XXXI Международный конгресс ИИСАА. 23–25 июня 2021 г. Т. 2

Россия и Восток. К 100-летию политических и культурных связей новейшего времени. Т. 2 317 Круглый стол: «Курдский вопрос: история и современность» Sosnowski P. (University of Warsaw, Poland) Path dependence from non-state proxy forces to de facto state: a history of “strategic exploitation” of the Kurds as a context of the Iraqi Kurdistan security policy Within the path dependence concept 1 , some processes can be defined as having their own history. This means that their present and future development depends on their historical development. Thus, a given process can develop along various paths that can lead to the achievement of various states of equilibrium. Likewise, institutional transformations are conditioned by past and present events. Events at the beginning of the path may hinder or exclude the possibility of reaching certain states in the later stages of development of the local institutional system 2 . The subject of the research is both the adopted and assigned international roles of political actors from the area of Kurdistan 3 . I assume that the long-term adoption of the international role of a non-state proxy actor 4 is conducive to the transformation of a non-state actor into a de facto state 5 against the intentions of quasi-patrons 6 . The purpose of this article is to describe the phenomenon of path dependence in the context of transformations of the international roles of Kurdish political entities, as well as an attempt to identify the events that initiated the path of the dependence 1 Mahoney J., Schensul D. Historical context and path dependence. The Oxford handbook of contextual political analysis. Oxford University Press, 2006. 2 I understand the institutional system, like Williamson, as a combination of various formal institutions that can change over the course of one generation, and informal ones that transform over many generations. Williamson O. The New Institutional Economics: Taking stock, looking ahead, Journal of Economic Literature, no. 38, 2000, p. 595–613 3 Kurdistan as a historical and geographical area located today within the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. 4 A Non-state proxy actor can be de ned as a non-state political entity that is used or inspired to carry out militarized intimidation in order to implement its quasi-patron interests. Read more: Ariel A. Proxy warriors: the rise and fall of state-sponsored militias. Stanford University Press, 2011. 5 An Entity that fulfils the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (1933) criteria for statehood but lack of international recognition or delaying its secession (e.g. Kurdistan Region in Iraq). 6 Researchers of the de facto states define a patron as a sovereign state that ensures security over the de facto state, but at the same time decide whether the supported entity can cooperate with the International Community. I refer to the term “quasi-patron” as the situ- ation when patron state has no possibility of deciding to admit the support of de facto state cooperation with the International Community, but to some extent can influence its client decision-making process. This mainly applies to de facto states that do not have a patron (Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991, Somaliland). In this study, I also call quasi-patrons the actors who entered a patron-client relationship with various armed Kurdish political entities.