Kurds and the #Palestinian# s are two of the world’s largest ‘nations without states’ (Guibernau, 2004). Dispersed throughout the Middle East, they both seek to rectify the post-First World War order imposed upon them, which left them without states. The origins of Kurdish and Palestinian national claims lie in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Although Kurdish and Palestinian demands for recognition as nations emerged at similar moments in time and faced similar challenges in a troubled region, they have reached different conclusions regarding their strategies for self-determination. While the Palestinians have largely opted for independent statehood in (part of) their historical national homeland, the major Kurdish groups in Syria and Turkey have moved away from separatist claims and aim increasingly for autonomy within the existing non-Kurdish states. Given their earlier common claims to independent statehood, how can we explain why Palestinians and Syrian Kurds now opt for different versions of national recognition? What determines non-state national groups’ strategies when it comes to fulfilling the goal of self-determination? What opportunities and constraints are Kurds and Palestinians faced with at the local, regional, and international level? How do these affect the overarching strategic goals of these national movements?

In answering these questions, our central argument is that the ideologies and political trajectories of these two nations without states are shaped by what we term the ‘politics of the possible’. The two national movements are thus compared through an analysis of their operationalization of self-determination within the external and internal limitations exerted upon them. The regional context in particular limits the ambitions of any national project, highlighting that these national movements are engaged in the politics of the possible. While the article is of contemporary relevance, it is informed by historical studies investigating developments both within the respective national movements and with regard to their foreign relations. Kurdish and Palestinian efforts at self-determination are not often paired as analytically comparative cases – despite the similarities between them and even their political engagement with each other.1 Together, however, they represent two of the world’s most significant ‘nations without states’ (Guibernau, 2004), with parallel chronologies and proximate, even overlapping geographies (Avineri, 2005; Brynen, 2019: 15–16; Maksoud, 1993). Our article thus fills a gap in the academic literature on non-state nationalist movements.

The Kurds are considered the world’s largest stateless nation (Gunter, 2013: 161). There is a large variation in the estimated total Kurdish population due to their cross-border mobility, but 30 million is a reasonable estimate. The Kurdish population is predominantly divided between Turkey (15 million), Iraq (5 million), Iran (6.5 million), and Syria (2.2 million). The remainder live in areas of the former Soviet Union and in the diaspora, mainly in Western Europe (Gunter, 2013: 163). The Palestinians are estimated to number 13 million globally (Middle East Monitor, 2019), divided as follows: West Bank and East Jerusalem 3 million; Gaza 2 million; Israel 1.6 million; Jordan 2.2 million; Lebanon 0.5 million; and Syria 0.6 million, with the remainder spread around the world.2 This dispersion of the two populations means they are both transnational actors engaging at multiple levels: local, national, regional, and international.[1]
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