factors that influence a group's democratic ideas and commitments.
Politico-military organizations, self-determination and rebel governance
Given its organizational structure, a party system with armed factions, and reliance on the use of violent tactics, the PYD does not fulfil the conventional criteria of a successful rebel-to-party transformation (Ishiyama and Batta Reference Ishiyama and Batta2011; Klapdor Reference Klapdor2009; Manning Reference Manning2007; Reilly and Nordlund Reference Reilly and Nordlund2008; Sindre and Söderström Reference Sindre and Söderström2016; de Zeeuw Reference Zeeuw2008). Moreover, the war situation in Syria, characterized by the near-complete collapse of state authority in parts of the country, complicates the potential of a linear transition to electoral party politics. The conventional understanding of such conversions presumes linear and incremental progress across rebel group identity, ideas and methods towards democratization and non-violence, driven by binary categories such as non-violence versus violence; civilian versus military struggle; and rebels versus politicians (Wittig Reference Wittig2016).
However, nuanced studies within an emergent critical scholarship have tried to account for the use of violence in the repertoires of rebel political parties. Categories such as ‘armed political organizations' (Berti Reference Berti2013) to describe the activities and evolution of groups that operate simultaneously as armed groups and parties, like Hezbollah and Hamas, have explored the interplay between political participation and violence (Baracskay Reference Baracskay2015). In this vein, an alternative conceptual framework is expressed in the idea of ‘armed politics’ (Staniland Reference Staniland2015; Wittig Reference Wittig2016), which links up with the study of complex ‘no peace, no war’ scenarios (Richards Reference Richards2005). Similarly, politico-military organizations are those that use hybrid tactics and ‘combine social protest, armed rebellion, political violence, and party politics throughout their history’ (Wittig Reference Wittig2016: 137).
There is useful overlap between the literatures on politico-military organizations and rebel governance in that the latter explores the governance practices, including the provision of social services, associated with the state apparatus that are offered by armed rebels (Arjona et al. Reference Arjona, Kasfir and Mampilly2015; Mampilly Reference Mampilly2011, Reference Mampilly2013; Staniland Reference Staniland2015, Reference Staniland2017; Weinstein Reference Weinstein2006). Scholars in this subject area have considered issues such as civilian resistance to rebel government (Arjona Reference Arjona, Arjona, Kasfir and Mampilly2015); rebel economic endowments that impact governance practices (Weinstein Reference Weinstein2006); and rebel engagement in de facto diplomacy (Coggins Reference Coggins, Arjona, Kasfir and Mampilly2015). The literature traces the unique circumstances that can facilitate rebel governance and the significant variation across governing motives and strategies.
However, a shortcoming of the rebel governance paradigm is its under-theorization of a specific subset of armed rebels: self-determination actors. Secessionist or autonomist rebels, like the PYD/YPG, who form a government for civilian control are generally ideologically motivated by ethno-nationalism and more directly concerned with issues of external legitimacy relative to other armed non-state actors. While other rebel types may harbour a desire for legitimacy, I contend that the goal of international recognition places unique structural constraints and expectations on self-determination actors, their incentive structures and repertoires of action, especially on the use of violence. This distinguishes them from other rebel types that may seek to overthrow or, alternatively, transform the incumbent state or are motivated mainly – though possibly not exclusively – by the prospect of self-enrichment or social prestige. A second limitation of the literature that is addressed here is the absence of works that seriously consider the cross-border and international factors that influence rebel governance practices.Footnote 5 The case of the PYD/YPG certainly meets the scope conditions for rebel governance set out by Ana Arjona (Reference Arjona, Arjona, Kasfir and Mampilly2015: 21): ‘territorial control, a resident population, and violence or threat of violence’. This article contributes to this emerging body of literature by offering a multilevel analysis of the relationships in which an armed political organization may be embedded, and the varying impact such relations have on its governance strategies. Engaging with multiple relationships can offer an in-depth understanding of the types of challenges confronted by self-determination actors, in contrast to just single-issue, state-centric or actor-oriented studies.
Why has the PYD claimed to uphold a commitment to democratic principles rather than justify self-governance solely on the basis of ethno-nationalism? A demonstrated commitment to democratization and good governance has increasingly been recognized by self-determination scholars as a prerequisite for unrecognized states to obtain membership in the international system of states (Broers Reference Broers2014; Caspersen Reference Caspersen2012; Clark Reference Clark2001; Jo Reference Jo2015; Seymour Reference Seymour2017; Voller Reference Voller2015: 612). The same logic can be extended to rebel claims for non-secessionist autonomy, where some demonstration of institution-building or effective governance capacity is seen as necessary by armed rebels to be seen as effective rulers (Podder Reference Podder2017; Policzer Reference Policzer2006; Sindre Reference Sindre2016).
