The Class Structure of Kurdish Self-Rule in Iraq (1991–2014)

Abstract

This chapter reconstructs the historical processes that led to the creation of the political institutions and social structures of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq since the region fell under Kurdish control in 1991. The leadership of the Iraqi-Kurdish liberation movement co-opted and integrated the members of the old elites—including numerous Ba’athist collaborators—creating a new ruling class characterised by a military or economic extractive background. Meanwhile, the Kurdish peasantry, decimated and displaced in the 1980s and largely urbanised, was turned into a dependent class of urban poor. These transformations allowed for the transition of the region from a predominantly rural society to a rentier economy based on the 1990s on smuggling and foreign aid and from 2003 onward on oil rent.