The Role of Local Government Practices in the Kurdish Region
Off University engages in “Critical Peace Studies” now in the third year with the support of Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation. In 2024 we have organized three expert roundtables focusing on the role of local government in the peace process of the Kurdish region. Given the constant onslaught on elected leaders that are replaced by government trustees with decrees by the central government of the Turkish nation state, this field proved to be highly contested in the past year, too.
The three roundtables on the Historical Dimensions of Local Government Practices in the Kurdish Region (August 24th, 2024), the Transformative Effects of Local Governance Practices in the Kurdish Region (September 7th, 2024) and The Political Legacy of Local Government Practices in Kurdish Geography and Their Contribution to Peace Building (October 5th, 2024) have now been documented in the following reports.
With the contribution of scholars, local politicians, decision-makers and activists, we explored different levels of actors involved in peace building processes. These are: the government, parliament, leaders of organisations, which we call decision makers as upper level actors; middle level actors: intellectuals, non-governmental organisations, academics, religious groups; Third level actors are the people affected by the conflict. Local governments, as mid-level actors, have the power to directly influence both high-level and low-level actors. Since they have direct contact with the public, they can make very important contributions to bottom-up peace building processes.