The PKK has not been oblivious to the normative and legal shifts in the interpretation of the principle of self-determination in the international recognition regime over recent decades as well as the significance of being seen to comply with democratic structures and practices. In the post-Cold War period, the PKK abandoned the rigid interpretation of exclusionary ethno-nationalism, the bread and butter of struggles for self-determination, in favour of a narrative that aligned with the ubiquitous post-Cold War vernacular of democratization, minority rights and inclusion in institutional politics. The professed ideological transformation that began in the mid- to late 1990s occurred along two dimensions: it replaced its political goal of secession with non-ethnic territorial autonomy and articulated a commitment to democratic norms of inclusivity and representation. This process culminated in a governance model called ‘democratic autonomy’ (Xweseriya Demokratîk), which was elaborated by Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned founder of the PKK, and claims to offer a categorically distinct alternative to federalism or ethno-territorial autonomy (Ziriğ Reference Ziriğ2014). Despite offering a blueprint for the design of local people's councils and assemblies, detailed in the next section, abandoning the goal of secession is the most significant transformation in Öcalanist self-determination ideology. This shift from exclusionary to inclusionary identity politics was pragmatic, motivated by self-preservation, global normative shifts and a rationalist reading of opportunity structures, an argument that has also been made to rationalize the ideological evolution of other radical organizations such as Hamas (Hatina Reference Hatina1999; Wagemakers Reference Wagemakers2010). While moderation is not tantamount to democratization, as far as the PYD/YPG is concerned, the reverse is also true: democratization has not equated to moderation, meaning the abandonment of the use of insurgent violence.
The drivers of the PYD's governance strategies
A brief background on the nature of Kurdish ethno-national mobilization in northern Syria will help anchor the subsequent discussion. The Syrian Ba'athist regime targeted the Kurds as an unwanted minority for decades, and Kurdish-inhabited areas mainly in the north and north-eastern parts of the country along the Turkish and Iraqi borders were targeted by Arabization resettlement policies. On 10 October 1962 hundreds of thousands of Kurds in Syria were deprived of citizenship status, curtailing their right to vote or be elected, access to state welfare and the right to hold identity cards or passports following an abrupt and discretionary government census held in Hasakah in Upper Jazirah. When the Syrian uprising began in March 2011, there were believed to be between 250,000 and 300,000 stateless Kurds in Syria.
The PYD is the offshoot of the militant PKK, which was established in 1978 with a Marxist-Leninist secessionist ideology and has conducted attacks against Turkish security forces and civilians since 1984. The PKK has operated in Syria since negotiating a safe haven in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon in 1979 when Öcalan forged an agreement with Hafiz Al-Assad that lasted for almost 20 years (Allsop Reference Allsopp2015). In October 1998 the Assad regime gave in to mounting pressure by Turkey and evicted Öcalan from Syrian territory, forcing him to flee to Greece before his eventual capture in Kenya; however, northern Syria continued to function as a de facto zone of insurgent influence. In 2003 the PYD was established by the Öcalanist Union of Communities in Kurdistan (Koma Civakên Kurdistan, KCK), a decision-making body led by the PKK, to mobilize Kurdish national interests in Syria.
Since the rise of the PYD as a governing force in the context of the Syrian war, the party has governed under ‘the Constitution of the Rojava Canton’ introduced in January 2014, meaning Western Kurdistan, but declared that the area remained part of the state of Syria.Footnote 6 Each of the three cantons under PYD rule was governed by a division of power among executive, judicial and legislative councils. A higher-order structure called the Tevgera Civaka Demokratîk (Tev-Dem) was assigned responsibility for governing the cantons. At the level of local politics, the party hierarchy is organized into a three-tier system: the provincial/canton administration, regional administrations and neighbourhood councils. Methods of intra-party regulation share characteristics common to other Marxist insurgencies, such as strict hierarchal party organization, indoctrination meetings, the holding of self-criticism sessions (Balcells and Kalyvas Reference Balcells and Kalyvas2015) and a steering political committee.
Organizational structure and internal dynamics
During the early phase of the war in Syria, the Bashar al-Assad regime sought to avoid a mutiny in the north and instead consolidated troops against the armed Arab opposition. When Syrian regime troops withdrew from the predominantly Kurdish regions on 19 July 2012, the PYD and its militia swiftly assumed operational control of towns, main roads and border crossings. Within days, Kurdish forces occupied Kobane, followed by Amuda and Afrin. By early August, the PYD controlled most Kurdish cities, with the exception of Qamishli and Hasakah, which were home to considerable numbers of Arabs and other groups (Gunter Reference Gunter2014). On 11 November 2013 the PYD announced the formation of an interim government. Days ahead of the Geneva II peace conference, convened by the United Nations, US and Russia, to which the PYD was not invited, the three non-contiguous cantons declared ‘democratic autonomy’: on 21, 27 and 29 January 2014 in Jazira, Kobane and Afrin, respectively (Knapp et al. Reference Knapp, Flach and Ayboga2016: 114).
The PYD's links with the PKK have delivered a set of organizational conveniences and constraints to the armed party that have had a bearing on its governance options and strategies during the war. Tactical benefits for the militant group include a leadership structure (based in the Qandil mountain range in northern Iraq), organizational ideology and a pre-existing blueprint for governance. Öcalanist ideas and prescription for the organization of civilians in rebel-held territory, including the design and rules of membership of local decision-making bodies, and the regulation of economic production and extraction through the commune system, meant that the PYD was prepared to implement rebel governance following the regime's evacuation of the area.
