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Divided Loyalties, Electoral Rules, and Intra-Party Competition explores how electoral systems, social divisions, and regional geopolitics have shaped the course of Kurdish politics in Iraq since the early 1990s. Combining comparative political analysis with field-based evidence, the book provides an innovative framework for understanding how stateless nations and sub-state regions manage internal divisions under limited sovereignty.
As a study in comparative electoral politics, the book explores how institutional design and regional alliances have sustained both cooperation and rivalry within one of the Middle East's most complex political landscapes. Focusing on the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and newer movements, it draws on interviews, archival research, and original election data to explain why intra-Kurdish competition remains driven not only by ideology, but also by historical cleavages, linguistic and generational divides, and shifting relationships with Iran, Turkey, and Syria. While dominant theories in ethnic politics suggest that parties representing the same ethnic group inevitably engage in radical nationalist escalation to maintain legitimacy, this book offers a comprehensive rethinking of intraethnic party competition. Moving beyond identity-based explanations, it also shows how Kurdish parties adapt to the rules of electoral politics while navigating pressures from powerful neighboring states.
Divided Loyalties, Electoral Rules, and Intra-Party Competition offers timely insights to scholars and students of comparative politics, ethnic conflict, Middle Eastern politics, and democracy, as well as policymakers engaged with divided and post-conflict societies worldwide.
List of contents
Part I: Rethinking Ethnic Party Politics Chapter 1. Breaking the Mold: Rethinking the Ethnic Outbidding Paradigm
Chapter 2. Rethinking Rivalry: A New Framework for Intraethnic Party Politics
Chapter 3. Origins of Division: How Ethnic Groups Form Distinct Party Systems
Part II: Structures and Strategies of Intraethnic Contestation Chapter 4. Rules That Divide: Electoral Institutions and Party Fragmentation
Chapter 5. Beyond Identity: Programmatic Politics in Iraqi Kurdistan
Chapter 6. The Rules of the Game: Institutional Incentives and Strategic Behavior
About the author
Soran Tarkhani is Assistant Professor of Political Science and History at Hampton University. His research examines ethnic politics, party competition, and conflict in the Middle East, with particular attention to Kurdish movements and regional alliances. His peer-reviewed articles appear in
Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, and
Kurdish Studies Journal (forthcoming 2025). His first monograph,
Divided Loyalties: Electoral Rules, Societal Cleavages, and Intra-Kurdish Party Competition in Iraqi Kurdistan (Routledge, 2025), offers a comparative framework linking electoral design, sub-ethnic cleavages, and regional alliances to patterns of cooperation and rivalry among Kurdish parties.
