ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 identifies the internal dynamics (i.e. tribalism) and political elites (e.g. mirs, aghas, and sheikhs) behind the resistance of the base to change into an industrialised and modernised nation of the nineteenth century. It examines the characteristics of Kurdish society, economic behaviour, social relations, and political leadership as well as the role of traditional non-economic institutions in the political economy of self-governance. It focuses on Kurdish reluctance to accept a market economy by their insistence on maintaining an embedded economy based on reciprocity and redistribution principles. Kurdish political economy is considered part of a double movement which was protectionist and set against the market economy in order to rescue land, labour, and money from being fictitious commodities. On the contrary, the Kurdish leadership was unable to respond to the society’s needs and expectations, as some leaders subsided power to the state while others started to serve the state. The lack of visionary leadership meant that the Kurds were unable to integrate into the new world order and its modern institutions that were forming around them. As a result, the linear modernisation process could not be copied in Kurdish territory.
