Department of Government Bachelor thesis paper in Political Science, 15 credits Fall 2016 Supervisor: Arda Gücler Unrest as Incentive for Cooperation? The Diversionary Peace Theory, Turkish-Syrian Relations and the Kurdish Conflict Linus Mattsson 1 Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate the link between internal and external conflict of states in the field of International Relations. More specifically, it is a critique of the Diversionary War theory, which argues that political leaders can instigate foreign conflict to divert the attention from domestic issues in order to secure their political positions. This paper will test an alternative approach to the Diversionary War theory called the Diversionary Peace theory, which inverts the logic of the original theory. It argues that leaders facing domestic strife have incentives to cooperate with other states in order to deal with the internal problems in a more cost effective way. Using process tracing methodology, the Diversionary Peace theory is applied to Turkey from 1984-1999, to understand how the Kurdish issue as a source of domestic conflict in Turkey affected the Turkish-Syrian relations. The Diversionary Peace Theory would assume that as the Kurdish conflict escalates at the domestic level, Turkey would be inclined to give concessions to Syria to deescalate conflict at the international level. This paper proves otherwise: as the domestic conflict escalates, relations actually deteriorate and cooperation becomes less likely. Therefore, it is both a critique of the Diversionary War theory and the Diversionary Peace theory. The main interpretation of the findings is that the theory is not applicable to those cases where the boundaries between domestic and international realms are too porous as in the case of the Kurdish politics. When the domestic conflict and international dispute is interlinked, as in this case, I argue that cooperation might not be possible. Future reseachers in the area are advised to pay attention to whether the domestic factor and the international factor are interlinked, how the level of domestic conflict affects foreign relations and the impact of domestic audience costs. Keywords: Diversionary Peace theory, Diversionary War theory, international conflict, Turkey, Syria, Kurdish conflict, process-tracing. 2 Contents 1. Introduction..............................................................................................................................4 1.1 Outline..............................................................................................................................7 2. Background of the case............................................................................................................8 3. Theoretical framework............................................................................................................11 3.1 Diversionary War theory................................................................................................11 3.2 The Critiques of Diversionary War theory....................................................................13 3.3 Diversionary Peace theory.............................................................................................15 4. Methodology...........................................................................................................................17 4.1 Operationalization.........................................................................................................19 4.2 Material.........................................................................................................................20 4.3 Limitations of Research design and material...............................................................21 5. Investigation...........................................................................................................................21 5.1. Initial condiditons: 1984-86 – the Kurdish uprising...................................................21 5.2 Period 1: 1991-93 – from guerilla warfare to open conflict..........................................23 5.3 Period 2: 1994-96 – escalation of the conflict..............................................................25 5.4 Period 3: 1997-99 – height of the conflict.....................................................................27 5.5 Discussion......................................................................................................................29 5.6 Suggestion on further research ....................................................................................31 6. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................33 7. References...............................................................................................................................34 7.1 Academic sources..........................................................................................................34 7.2 Miscellaneous sources..................................................................................................36 3 1. Introduction Why do states go to war? This has been a fundamental question in the field of international relations since its beginning. The outbreak of war has been explained through wide sets of theories, such as structural theories on power balance, alliances and polarity (Midlarsky, 1989:xvi), the reputation and status of a nation as a justification of war (Dafoe, Renshon and Huth, 2014:390), and the impact of public opinion on decision makers (Tomz, 2007:822). One historically popular explanation to this question is that state leaders often create conflict in order to divert attention from domestic issues. This theory is called the Diversionary War theory (DWT). Its logic is that leaders facing domestic issues threatening their own position have incentives to seek foreign conflict, in order to draw attention from such domestic threats (Levy, 1989:259). Domestic problems can be defined as anything from protests and riots to armed uprisings and bad economic conditions, whereas foreign conflict would be defined as an escalation of conflict, threat of or actual use of violence. The Diversionary war theory claims that an increased international conflict affects leaders and the people of the state in several ways. When a nation faces external threat, it is presumed, the group identity (.i.e. the national belonging) becomes stronger (Levy, 1989:261); in consequence, a foreign conflict would unite the people around its leader, and finally, state leaders who are confronted with a potential loss of their domestic power are incentivized to start a foreign conflict since they have nothing left to lose. If such a conflict increases their chance of staying in office, it would be worth initiating it (Chiozza and Goemans, 2003:446). The DWT explains breakout of many conflicts in history, from the Middle Ages to modern times, from this perspective. The most famous suggested cases are historical, like the Crimean War in 1852-1856 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 (Blainey, 1988:73,76), but it also includes more modern conflicts like the Vietnam War (Blainey, 1988:73) and the Falkland wars. While this theory is widely recognized and utilized by many historians, anthropologists and psychologists alike during the 20th century (Blainey 1988:74), it has also been the object of criticisms for a number of political scientists who point to the lack of actual evidence, the weak links between theoretical literature and functional empirical models and ambiguous results in most cases. These critiques have identified a number of faults with the theory: although diversionary tactics do occur in a smaller group, they simply do not seem to manifest themselves at the state level (Levy, 1989:262). Having said that, studies on the use of force by the President of 4 the United States did find some evidence of a positive correlation between internal public discontent and foreign conflict. In times of economic woes, American presidents were found to be more likely to retort to foreign conflict (Ostrom & Job, 1986:548). However, this was also the case when the president had a high overall approval rate, which contradicts the idea of diversionary use of force. It turns out that leaders who face the risk of losing their office are actually less likely to engage in international conflict, regardless of regime type (Chiozza & Goeans, 2003:443). The conclusion is a simple one. Whatever one might expect to gain in popularity turns out to be not worth the risk since it is too costly. As shown by the political science literature, state officials do not use diversionary tactics as frequently as claimed by the theory. However, the DWT is not entirely fruitless since its main logic can be utilized in a different, and possibly more productive manner once we start to question the assumption that increased conflict generates more manageable circumstances (Levy 1989:281). This is the assumption that I am interested in challenging, which is I think the main reason why the DWT's findings tended to contradict with its predictions. It might be more plausible to assume that when leaders face conflict, they do not think that increased conflict would make the situation less costly. If we start with this assumption, what we consider as the rational actions of political elites in times of domestic turmoil might turn out different. One recent contribution to the field in the form of an alternative explanation