Ideas of self-governance expressed by democratic autonomy claim separation from exclusionary ethno-nationalism and classic statehood, seeking instead a ‘post-state’ liberation that does not threaten the existing borders of states. It aims to reinstate ‘the people’ as the principal authors of rules conducting communal life through radical, participatory democracy. The ultimate goal, however, is the creation of ‘democratic confederalism’, a transborder entity envisioned to connect Kurdish-claimed territories across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran under a joint system of rule (Akkaya and Jongerden Reference Akkaya and Jongerden2012; Leezenberg Reference Leezenberg2016; Ziriğ Reference Ziriğ2014). These ideas were influenced by Murray Bookchin, an American anarchist and ex-Marxist who elaborated on such concepts as ecological freedom, communalism and libertarian municipalism (Biehl Reference Biehl2012).Footnote 7 Democratic autonomy contains incoherent and internally inconsistent, even utopian, provisions (for example, it is not clear how the PYD can reconcile the strict hierarchical quasi-Marxist command structure of the Öcalanist militia with the goal of radical democracy that endorses individual freedoms). However, commanding an ideological repertoire helps the PYD and PKK to assert coherence over their cross-border recruitment, indoctrination and coordination functions.
Its links with the PKK have provided the PYD with a wide pool of trained combatants drawn from Turkey and Iraq, as well as volunteers, advocates and experts recruited from the region or the diaspora. It is estimated that the Syrian Kurds make up around one third of the PKK's fighting forces (Kaya and Lowe Reference Kaya, Lowe, Stansfield and Shareef2016). However, this figure is debatable. According to the Kurdish Insurgents Militants (KIM) data set, 1,140 of 9,196 PKK militants killed from 1984 until the end of 2016 were born in Syria (around 12%).Footnote 8 On the Syrian front, the PKK's fighters and commanders make up the core of the YPG militia, with reports estimating that between January 2013 and January 2016, 49% of the YPG's casualties were Turkish citizens (of Kurdish origin) (Barfi Reference Barfi2016: 8; Holland-McCowan Reference Holland-McCowan2017: 9).
On the other hand, the close association with the PKK/KCK has detrimental effects on the PYD, which, at least publicly, wants to be recognized as a legal Syrian-Kurdish party. Under the KCK system, offshoot political parties in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq operate under different acronyms but contribute to a unified cause. Unlike, for example, Hamas, which emerged as a grassroots political actor and mobilized through extensive social networks before it entered into formal politics (Berti Reference Berti2015: 11), the PYD emerged as a top-down political institution on the command of an Öcalanist decision-making body. The hierarchical organizational structure, Öcalanist cult of personality and cross-border links dampen the armed party's claim to be an indigenous Syrian movement. Finally, its association with the PKK escalates the intensity of threats by regional veto states, generates more tensions with Mesud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraq and constrains the type and duration of foreign assistance, which is integral to the PYD's long-term survival. Although the clandestine nature of decision-making within the armed group means it is difficult to substantiate the degree of factionalism between moderates and hardliners, there are notable examples that can be drawn from open sources and personal interviews to show that there are signs of an internal rift.
First, hardliner elements within the Öcalanist cross-border network defend Kurdish ethno-nationalism as the backbone of the enclave in northern Syria. Propaganda material and websites affiliated with the PKK/KCK habitually employ the term ‘Rojava’, a Kurdish ethno-symbolic term, rather than the Federation in Northern Syria to refer to the region. Hawkish posturing is particularly salient in the discourse used by YPG fighters or youth activists who claim an attachment to the symbolic spaces that the territory inhabits in the nationalist imaginary.Footnote 9 In contrast, PYD officials emphasize that the party's members are drawn from among Arabs, Assyrians and Turcoman (Kaya and Lowe Reference Kaya, Lowe, Stansfield and Shareef2016) to highlight the pluralist social make-up of members and the senior cadre. There also appears to be a salient sectarian distinction between the mainly Alevi background of senior figures in the PKK/KCK and the Sunni composition of the PYD, which could over time translate into different interpretations of Kurdish identity.Footnote 10 In the post-ISIS transition and the winding down of major operations in the Syrian war, the PYD appears to take greater pains to prove it is a Kurdish-Syrian organization that shares an ideological inheritance from the PKK but claims practical autonomy in order to maximize its chances of inclusion within the post-war settlement (Balanche Reference Balanche2018).Footnote 11 In sum, regional and cross-border factors are key to understanding ideological fluctuations and contests within the movement.
The factors that contributed to the PYD/YPG acting more independently, which could be read as conducive to moderation, are products of the legacy of the multiple theatres of war in Syria, including close military cooperation with the US; a series of military victories on the battleground against ISIS; and the PYD's first-hand experience with governance in Syria, a goal the PKK never came close to achieving in Turkey (IFK 2017). A motivating factor behind the nascent shift is the adverse reputational effects of being associated with the PKK's terrorist designation, which undermines the PYD's stated commitment to democratic governance in the Syrian context. Against this background, in 2017, Aldar Khalil, a member of Tev-Dem, wrote:
As Kurds, we of course sympathize with our brothers and sisters in Turkey … It pains us to see those on the Turkish side of the border suffer from oppression and fear. But that is not our struggle, and we have said publicly and will say again that our territory and resources are not going to be used by the PKK or any other groups fighting Turkey. (Khalil Reference Khalil2017)
Distancing itself from the organizational legacy of the PKK/KCK may allow the PYD more flexibility in the design and implementation of governing institutions that more closely reflect local interests and political configurations, rather than implement the bureaucratic and doctrinal vision of Öcalanist ideology.
