The bifurcated trajectory of nation formation in Kurdistan: Democratic confederalism, nationalism, and the crisis of capitalist modernity

Abstract

Two different sociopolitical projects of nation formation seem to be in praxis in Kurdistan simultaneously: The Kurdistan Region of Iraq aspires to be an independent nation‐state, while the movement led by the Kurdistan Workers' Party advocates a democratic confederal project. How did this bifurcation arise? By putting Abdullah Öcalan's interpretation of nationalism and capitalist modernity in dialogue with existing theories of nationalism, I argue that this bifurcation resulted from a difference in scaling the root causes of the Kurdish question: The former project imagines emancipation through state formation within capitalist modernity, while the latter problematises capitalist modernity itself. The modular and hegemonic expansion of nationalism and the nation‐state along with capitalist modernity has been countered in Mesopotamia by politico‐social multiplicity. This has given rise to the particular structural dynamics that underlie a “recurring failure” in state formation. The bifurcation in question here has emerged interactively against this background.