The Pattern of governance on Kirkuk; Review of stakeholder conflicts by actor analysis method

The Pattern of governance on multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk in Iraq is still one of the major sources of tension and even conflicts in this country. Silent geo-cultural and geo-economic characteristics of this city have led to presence of actors at different levels that are stakeholder and effective in this region. Kirkuk is crucially important for the Kurds of Iraq, and in case of its join to the Kurdistan region in Iraq, the process of their independence will accelerate. To this end, the future of governance over Kirkuk is also important for Iran and Turkey, as well as Iraqi groups and the government of Iraq. because, if the Kurds of Iraq are independent, national security and territorial integrity of both countries can be affected. Given this necessity, as well as the multiplicity of stakeholders in the Kirkuk, current paper attempts to run a future study on governance pattern in this city using the actor analysis methods and MACTOR as an actor-cantered software. For this purpose, 13 actors and 4 patterns of governance were investigated using library resources and expert methodology. In addition to the analysis of the software findings, ultimately a preferred model, "Introduction of Kirkuk as a Multicultural and Special City", was described, which relatively provides the main interests of the actors. Such a model is more urgent in the new circumstances resulting from the referendum on the independence of the Kurdistan region in Iraq in September 2017.