A Tale of Two States? The Kurdistan Region of Iraq Caught Between Conflict and Cooperation with Central Iraq (1991–2020)

Iraq has been among the Middle Eastern countries most challenged by long episodes of armed conflict over the past half century. Nevertheless, the Iraqi state – which many analysts and politicians derogatively called a “failed state” – did not succumb, but the functions, which it could temporarily no longer exercise, were assumed by other actors. While the state did not cease to exist, the very notions of statehood and sovereignty underwent significant changes. One of these actors, which managed to consolidate its position over time by transforming both its own statehood as well as Iraq's in more general terms, is the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), which emerged as a want-to-be-state in early 1991. Over the past three decades, despite not having achieved any formal recognition by any UN member state, the KRI has managed to continuously consolidate its limited statehood, however, to the detriment of its often ailing parent-state, Central Iraq. As research on want-to-be-states in international relations is nascent, there are only a few studies investigating the interactions between want-to-be-states and their parent states they aim to detach from. This paper addresses this gap by examining the dynamics between the KRI and Iraq over four distinct phases (1991–1996; 1996–2005; 2005–2014; 2014–2020). Using Krasner's (1999, 2004) conceptualization of domestic, Westphalian, and international sovereignty, the paper analyzes how the KRI has consolidated its statehood along these axes and how these actions have influenced its relationship with Central Iraq. The goal is to identify factors that foster cooperation and those that exacerbate historical conflicts between the two entities. The analysis is based on official documents, archival sources, and empirical data from extensive fieldwork in the KRI conducted in 2019 and 2022. The findings presented are part of a larger PhD project.