The question of whether a rival centre of power can emerge in north-eastern Syria is an important one; however, the fissures within the movement should not be exaggerated. The finding by John Ishiyama and Anna Batta (Reference Ishiyama and Batta2011) that internal struggles over identity and centralization of power shape the long-term evolution of rebel parties offers clues into the future of post-war democracy-building in northern Syria. Moderate elements within the PYD in Syria who wish to safeguard territorial and reputational gains may be more willing to offer certain concessions and compromises in any future negotiations with Damascus versus hardliners within the KCK or members of the YPG/YPJ militia, many of whom had relatives or friends who were killed in battle. The military dimension of the movement, with a greater voice over matters of financial resources and control over youth members, will likely resist the PYD's claims for autonomous decision-making. Unsurprisingly, my interviews suggest that Kurdish youth activists who sympathize with Öcalanist ideology and perceive themselves as having made personal sacrifices for the creation of ‘Rojava’ are less inclined to support a power-sharing agreement in the post-war transition that trivializes their contribution to the war effort or threatens the Kurdiyati (Kurdish) identity of the autonomous area. On the other hand, it is plausible that this position may be mitigated once the goal of territorial autonomy is constitutionally recognized, opening up new pathways for mobilization and participation.
Rebel–civilian relations and governance
Although the Kurds have a long history in Syria, the Kurdish population there is smaller relative to Turkey, Iraq and Iran. The Kurds make up Syria's second largest ethnic group and were historically geographically dispersed across northern Syria along the border with Turkey, constituting a majority mainly in the north-eastern Jazira region, and also resided in major cities like Aleppo and Damascus. The absence of a contiguous area of Kurdish-majority territory in northern Syria meant that building a case for internal legitimacy derived from the existence of a homogeneous ethnicized order (Natali Reference Natali2005) was alone insufficient. To mobilize a wide social network in non-Kurdish inhabited areas, especially as it took territory, such as Tel Abyad and Menbij, from ISIS between 2014 and 2018, the PYD cultivated a narrative of social-democratic revolution. The PYD took steps early on to establish and sustain local decision-making bodies with a diverse composition of members and promoted civilian participation. Establishing ideologically organized structures helped to consolidate normative hegemony over a significant portion of the Kurdish population.
The PYD organized its administration, and the provision of basic public goods and social services, arbitration, security and policing services, in line with the Öcalanist ideas derived from the democratic autonomy model. One significant factor that influenced the PYD's adherence or transgressions vis-à-vis its democratic principles was the ethnic and social composition of areas under its control, specifically, whether the area was inhabited mainly by a Kurdish majority or a mixed demography.
Civilian relations in Kurdish-majority areas
In areas where the Kurds constitute a territorially concentrated ethnic group, such as Kobane and Afrin, the PYD adhered more closely to the main tenets of Öcalanist ideology. For instance, given the weaker tribal structures and minimal regime presence in Afrin, located in the far north-western corner of the country, the PYD was the sole custodian until Turkey's military campaign in January 2018. In places where the PYD had pre-existing social networks and an overarching organizational loyalty, such as in Afrin as opposed to the Jazira region, which showed greater political diversity in terms of Kurdish organizations, there was relatively less resistance by the civilian population to political centralization, Öcalanist indoctrination in the school curriculum, taxation and public artefacts commemorating Öcalan's cult of personality.Footnote 12
PYD-run Kurdish-majority areas were highlighted as a role model of local democracy in action, allowing Kurdish language, women's participation, and a commune system. However, even in Kurdish-majority areas, civilians were subjected to coercive surveillance and control practices that contradicted consensual, grassroots decision-making. The PYD/YPG has been accused of forcibly conscripting Arab and Kurdish youth between the ages of 18 and 30 to its ‘Self-Defence Forces’ under a law promulgated by the party in 2014, causing at least 200,000 Syrian Kurds to flee into neighbouring Turkey (Gutman Reference Gutman2017) and another 300,000 into Iraq. Human Rights Watch (2015) documented the use of child soldiers and demanded that the YPG demobilize boys and girls under 18 in combat.
Furthermore, in areas where the PYD faced organized political opposition, it was more likely to violate its democratic commitments. The PYD has relied on its militia factions and local security forces (the Asayish) and runs the local administration through a monolithic one-party system rather than facilitating interest representation through a number of parties (Darwish Reference Darwish, Collombier, Favier and Narbone2016). Although Tev-Dem professes to house a range of diverse parties, these are generally smaller organizations that are either behind-the-scene fronts for the PKK or weaker collectives. Among the membership criteria listed in the PYD's party manifesto is the fundamental prerequisite that members internalize Öcalan's ‘democratic civilizational method’ and ‘respect and obey’ the values enshrined by the ‘Leader Öcalan and the Kurdish people’ and struggle to free the leader from captivity (Acun and Keskin Reference Acun and Keskin2016). The PYD targeted and implemented policies of intimidation against its main Kurdish political opponents, the Barzani-supported Syria Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK-S) and the Kurdish National Council (KNC) and has been accused by the Syrian Arab opposition in exile of thwarting Kurdish efforts to form a united opposition movement against the Assad regime.Footnote 13 A law introduced in 2014 prohibited activities and the mobilization of political parties that disobeyed or questioned the established Rojava system. Rival parties are deemed to be illegal unless registered by canton officials, and cases of harassment and arbitrary arrest of opponents, kidnappings and violence have been reported (Gutman Reference Gutman2017).
