Lexington Books
Pages: 230
•
Trim: 6½ x 9
978-1-7936-0000-4 • Hardback • January 2021 • $105.00 • (£81.00)
978-1-7936-0001-1 • eBook • January 2021 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
Hanifi Baris is research fellow at the University of Aberdeen.
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Autonomy within the State: Non-state Political Communities in Kurdistan
Chapter Three: Constitution-Making in the Shadow of the Founding Father
Chapter Four: Autonomy Within and Across Nation-States
Chapter Five: Conclusion
This book argues that Kurds in Turkey and Syria should strive to achieve self-determination not via ethnonationalism or a national state, but rather by means of libertarian municipalism.... The "Kurdish model" [the authors] advocate should increase understanding of citizenship, cultural/territorial boundaries, and autonomous/self-rule.
— Choice Reviews
“The book is at once about the political community (in) theory and the movement of Kurdish people to create a liveable one. Baris brilliantly and meticulously shows how the Kurdish movement makes a case for democratic confederalism as a type political community that while defending autonomous self-rule it fiercely rejects nationalism, statism, and globalism. This is a remarkable account of political thought in practice.”— Engin Isin, Queen Mary University of London
“Hanifi Barış offers a thoughtful and elaborate explanation and analysis of the concept of radical democracy adopted by the dominant Kurdish movement of Turkey and Syria, with apt observations on its background and implications. He brings out especially clearly how different this set of ideas is from the varieties of nationalism focusing on secession and state formation that also continue to exert a strong appeal among the Kurds. Barış argues that the non-statist communitarianism of this model, although inspired by Western leftist thinkers, resonates with similar arrangements in early modern Kurdish history.” — Martin van Bruinessen, Utrecht University