Over the past year the Kurds have made the headlines as a result of their fighting against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Yet, despite their significant population size of around thirty-five to forty million and their long-term, at times quite violent, political struggle in the Middle East, Kurds have not been previously such a center of attention in the media. The existing academic literature on Kurdish politics is also still limited. While several studies have been published on the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq in the past decade, the situation of the Kurds in Iran and Syria has rarely been analyzed. As a compilation of essays that examine the Kurdish issue in all four countries, this volume is a timely and essential addition to the scholarly literature on the Kurds. Written by leading scholars of Kurdish politics, the essays discuss in detail state policies toward the Kurds in Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, provide valuable information on the internal dynamics of and relations between different Kurdish mobilizations in these countries, and examine the relevance of the Kurdish issue for democratization and establishment of peace in the Middle East. The contributors of the volume agree that peace and stability in the Middle East should not only mean the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict but also the end of the Kurdish conflict.

The relationship between democratization and the resolution of the Kurdish conflict constitutes the integrating theoretical theme of the book. The authors contend that a meaningful democratization and liberalization in these countries cannot happen without addressing Kurdish grievances and demands. They underline that the states' militarized approach to the Kurdish minority and their repression of Kurdish rights will also hurt their stability and territorial integrity. Michael Gunter, for instance, analyzes Turkey's “deep state,” whose emergence had a lot to do with the Kurdish issue. The growing power of the deep state not only intensified the Kurdish problem, it also curtailed Turkey's democratic consolidation and liberalization. Whether democratization automatically brings improvement of Kurdish rights or an end to ethnic conflict, however, is less obvious. In his broader, theoretical essay David Mason underlines that democratic systems in ethnically divided countries can provide political entrepreneurs more incentives to mobilize the population along ethnic lines and manipulate ethnic identities, which in turn can increase ethnic tensions. Similarly, Güneş Murat Tezcür argues that under certain conditions democratization can lead to more ethnic conflict. He discusses why the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) resumed armed struggle in Turkey around the time the state liberalized its policies toward the Kurds, recognizing some of the key linguistic and cultural rights. Tezcür argues that the PKK's return to violence was linked to the electoral losses of the pro-Kurdish party and the PKK's fear of losing control over its constituency. The PKK increased violence in order to show its strength to the government and obtain concessions from it.

While the book's engagement with theoretical debates about democratization and ethnic conflict is important, its main contribution lies in the detailed discussions of different Kurdish movements in the region. There is limited literature on the internal dynamics of Kurdish politics in Syria, Iran, and Iraq. As such, this volume fills an important gap. Eva Savelsberg's and Robert Lowe's essays on Syrian Kurds are highly informative in explaining the Kurdish mobilization during the Syrian Revolution. They describe the different Kurdish factions, tensions between them, and their relations with other opposition groups in Syria and the Kurdish groups in Iraq and Turkey. They underline how the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian branch of the PKK, became the dominant authority in the Kurdish regions at the expense of other Kurdish political groups thanks to its military power, repressive tactics, and strategic alliance with the Syrian regime. Savelsberg argues that the PYD acts as a major obstacle to the democratization of Kurdish politics and that the Kurds are too weak to initiate democratization in Syria. Lowe underlines that the civil war initially gave some opportunities to the Kurds for self-government and a more representative system. However, the militarization of the Kurdish struggle and the PYD's intolerance for any opposition against its rule impeded the emergence of a democratic system in the Kurdish areas. Lowe contends that the establishment of self-government in Western Kurdistan is unlikely because of the noncontiguous character of the Kurdish areas and their economic dependence on the rest of Syria, the fractious nature of the Kurdish movement, and opposition from non-Kurdish Syria. Unlike the romanticized accounts that appeared over the last year in the media, emphasizing the egalitarian and democratic nature of Kurdish politics in Syria, Savelsberg's and Lowe's essays depict a more nuanced, critical, and realistic picture.

Two essays in this volume analyze the Kurdish question in Iran, which is probably the least well-known case among the four countries. Gareth Stansfield provides a good overview of state-Kurdish relations in Iran since the late 19th century and the different regimes' policies toward the Kurds. This essay constitutes a good background to Nader Entessar's essay on the situation of the Kurds after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Entessar discusses the Iranian state's perception of the Kurdish question solely through a security perspective and Kurds' overall exclusion from the political system, focusing on the periods of different Iranian leaders, from Khomeini to Rouhani.

Nicole Watts' and David Romano's chapters on Iraq are particularly important because of their detailed, focused, and original analyses. Watts writes on the governance of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the pressures from below for greater political representation and contestation. She discusses the KRG's mixed record of democratization with the concurrent existence of regular and relatively free elections with high levels of corruption, restrictions on civil liberties, and a weak judiciary that is unable to hold the KRG accountable. She calls attention to a new protest culture and the emergence of new groups, such as nongovernmental organizations, media outlets, student groups, street protestors, and the Gorran Party, demanding more representation, better services, less corruption, and accountability without challenging KRG's governing authority. According to Watts, these bottom-up pressures create significant prospects for democratization despite the competing imperative of maintaining national unity and nation building that pulls the KRG toward a more authoritarian path. David Romano provides a detailed analysis of the 2005 Iraqi constitution, discussing how it creates the necessary provisions for decentralization that can keep Iraq united and politically stable by limiting the central state's power and guaranteeing Kurdish, Sunni, and other minority rights, if implemented.

This book is a must read for scholars, journalists, and students interested in contemporary Kurdish politics and ethnic conflict in the Middle East. The last two chapters by Mehmet Gürses and Ofra Bengio cover the transnational dynamic of the Kurdish question and discuss how Kurdish politics in Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey have increasingly influenced each other. Because many chapters provide the historical context and discuss how the broader theoretical debates on ethnic conflict and democratization apply to the Kurdish question, it can easily be assigned to undergraduate students. While the theoretical lens of democratization is the integrating theme of the book, this lens does not always help us to understand Kurdish politics. This is particularly the case for Syria and Iran. In neither country is there a strong prospect for democratization nor are the Kurds influential enough to push these political systems toward a more democratic process. Regardless of this problem of theoretical relevance, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Kurdish question because it provides a detailed, balanced, and informative account of Kurdish politics in the Middle East.