Regulatory Capture in a Transitional Democracy: Media Laws in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Abstract

This article focuses on a particular aspect of media capture by examining how the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s media regulatory authorities and governmental bureaucracy use both formal and informal instruments and practices at their disposal to regulate press freedom. It reports on the findings of a mixed-methods approach: A qualitative document analysis of media regulations (such as laws, bills, and guidelines) was combined with 20 in-depth semistructured interviews with both state officials involved in media regulatory authorities and journalists, media managers, and editors-in-chief (N = 20). The findings show deliberate shortcomings in the contents of the laws as a result of pressure from the ruling political parties. In addition, they reveal the existence of informal structures and practices to control formal media regulations through patronage relationships and clientelism. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results with regard to the state of the regulatory chaos occurring within an unstable political environment. This includes imprecise laws and the irregular and unpredictable enforcement of media laws that are restricting journalists, to discern the boundary between legal and illegal. As such, the findings provide key insights on the different dimensions of regulatory capture in transitional democracies more broadly.