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Iraq Findings

Key findings from PeaceRep research in Iraq (2021 – 2026)

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PeaceRep’s Iraq research was led by the LSE Middle East Centre and the University of Edinburgh.

PeaceRep has spanned five years of field-based research on governance, power, and political transformation in post-2003 Iraq. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and partnerships with Iraqi scholars, the programme has examined the workings of the power-sharing system, electoral and judicial institutions, the role of armed actors, and the persistence of elite competition and patronage networks. It has also addressed patterns of exclusion affecting minorities, displaced populations, and young people, alongside questions of educational investment, socio-economic inequality, environmental stress, and Iraq’s place in regional and international politics. The findings below are organised around five cross-cutting themes.

Browse key findings and publications in the tabs below.

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Governance, authority, and exclusion

Entrenched Power and State Capture

Iraq’s post-2003 political system, characterised by muhasasa (ethno-sectarian apportionment), has transformed from a mechanism for accommodating diverse communities into a tool for elite state capture (Alkhudary 2023; Palani 2025b; 2026a). The political elite have extracted an estimated $150 billion since 2003 through:

  1. cross-sectarian patronage networks;
  2. compromising accountability mechanisms via political appointments; and
  3. weakened oversight bodies (Jiyad 2023).

Corruption is now the operating principle of Iraqi governance, not a deviation from it. Despite widespread public disillusionment and generational change, this system endures because it benefits those who govern. Electoral laws and institutional dependencies continue to reinforce ethnic and sectarian politics, leaving little space for reform (Palani 2025b; Jiyad 2023).

The October 2019 protest movement revealed deep public demand for change, producing new civic-nationalist parties that challenge identity-based politics. Yet these movements face violence, exclusion, and severe financial and organisational constraints (Alkhudary 2023; Palani 2025b).

The muhasasa system continues to adapt, and elite state capture has intensified in recent years. The Shi’a Coordination Framework has centralised power in response to threats from the 2019 Tishreen movement and Muqtada al-Sadr’s post-2021 electoral challenge. This consolidation, especially through judicial control, reflects broader militarisation of state institutions and extends national party dynamics into local governance, eroding prospects for decentralised governance (Iraq Watch Group 2025).

Building democratic legitimacy will require reforming electoral incentives, strengthening independent oversight bodies, and supporting civic movements that promote issue-based representation. Reform efforts must address not just corruption but the structural mechanisms that protect it (Palani 2026a; Jiyad 2023).

Elite Rivalries and Fragmented Authority

Competition among Iraq’s political elites continues to destabilise governance. In Kurdistan, rivalry between the KDP and PUK has deepened to the point of threatening the region’s autonomy, with rivalries between the two paralysing institutions (Saleem 2024a). This is driven by ‘leadership insecurity’, reflecting a structural fragility where short-term political survival outweighs institutional stability (Saleem 2024a).

In Sunni areas such as Al-Anbar, Mohammed al-Halbousi consolidated power through ‘money and force’, kickbacks and influence over local security forces, creating de facto one-party rule (Foltyn 2023a). In Sinjar, overlapping contests among the KDP, PMF, and PKK have prevented implementation of the 2020 Baghdad–Erbil agreement, perpetuating insecurity and displacement (Saleem 2024b).

Leadership insecurity, driven by patronage politics and weak institutions, remains a key obstacle to peace and stability. Reducing these tensions requires transparent power-sharing, stronger parliamentary oversight, and local governance arrangements that limit elite monopolies over territory and resources (Saleem 2024a).

Armed Groups and Blurred Governance

Iraq’s state authority remains contested by powerful armed groups, including those that can be collectively labelled as the Popular Mobilisation Forces. These actors operate both within and beyond formal state structures, claiming legitimacy as defenders of the political system while resisting civilian oversight (Foltyn 2023b; Palani 2025a). Shia armed factions have also extended their influence through local governance, education and cultural activities, embedding themselves in community life and shaping public narratives (Palani 2025a).

This represents governance contestation, not simply a security challenge. Armed actors are evolving into political-social entities that blur traditional distinctions between ‘state’ and ‘non-state’ authority (Palani 2025a; Beaujouan et al 2023). Addressing this requires more than security reform: it demands investment in accountable local governance, civic education, and stronger civilian oversight mechanisms. International actors must recognise that state-building in Iraq involves contesting these alternative governance structures.

Marginalisation and Exclusion

Iraq’s political discourse excludes alternative histories and marginalised groups. The Afro-Iraqi population of up to two million lives in ‘non-memory’, neither erased nor acknowledged, preserving heritage through ritual practice despite systemic discrimination and educational exclusion (Alkhudary 2024). Other minorities, including Christians, Ezidis, Shabaks, Turkmans, and Kakais, remain sidelined or co-opted by dominant factions. Their perspectives are rarely represented in governance structures ostensibly designed to accommodate diversity (Palani, 2026a).

