1 ISSN 1712-8056[Print] ISSN 1923-6697[Online] www.cscanada.net www.cscanada.org Canadian Social Science Vol. 11, No. 1, 2015, pp. 1-16 DOI:10.3968/5549 Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture The Rise and Fall of Political Movements in the Late 19 th Century and First Half of 20 th Century Kurdistan (an Organisational Analysis) Ahmad Mohammadpur [a],* ; Norbert Otto Ross [b]; Karim Mahmoodi [c] [a] Research Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. [b] Associate Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, USA. [c] Independent Researcher, Tehran, Iran. *Corresponding author. Received 12 September 2014; accepted 15 December 2014 Published online 26 January 2015 Abstract Kurdological literature has been mainly limited to mere historical descriptive discussions characterized by descriptive story telling about personal/private aspects of Kurdish political chiefs. This study tries to provide a new sociological analysis based on synthetic organizational model to examine the process and structure of political movement-making and the causes of their failure in all around Kurdistan in the late 19 th century and first half of 20 th century. Four organizational theories are employed in this paper: contingency, institutional, population ecology and resource dependency theories. In order to analyse the rise and demise of political movement-making in the late 19 th century and first half of 20 th century Kurdistan Macro level factors including exogenous factors i.e. the super-powers and central governments, Meso level factors containing socio-economic factors such as tribal- feudalism, regionalism and religion, and Micro Level factors composed of illiteracy and cultural poverty were analysed through aforementioned organizational theories. Our fundamental finding is that the endogenous and exogenous factors have mutually caused the rise and demise of political movement-making. But exogenous factors were the final determinant in shaping, reshaping, directing and finally collapsing on Kurdish movements. Finally it should be asserted that neither exogenous factors nor Endogenous factors were able to meet Kurdish political requirements; exogenous forces were temporal determinants that played their role according to their own economic and political logic and endogenous forces such as tribal-feudalism, regionalism and religion wasted political potential in challenging with the central governments. Key words: Contemporary Kurdistan; Kurdish movements; Political movements; Organisational analysis Mohammadpur, A., Ross, N. O., & Mahmoodi, K. (2015). The Rise and Fall of Political Movements in the Late 19 th Century and First Half of 20 th Century Kurdistan (an Organisational Analysis). Canadian Social Science, 11 (1), 1-16. Available from: http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/css/article/view/5549 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/5549 INTRODUCTION Despite the fact that many studies have been conducted about the Kurdish society and culture in comparison with other ethnic groups in Iran and Middle East, most of socio-cultural and economic structures of this ethnicity still remain vague and unexplained. The dominant issue in these studies has been political nature and dynamics as if the Kurds have been the naturally born political. Both outsiders and insiders have ignored the other non-political aspects. The outsiders’ studies have focused on when and how the Kurdish political movement developed while the most of insiders concentrated on the history of Kurdish kings and religious aspects. Most researchers, who have worked on Kurdish political structure, in recent decades, have been outsiders who are not familiar with Kurdish society and culture. They have written about Kurdish society with political orientations. Their writings evolve around the tales and narratives of political rebels’ history and story telling about Kurdish political leaders. We can classify most of them into political history that does not reflect significant debates or results. Most outside researchers have