The Motivation to Enlist Among Kurds

Although humans have voluntarily joined militaries throughout history, research on the motivation to enlist has increased dramatically since the adoption of the All-Volunteer Force in the United States. Moskos categorized the motivations to enlist as institutional (the value alignment of the individual with the military) or occupational (the seeking of monetary rewards for competencies at market rates). This study explores the prevalence of these two traditional motivations in addition to two less commonly studied motivations—group mobilization and revenge-seeking—in an important context: the Kurds of northern Iraq. A survey of 2301 Kurdish soldiers (Peshmerga) during their war against the Islamic State (IS) indicates that institutional motivations are the most prevalent, although all four motivations are present. The importance of group mobilization and revenge-seeking represent important variations from the better-studied Western contexts that complicate our understanding of the motivation to enlist.