Institutional exclusion extends to education: only 2.12% of the national budget goes to higher education, 97% of which covers salaries. This underinvestment fuels graduate unemployment (35.8%) and contributed directly to the 2019 protests (Makki 2023).

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Judicial Politicisation and Legal Repression

The 2017 restructuring of Iraq’s judiciary placed unprecedented power in the hands of the Supreme Judicial Council, centralising control over appointments and oversight (Iraq Watch Group 2025). This reform transformed the judiciary from a potentially independent arbiter into a politicised institution that can manipulate election outcomes, government formations, weaken prosecutorial oversight, and shield elites from accountability (Iraq Watch Group 2025).

Since the 2019 protests, Iraq’s elite have increasingly relied on legal tools, rather than only open violence, to silence new opposition and youth movements. Broad anti-terrorism laws and revived Ba’ath-era provisions criminalising ‘insults to authorities’ have been used to harass journalists and activists. Reasserting judicial independence and repealing outdated laws are essential steps toward rebuilding public trust in the rule of law (Iraq Watch Group 2024). The shift to legal repression is significant. It allows elites to suppress dissent while maintaining a democratic facade, making international criticism more difficult. Judicial reform is essential for any democratic process, but current power structures ensure that such reform remains blocked.

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Preventing Violent Extremism and the Legacies of Conflict

Post-2003 Iraq has experienced significant threats of violent extremism, and successive governments have not addressed the root causes of violence and extremism, leaving unaddressed the social and economic drivers that groups such as the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) exploited for recruitment and radicalization (Rasheed & Beaujouan 2022).

Field research in Nineveh suggests that local actors, such as religious institutions, can play a role in preventing violent extremism (Rasheed & Beaujouan 2022; Beaujouan et al 2023). Yet this potential is constrained by fragmentation: the three confessional endowment offices operate without coordination, religious education is divided across competing curricula, and cooperation across religious, civic, and political actors remains ad hoc.

The stakes are clearest with the roughly 20,000 Iraqis, overwhelmingly children and young mothers, repatriated from al-Hol since 2021 (Palani 2025c). Programmes are organised around ‘rehabilitation’ and ‘reintegration’, but returnees with no prior experience of Iraqi civilian life need integration, not the rebuilding of remembered ties; conflating the two obscures the stigma, documentation gaps, and material precarity families face after formal rehabilitation (Palani, 2026b forthcoming).

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Environmental and Humanitarian Strains

Iraq faces compounding crises of water scarcity, displacement, and declining international aid. Decades of drought, upstream dam construction, and conflict have reduced the country’s permanent water area by a third, including an 86% loss of the Mesopotamian Marshes (Mason et al 2023). As agricultural livelihoods collapse, rural migration and local tensions rise, and many of southern Iraq’s tribal conflicts are now triggered or accelerated by climate change as much as by sectarian or criminal motives (Sofos 2023a).

Meanwhile, the UN’s shift from emergency relief to development support has left over a million displaced Iraqis with limited assistance (Travers 2024). Ezidi survivors, families returning from Syria, and communities stigmatised by perceived ISIS affiliation remain highly vulnerable (Palani 2025c).

Water scarcity requires regional hydro-transparency, open sharing of data among riparian states (Mason et al 2023). The humanitarian transition exposes critical gaps: neither international actors nor the Iraqi state adequately support vulnerable populations. Rushed transitions without ensuring state capacity create new instabilities. Sustained international engagement and targeted reintegration policies are essential for durable recovery (Travers 2024; Palani 2025c).

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Iraq within a Fragmenting Regional Order

Iraq’s domestic challenges cannot be disentangled from a regional order in which formal multilateral institutions have weakened and bilateral competition among ascendant powers has filled the vacuum. Institutions such as the League of Arab States, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation are constrained by internal divisions, limiting their capacity to respond to crises involving Iraq (Freer 2022a, 2020b). Iraq remains excluded from the GCC despite geographic proximity, and where regional bodies have engaged, they have rarely translated rhetoric into action.

Iraq borders some of the Middle East’s most consequential actors, notably Iran and Turkey, both pursuing expansionist regional postures (Sofos 2023b). These powers have cultivated ties with Iraqi domestic actors who at times prioritise external patrons over national interests — most visibly through Iranian-backed militias operating within the formal security architecture (Palani 2025a).

A defining feature of recent years has been the reorientation of some Shia actors towards Iran through religious networks and sectarian centrifugal forces, with Iran’s hybrid network of state and para-statal actors entrenching ‘patchwork governance’ within Iraqi territory (Sofos 2023a; Palani 2025a).