Hundreds of political dissidents are reported to have been arrested or exiled by the YPG militia in northern Syria (Orton Reference Orton2017). On 13 August 2016 the KNC reported that its leader Ibrahim Biro was abducted by the PYD-linked militia before being forced into exile in Iraqi Kurdistan. One local journalist who sought exile in Turkey complained, ‘We are told that the subject of individual freedoms must be put on the backburner during this time of national liberation and crisis, that the dangers against the many outweigh the liberties of any one.’Footnote 14 The PYD has denied accusations of crushing dissent, arguing that dissidents were arrested for criminal acts, such as drug trafficking and bomb attacks.Footnote 15
Governing non-Kurdish majority areas
To achieve a territorially contiguous sphere of influence, the PYD/YPG moved into areas such as Menbij and the Euphrates Valley, where the Kurds do not constitute a majority of the population. Here, the practice of power-sharing and inclusivity has varied significantly relative to Kurdish-majority areas. An important determinant of the level of civilian support for the PYD was proximity to a direct security threat.Footnote 16 For example, in areas that are not under attack or under threat of attack by ISIS, there appeared to be less favourable opinions of the PYD (Burchfield Reference Burchfield2017). On the other hand, the PYD was able to gain some traction, especially during the counter-ISIS operations, among residents in Arab-majority areas who benefited from the stability offered by the PYD against a common enemy. Incentives such as salaries and land ownership motivated some Arab tribes to join the PYD/YPG (Balanche Reference Balanche2018), while for others, its ‘anti-Assad branding’ provided a basis for trust and solidarity (Wilkofsky and Fatah Reference Wilkofsky and Fatah2017).
The PYD's governance strategy towards minorities, such as Assyrians, involved a mix of co-optation, selective accommodation and violence. Although the PYD claimed that its administrative apparatus, including rebel-sanctioned local councils, extended an equal bill of rights to Arabs, Assyrians and Turcoman and respected the rights of those who became minorities within the new self-ruled region, in practice, party organs were often used to ensure rebel oversight over the affairs of minorities and Arab residents (Joseph and Isaac Reference Joseph and Isaac2018). While the introduction of civilian structures counts as evidence that the PYD was willing to facilitate a degree of power-sharing (Arjona Reference Arjona, Arjona, Kasfir and Mampilly2015: 34), this did not effectively translate into minority self-representation. For example, Assyrians were subject to a parallel tax system and forced conscription into the YPG structures (Joseph and Isaac Reference Joseph and Isaac2018). On the other hand, minorities targeted by ISIS, such as the Yezidis and Syriac Christians, received protection from the PYD and its militia, reinforcing the selective use of inclusivity and co-optation in the party's practices (Burchfield Reference Burchfield2017). However, the support of minorities is not guaranteed in the long term, as shown by protests by the Syrian Christian minority over the PYD's local school curriculum, which replaced the accredited system by Damascus, and the decision to shut down more than a dozen schools historically run by the community (AFP 2018).
To de-escalate and manage civilian resistance in mainly Arab areas, the PYD used a hybrid strategy: it either made tactical concessions by installing its own doctrinal councils or replaced pre-existing governing structures outright. Despite measures that seemed to promote non-Kurdish civilian participation, the PYD was the main decision-maker behind fronts like the Minbij Military Council (MMC) or the Kataib Shams al-Shamal (Northern Sun Battalion), an Arab group linked to the PYD (Orton Reference Orton2018: 20).
In June 2015 Kurdish forces secured Tel Abyad, a mainly Arab town 60 miles north of the now defunct ISIS caliphate's self-proclaimed capital in Raqqa. In late October 2015, PYD authorities renamed Tel Abyad as Girê Sipî in Kurdish, and absorbed its borders within the Kobane canton. The town was not handed over to local stakeholders. Instead, the PYD set up a council system run by an Arab, Mansour Salloum, and established an Arab majority, along with members of the minority Turcoman and Armenian populations. Allowing for the mainly Arab make-up of the governing council showed that the PYD was cognizant of its limitations in a mixed demographic area.Footnote 17 However, the PYD was accused of a limited transfer of power to local stakeholders and was primarily concerned with territorial expansion that exceeded the limits of the narrower pre-war Kurdish-populated areas (Ali Reference Ali2015). In Tel Abyad, it was reported that hundreds of Arabs were arrested and were only freed on the condition that they deliver televised pledges of allegiance to the YPG (Sly Reference Sly2015).
In a similar case of local push-back, beginning on 12 January 2018 protests erupted in Arab-majority Manbij, possibly provoked by Turkish-backed opposition forces, which was followed days later by a list of demands expressed by Arab tribal leaders to remove the PYD-dominated governing councils and structure in the city (Cafarella et al. Reference Cafarella, Teoman and Hanlon2018). Resentment among the local residents had been simmering since the YPG took over the city from ISIS in August 2016 and refused to reinstate a local revolutionary council that had formed before ISIS – and later the YPG – assumed control (Yassin-Kassab and Al-Shami Reference Yassin-Kassab and Al-Shami2016: 230).
