Abstract
Originally, this thesis set out to explore the sustainability of a military merger between previously hostile forces in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Given that a previous merger ended in civil war and that recent merger attempts were pursued in a similar fashion, this research’s hypothesis was that the unification would break apart over internal or external dividing influences. In the course of my research, on 16 October 2017, the suspected separation occurred. Consequently, the focus of my research shifted. Given that the separated forces reunified, I set out to explore what could make the merger sustainable. Thereby, a social-constructivist paradigm, an interdisciplinary theoretical approach and qualitative fieldwork were applied.Starting with a review of military-merger literature, I realised that any study of merger is necessarily confronted with the idea of creating military unity. Thereby, both academic research and policy practice seem to share a predominantly structural perspective of unity. The underlying assumption is that once the forces are legally, bureaucratically and structurally unified, they are merged. Having observed the Kurdish armed forces during the war with ISIS, I had reasons to be sceptical of structure alone being sufficient for sustainable unification. Instead, I argue that underlying perceptions, values and beliefs of unified soldiers need to be accounted for in order to generate a merger that can withstand dividing forces.
Therefore, I interviewed unified soldiers of all ranks, trying to identify their perceptions, judgement and feelings about unity. In this process, the ideal form of unity stood in stark contrast with the daily experience of working in unified brigades. To make these differences more tangible, I approached the measurement of ideal and prevalent forms of unity from an organisational-culture perspective. Reviewing the findings, I realised that an additional contribution of this thesis is a theoretical approach on how to conceptualise (military) unity.
This dissertation puts forward the theory that unity - the often implicitly assumed goal for any (military) merger - is neither a structure nor a tangible state that can be reached. Instead, it is a social construct constituted along the range from an ideal form to the prevalent organisational culture of unified forces. The closer the idealised vision is to the unified structures and the organisational culture, the more sustainable (i.e., resilient to dividing forces) the merger.
| Date of Award | 1 Sept 2020 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Bill Park (Supervisor) & Stuart Griffin (Supervisor) |