Divided Loyalties, Electoral Rules, and Intra-Party Competition: Kurdish Politics in Iraq (Routledge Studies in Nationalism and Ethnicity)

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 relationsh