Findings published by international human rights groups supported claims that the YPG carried out violence in violation of international humanitarian law and human rights standards by forcibly displacing civilian populations, looting, demolishing homes and private property and failing to address unsolved killings and disappearances (Human Rights Watch 2014; ICG 2013, 2014). In 2015 Amnesty International reported the ‘deliberate displacement of thousands of civilians and the razing of entire villages in areas under the control of the [PYD] Autonomous Administration, often in retaliation for residents' perceived sympathies with, or ties to, members of ISIS or other armed groups' and argued that such acts amounted to war crimes (Amnesty International 2015). According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in February 2016 alone the YPG forces demolished the houses of dozens of Arab civilians in Tal Tamer, al-Hassakeh governorate, accusing the owners of being ISIS supporters (Amnesty International 2016/2017).
To validate its position as a legitimate ruler to a range of external and local audiences, the PYD organized elections to select commune co-chairs on 22 September 2017 and a subsequent vote to elect town, district and canton council members on 1 December 2017. The Democratic Nation Solidarity List, which includes the ruling PYD, won the majority of seats in the three regions that included Jazrira (94%), Euphrates (89%) and Afrin (90%). The results were not surprising given that the vote took place in predominantly Kurdish areas. The elections were viewed by some as consolidating a centralized system of ‘unequal citizenship’ with certain Arab voters designated as ‘recently’ arrived to the area and not granted full voting rights (Ibrahim and Schuster Reference Ibrahim and Schuster2017; Mneimneh Reference Mneimneh2018). The KNC boycotted the votes, which were seen as a cover to legitimize one-party rule (Özdemir Reference Özdemir2017), while the Syrian regime did not recognize the elections. Despite the elections, mutual distrust and opposition against the coercive acts undertaken by the YPG undermines the PYD's claim to serve the interests of non-Kurdish local residents.Footnote 18
Relations with international sponsors and rivals
During the military campaign against ISIS and its self-declared caliphate, the PYD and YPG/YPJ achieved significant territorial gains in northern Syria and controlled up to one quarter of the country's territory, including oilfields and logistical networks in Arab-populated areas. The military advances achieved by the militia enhanced the PYD's political visibility and mobilization (Lowe Reference Lowe2016), allowing it to operate as an expansionist substate actor with de facto foreign diplomatic legitimacy granted (to various degrees) by states such as the US, Russia, Germany, Sweden and France, despite the objections of Turkey, which amplified after the collapse of a two-year peace process with the PKK.
The YPG was granted military assistance, including heavy machine guns, mortars and anti-tank weapons, supplies and training. In October 2015 the US facilitated the reorganization of the YPG under a new structure, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which includes Sunni and Christian Arab fighters. Although dominated by the Kurdish YPG, the disparate coalition included several thousand Arab fighters (Wilkofsky and Fatah Reference Wilkofsky and Fatah2017) and other communal groups, and was primarily designed to alleviate fears that the US was selectively assisting the Kurds to consolidate ethnic military dominance in northern Syria. However, Arab troops are both far fewer in numbers and less battlefield ready than Kurdish fighters. Power sits with a small politburo led by senior Syrian PKK members who have spent time with Öcalan (Barfi Reference Barfi2016: 8), and obedience to the PYD holds the coalition together (Wilkofsky and Fatah Reference Wilkofsky and Fatah2017).
The interests and priorities of external actors have often clashed during the Syrian war and the stalled peace negotiations. The US and Russia have issued inconsistent messages on a future federal power-sharing agreement in post-war Syria. While both have advocated for the inclusion of a Kurdish delegation in any peace settlement, there is little consensus on much else (Idiz Reference Idiz2018). Russia has supported the possibility of federalism, provided that it emerges after a period of political negotiation and national dialogue, although the specific design of the power-sharing arrangement has not been revealed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned against US policies that would threaten Syria's territorial integrity, referring to the eastern bank of the Euphrates in northern Syria, ‘where independent and autonomous structures are created under the direct control of the United States' (Al-Monitor 2018). The US sees its military presence in north-eastern Syria in the town of Manbij and east of the Euphrates as a way to pressure Damascus and to counter Iranian and Russian influence in post-war Syria (Kadercan Reference Kadercan2018). The proposal for a federal system was considered by US officials of the former Obama administration and Secretary of State John Kerry (Barnard Reference Barnard2016). However, the Trump administration has been less clear, with a US official remarking that the US would not support ‘the PYD project to make an autonomous administration … We're not going to support a separatist entity’ (Davison and Perry Reference Davison and Perry2017).
The combination of competing and ambiguous third-party interests alongside the strategic-military utility attributed to the YPG-dominated SDF by the US can be counted as factors that enabled the PYD to violate its rhetoric of democratic governance. Hyeran Jo (Reference Jo2015: 238) argues that complying with international law is in the interest of legitimacy-seeking rebels, including political groups with a secessionist agenda. However, this goes up against scholars who argue that external support makes garnering civilian backing more dispensable for rebels, who become more likely to engage in civilian victimization (Weinstein Reference Weinstein2006). Indeed, Nelson Kasfir (Reference Kasfir, Arjona, Kasfir and Mampilly2015: 22) shows that many rebels succeed in their political goals despite badly mistreating civilians – for example, Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). However, what is puzzling is that the PYD effectively sanctioned coercion in spite of requiring a degree of domestic legitimacy to come closer to its self-determination goals.
