Kurdish Insurgency in Iran

Abstract

Determining the empirical causes of recruitment to nationalist militant organizations is a pertinent topic, given the global rise in neo-nationalist attitudes. In this article, I seek to explore one prospective cause through a case study of the Kurds in Iran. The Kurdish population within Iran has witnessed rising levels of insurgency into militant nationalist organizations. These organizations routinely conduct armed operations against Iranian forces in historically Kurdish regions within Iran, with the goal of reclaiming territory and halting perceived inequitable treatment of the Kurdish minority by the Iranian government. My research intends to explore the root causes of this rise in violence and whether historical political mobilization within Kurdish-dominated regions of Iran has resulted in the increased Kurdish insurgency efforts. I employ an original database and three models to test the relationship between an area's mobilization history and its subsequent insurgency recruitment levels. Ultimately, my results point to contextual variables as the driving factor behind insurgency recruitment compared to the aforementioned historical variables. My research provides a foundation for future exploration into the historical causes of Kurdish insurgency in Iran. A more sophisticated approach to data collection may generate a wider pool of data from which further analysis may be conducted.