Contingent radicalization : government repression and ethnonationalist political mobilization

Political movements for autonomy by geographically concentrated minority ethnic groups are a threat to nation-building, and often met with repression. When do ethnonationalist movements mobilize for self-determination and political autonomy with the potential of facing repression? When do a regime's repressive tactics actually incite mass political mobilization rather than quelling it? In order to answer these questions, this project deconstructs what appear to be perpetual cycles of contention, cataloguing both government and ethnic group actions across time and identifying the onset and perpetuation of contentious cycles. Based on an extensive survey of existing historical research on government treatment of Kurds, this project introduces a new, comprehensive dataset on large-scale Kurdish mobilization in four countries from 1917 to 2013 and anti-Kurd repressive efforts in the same time period. The dataset relies on a generalizable typology of government ethnic repressions that differentiates violence, political exclusion, property and forced resettlement repressions, martial law and mobility limits, ethnic, language, cultural and religious bans, and employment, education, and economic denials. The dataset also introduces a new dimension capturing the origins of government ethnic repression and codes each origin as either 'provoked" or 'unprovoked" by previous dissent coming from one or more members of the targeted ethnic group. This project contributes a new framework for understanding cycles of government repression and ethnonationalist mobilization, called "contingent radicalization." In this framework, ethnonationalist mobilization depends on ethnic entrepreneurs' organizational capacity and ethnic group members' inclination to engage in nationalist political action. Government repression affects both components, and different substantive types of government repression have diverging effects. The project also outlines a theory of why we might expect provoked repressions to tend to increase mobilization more so than unprovoked repressions. To examine whether repression foments or quells future mobilization for the case of Kurd-State relations, I conduct statistical analysis of pooled cross-national time-series data from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey since World War I. Models that do not distinguish between repression types consistently show that ethnic repression is positively correlated with future levels of large-scale ethnonationalist mobilization. Models that differentiate repression types show that some tend to foment mobilization while others tend to quell it. In particular, physically coercive repressions like violence, property destructions, forced resettlements, and martial law tend to increase future mobilization levels while economic repressions tend to depress them. I also conduct exploratory statistical analysis regarding how movements mobilize after different repression types, including movement causes, organizational features, and tactics. These models suggest that different repression types are associated with different movement forms and tactics. Property destructions, forced resettlements, and ethnic bans are positively associated with violent movement tactics while ethnic bans are associated with movement defiance in publishing their own media and participating in elections. For the case of Kurd-State relations during the study period, 42 percent of all governments' repressive efforts are unprovoked, or not directly precipitated by previous dissent. Governments initiate and implement unprovoked repressions for political reasons other than specific instances of dissent, including nation-building projects, domestic and foreign pressures, and moments of regime or leadership change. Via statistical modeling I examine the effects of both unprovoked and provoked anti-Kurd repressions on Kurdish nationalist mobilization levels one to ten years later. Provoked and unprovoked repressions of Kurds both tend to increase Kurdish mobilization levels, with provoked repressions corresponding to a larger effect size than unprovoked repressions in the short term. Furthermore, within certain substantive types of repression, there are different mobilization effects depending on whether the repression is provoked or unprovoked. In addition to the extensive statistical analysis, I qualitatively examine six cases from the history of Kurd-State relations featuring significant moments of government repression against Kurdish populations. Most cases begin with an unprovoked repression, though one starts with a hostile militant act by Kurdish forces that the government quickly met with repression. In some cases, the repression sets off a destructive cycle of repression and large-scale ethnonationalist mobilization. In other cases, little or no mobilization follows. Each case study uses primary and secondary sources to reconstruct the origins, scope, intent, and executor of repressions and Kurdish mobilization levels in the weeks before and after the repressive event. As unprovoked repressions are caused by external political drivers unrelated to expressed dissent, these case studies provide an opportunity to partially control for the effect of previous mobilization on the mobilization outcome of interest. Via this methodological innovation and careful pairing of cases, I approach the standards of causal inference with respect to the effect of different types of government repression on ethnonationalist political mobilization. The dynamics explored in this project contribute to conflicts hardening into perpetual cycles of ethnic repression and mobilization, cycles not readily resolved by present international norms and incentives. Looking for a path forward, I offer a succinct and radical vision of geopolitical reforms in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey that would likely bring lasting domestic and regional stability with respect to Kurd-State relations. I conclude with a further recommendation for political elites and civil society leaders among the ethnic group to engage in a continual joint effort at ethnic "remembering" in order to elevate both the ethnic group and the national unity project. Such an effort would be a constructive way to acknowledge and counteract the history of coerced ethnic repression, including its tacit and at times explicit motivation of ethnic "forgetting.".

Keywords: Political Science.
Advisor: Laitin David D.
Blaydes Lisa
Milani Abbas 
Weinstein Jeremy M.