Several considerations probably tipped the cost–benefit analysis on the utility of violence for the group. Firstly, the provision of foreign military equipment and support facilitated expansion into ISIS-held territories. Violent civilian displacement from Arab villages escalated after the PYD/YPG joined the counter-ISIS operations in mid-2015, when the militia began to threaten residents with US-backed air strikes (Gutman Reference Gutman2017). Secondly, the use of violence was likely seen as a low-status cost based on the perception of impunity provided by ambivalent state sponsors. Indeed, international actors have failed to send a clear message that the PYD/YPG must be held responsible for the human rights violations, confiscation of property and demolition, and forced deportations (Savelsberg Reference Savelsberg2018). The US government has either played down the infractions documented by human rights organizations or ignored them completely (Gutman Reference Gutman2017). Even in the unlikely scenario where the PYD manages to secure long-term US commitment in north-eastern Syria, the memory of militia violence against civilians forms part of a complex legacy of Kurdish rule that will complicate the PYD's bid to legitimize its governing structures.
Complicating the PYD's project for self-governance further is the ardent opposition by Turkey, which sees a Kurdish corridor along its Syrian border as an existential threat and has legitimate national security concerns. Turkey protested the extent of US support for the PYD given its affiliation with the PKK and bilateral relations between the two NATO allies became strained as a result. Turkey intervened militarily to disrupt Kurdish governance structures along its border during Operation Euphrates Shield (August 2016–March 2017) and Operation Olive Branch (20 January 2018). After the YPG was forced to cede Afrin to the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army and Islamic fundamentalist groups such as Ahrar Sham on 18 March 2018, militia withdrew to the nearby towns of Tel Rifaat, Nubul and Zahra (Teoman and Cafarella Reference Teoman and Cafarella2018). The campaign caused the PYD to lose key territory and supply routes, damaged the Kurdish national narrative, and lessened the PYD's bargaining power with Damascus. Operation Olive Branch also resulted in a Turkey-backed interim opposition local city council in Afrin, which directly undermined the PYD's dominance in the area. The 20-seat council is headed by a Kurd; the Syrian Kurds were allocated 11 seats, the Arabs eight seats and the Turcoman one seat (Al-Khateb Reference Al-Khateb2018). Unsurprisingly, the PYD denigrated this entity as an illegal structure under occupation that lacked grassroots legitimacy, and even Kurdish rivals have accused it of being an unrepresentative body that serves Turkey's interests via proxy actors.Footnote 19 However, the swift pace at which the new council was established highlighted the limitations of the PYD's ability to sustain unilaterally its governance structures without the protection of foreign powers.
Rebel–regime relations
The area claimed for Kurdish autonomy was not the product of a protracted rebel–regime battle or rebel military victory. As the loss of strategic territory in Afrin and its environs showed, in the absence of foreign reinforcement and with little financial autonomy, the PYD lacks the institutional capacity to transform into a secessionist movement or a standing army because it does not possess offensive military capabilities such as armoured units, heavy fire support systems and an air force. Given such limitations, the PYD has employed a pragmatic non-aggression approach to the Assad regime in order eventually to bargain the terms of a space of Kurdish self-rule (Ali Reference Ali2015). In the Hassakeh canton, PYD and regime allied forces co-existed based on mutual interest to avoid direct confrontation (Acun and Keskin Reference Acun and Keskin2016: 12, 20), and a number of parallel institutions emerged that reflect accommodationist dual governance strategies. A level of co-existence with the regime ensured transfers of salaries, provisions of services and revenue-sharing from oil production. At the same time, the PYD managed to secularize certain institutions, overhaul the governance system in vast areas, and promote the inclusion of previously marginalized minorities – achievements that no other opposition group was able to make.
In return for de facto autonomy, the PYD extended guarantees to respect Syria's territorial integrity. The PYD has limited its demands to a loose form of federalism (Arafat Reference Arafat2017) or one that would resemble the post-2003 constitutional arrangement in Iraq that recognized the Kurdistan Region as a distinct entity within a unified state.Footnote 20 Former co-chair of the PYD Salih Muslim has reiterated that fears of secession were unfounded: ‘Claiming our rights does not mean that we want secession’ (Cheterian Reference Cheterian2013). Similarly, Nawaf Xelil, a former PYD leader, stated, ‘We will not seek independence and we are not seeking to create an ethno-nationalist region … We will give all ethnicities and identities local self-rule’ (Solomon and Srivastava Reference Solomon and Srivastava2016). During the PYD's seventh Congress, in late 2017, Muslim remarked, ‘Some circles claim that we built an autonomous government, but our motto is “A Democratic and Federal Syria for All Peoples of Syria”’ (ANF 2017). The former PYD co-chair, Asya Abdullah, advocated a Kurdish-brokered federalism as a solution to the war in Syria (Arafat Reference Arafat2017). Similarly, the new co-chair, Şahoz Hesen, reiterated that the PYD's demand from the regime in Damascus was not autonomy, but rather federalism (Kurdistan24 2017). Indeed, such statements reflect the contemporary practice of the right to self-determination. In general, international law, as well as the dominant policy preference, has not been interpreted as recognizing the right to a unilateral appeal to autonomy that defies the consent of an elected government and that is not underwritten by some legal means of sanction (Buchanan Reference Buchanan and Zalta2017).