International engagement aimed at stabilising Iraq must reckon with a regional environment in which conflict is mediated through bilateral competition rather than multilateral coordination, and in which transnational flows — displaced people, illicit economies, proxy networks — tie Iraq’s prospects to dynamics far beyond its borders. Encouraging regional cooperation on humanitarian issues even where political consensus is absent (Freer 2022a) and treating transnational drivers as integral rather than incidental to Iraqi statebuilding (Sofos 2023a), are necessary correctives. Ultimately, the Iraqi state must assert its agency and place national interests ahead of those of regional patrons.

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References

PeaceRep’s key findings series presents a top-line overview of findings from the breadth and depth of the consortium’s data-driven and in-country research between 2021 – 2027. To view all PeaceRep publications, visit the publications database.

Researchers and contributors

Zeynep Sıla Akıncı, Taif Alkhudary, Juline Beaujouan, Azhar Al-Rubaie, Courtney Freer, Sajad Jiyad, Arda Bilgen, Simona Foltyn, Iraq Watch Group, Ilham Makki, Michael Mason, Noori Nasir, Kamaran Palani, Amjed Rasheed, Zmkan Ali Saleem, Spyros Sofos, Alannah Travers

Citation

Palani, K. (2026). PeaceRep Key Findings: Iraq. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

References

Alkhudary, T. (2023). Changing the system from within? The role of opposition parties in consolidating democracy in Iraq post-2019. Middle East Centre, LSE.

Alkhudary, T. (2024). Afro-Iraqis and the Politics of Non-Memory (PeaceRep Research Paper). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Beaujouan, J., & Rasheed, A. (2022). Investigating the role of religious institutions in the prevention of violent extremism in Nineveh province, Iraq. Journal for Deradicalization, (32), 76-109.

Beaujouan, J. et al. (2023). Vulnerability and Resilience to Violent Extremism: An Actor-Centric Approach. Routledge, ISBN: 9781003424901

Freer, C. (2022a). MENA Regional Organisations in Peacemaking and Peacebuilding (PeaceRep Global Transitions Series). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Freer, C. (2022b). Qatar and UAE in Peacemaking and Peacebuilding (PeaceRep Global Transitions Series). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Foltyn, S. (2023a). The Trouble with Halbousi: The Rise of, and Resistance to, Iraq’s Sunni Strongman (PeaceRep report). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Foltyn, S. (2023b). Protectors of the State? The Popular Mobilisation Forces During the 2022 Post-Election Crisis (PeaceRep report). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Iraq Watch Group. (2024). Suppressing Dissent in Post-Tishreen Iraq (PeaceRep Research Paper). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Iraq Watch Group. (2025). The Shifting Landscape of Iraq’s Judiciary: Increased Judicial Activism, Centralisation and Politicisation after 2017 (PeaceRep Research Paper). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Jiyad, S. (2023). Corruption is the lifeblood of politics in Iraq (PeaceRep Policy Brief). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Makki, I. (2023). Higher Education in Iraq After 2003: Ongoing Challenges (PeaceRep report). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Mason, M., Akıncı, Z., Bilgen, A., Nasir, N and Al-Rubaie, A. (2023). Towards Hydro-Transparency on the Euphrates-Tigris Basin: Mapping Surface Water Changes in Iraq, 1984–2015 (PeaceRep Policy Brief). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Palani, K. (2025). Iraq: armed influence in education and sub-national governance and their implications for statehood. Conflict, Security & Development, 25(4), 461–483.

Palani, K. (2025b). How Power-Sharing Endures: Generational Change and Institutional Persistence in Iraq. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics.

Palani, K. (2025c). ‘Life After Hope’: Integration Experiences of Families Returning from Al-Hol to Iraq. PeaceRep Iraq Blog.

Palani, K. (2026a forthcoming). Rejecting the Practice, Affirming the Logic: Ethnic and Religious Minorities under Consociational Power-Sharing in Iraq. (Under review).

Palani, K. (2026b forthcoming). Integration Rather Than Reintegration: Iraqi Families Returning from al-Hol and the Barriers to Community Life. (Under review).

Saleem, Z. A. (2024). Insecure Leaders: How Elite Infighting May Facilitate the End of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region (PeaceRep Research Paper). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Saleem, Z. A. (2024b). The Competition for Control in Sinjar: How External Actors and Local Interests Inhibit the Sinjar Agreement (PeaceRep report). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Sofos, S. (2023a). Transnational Dynamics in the MENA Region: Exploring Policy Responses (PeaceRep Briefing Note). Middle East Centre, LSE.

Sofos, S. (2023b). Turkey as a Mediator (Global Transitions Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Travers, A. (2024). The UN’s Humanitarian Transition from Emergency Assistance to Development Funding in Iraq: The Politics of Delivering Aid in a Country of Protracted Post-Conflict Displacement (PeaceRep Research Paper). Middle East Centre, LSE.