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Civic Culture and Support for Democracy amongst Kurds in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey
Abstract
Theories of civic culture tried to analyze democratization, however, often did not specifically look at stateless nations like the Kurds. This brings up the question of what civic culture looks like for them and whether the status of statelessness has influenced the civic culture of Kurds in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. Analyzing the first merged large-N dataset including Kurds from Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, this paper shows that the last hundred years of Kurdish political movements have influenced the civic culture of Kurds highly. Being Kurdish in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq has a significant effect on levels of various indicators of political trust and support as well as the correlation of these indicators with levels of support for a democratic political system. Overall, this paper finds that being Kurdish has a strong positive effect on support for democracy versus autocracy in all three countries.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Kurdistan
Sub Area
Democratization