Unsurprisingly, official statements by regime officials have opposed the idea of a negotiated agreement for devolution or power-sharing that would constitutionalize Kurdish autonomy, and Assad has expressed intentions to retake rebel-held territory across all parts of the country by force, including SDF-held oil fields in eastern Syria (see, for example, Perry et al. Reference Perry, Francis and Bassam2017). Syrian government officials and members of the Syrian Arab opposition see the federal proposal in the north as a pretext for Kurdish separatism (Mneimneh Reference Mneimneh2018). Protests against PYD rule among Arab tribes and other groups may serve to justify the reinstatement of the central state over local administrations. However, my interview material shows that Kurds who see themselves as targets of state discrimination are more likely to be supportive of proposals for autonomy, hence ignoring Kurdish pre-war grievances and the wartime experience with self-rule may result in spiralling instability in Syria.
Conclusion
This article contributes and builds on the relevant literatures by making a case for why the PYD does not fit the rebel-to-party linear transition, while also not falling neatly into the category of rebel governance either, thus offering some new parameters for conceptualization. Specifically, in this case, intra-organizational, state and substate and international factors complicate and exert varying levels of pressure on rebel governance strategies. The pressures that flow from these mutually embedded and interrelated relationships render the organization vulnerable in the eventual post-war transition. The PYD's rebel type as a self-determination actor is the primary determinant and predictor of its strategy-making along the democracy–violence continuum. The desire for territorial autonomy renders it important for the politico-military organization to achieve both internal and external recognition, making it important that it addresses its democracy gaps while being held responsible for its transgressions by powerful third-party actors. At the same time, the challenge of negotiating cross-border relations within the internal Kurdish power struggle complicates the PYD's claim to represent Syrian Kurdish interests.
At the substate level in Kurdish-majority areas, governance structures reflected procedural power-sharing at best and incited less civilian resistance, suggesting that the PYD sought to be seen as a legitimate ruler over its ethno-national core constituency. This was also a pragmatic move given the weak demographic position of the Kurds (as different from both Iraq and Turkey) in Syria. However, top-down doctrinal prescriptions were far from actual democracy, as evidenced by cases of human rights violations and coercion against dissenters.
A second destabilizing factor on local democratization is the relationship between the ideological hardliners in the PKK/KCK and YPG in Syria on one hand, and moderates within the PYD on the other. Normalization at the local level will require that the PYD take genuine steps to ensure fair representation, voice for political opponents and respect for civil rights. This requires governance structures that rely less on simple compliance in favour of consent-based rule over civilians who endorse the ‘appropriateness of the rules being enforced’ (Podder Reference Podder2017: 687). Kurdish-inhabited regions in Syria have a long experience of Marxist and leftist parties. However, the top-down doctrinal application of Öcalanist ideology has alienated segments of the local population, including socially conservative Arab and Kurdish constituencies, who do not perceive that their preferences, interests and religious beliefs are reflected by the ideas of self-rule embodied by the PYD.
Thirdly, safeguarding its territorial control over areas of self-rule has meant that the PYD operates on an understanding of non-aggression and, at times, de facto armed cooperation with the regime against common threats, such as Salafi extremist groups – demonstrating the hybrid strategies operationalized by the PYD/YPG. Unsurprisingly, stable relations relied less on the PYD demonstrating its democratic commitments per se, and more on it pledging to mobilize on a federal power-sharing platform rather than secession. While the exigencies of the war meant that the regime in Damascus tolerated Kurdish self-rule, the willingness to preserve the arrangement will depend on the nature of the bargain struck in the peace settlement.
Finally, the legitimacy-seeking ambition of the organization has meant it has a pragmatic modus operandi and is not likely to abandon its democratic programme, even if it remains only a rhetorical commitment. However, foreign military assistance and ‘soft’ recognition uniquely empowered it to establish hegemony, often through violence, over civilians and political opponents. This had the adverse effect of demoting democratic principles and practices to a secondary or superficial concern. It is possible that the PYD/YPG may try to escalate violence if the possibility of territorial autonomy is thwarted by state-led centralization policies that would throw into question the possibility of the Kurds' physical security within the state; the ongoing threat of military campaigns conducted by regional veto powers; the withdrawal of external support; and the risk posed by internal resettlement patterns and population shifts. Understanding the pathways and interlinking variables at work at each of the four levels of interaction can better explain the trajectory of the PYD's hybrid governance strategies, with implications for a post-war political transition.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship. I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers who provided helpful comments. In addition, I extend gratitude to colleagues who kindly commented on earlier drafts of the manuscript, including Devon E.A. Curtis and Gyda M. Sindre, the editors of this collection of articles, and Güneş Murat Tezcür, Burak Bilgehan Özpek, Mehdi Noorbaksh and Andrew Knott.
