Theoretical Understanding of the Economic Development in the Kurdistan Region, Iraq: Obstacles and Capacities

Kurdistan Region, Iraq is one of regions in the world that has attracted the attention of the scholars and researchers to its economic, political and social development since 2003. Accordingly, the Kurdish officials have always been trying to illustrate their region’s enhancement as a developmental state for years. From this standpoint, the article sheds light on the extent of the balance between the development models of the Kurdistan Region with the developmental state framework. To evaluate that, the article’s main question is, “Based on developmental state framework, what are the main obstacles and capacities of Kurdistan Region’s development?” To tackle the question, the article’s hypothesis is this, “the main capacities of the Kurdistan’s developmental state features include Determined Developmental Elites, Weak and Dependent Civil Society, and Benefited from primary political democracy features, on the other hand, the main obstacles of the Kurdistan region’s developmental states features include Deficiency in Governmental and Nongovernmental Economic Resources Management, Dependency of the Political Elites and Governmental Institutes, the lack of a Strong and Competent Economy Bureaucracy, Unable to Oppress the Civil Rights, Exaggerating at the Government’s Legitimacy and its Performance, and the lack of one Political Party-Oriented rule over the region.” The findings revealed that, despite the fact that there are some coincidences, the process of Kurdistan development does not adapt to the developmental state model. The Method of data collecting is secondary sources – the library sources- and the method of data analysis is descriptive-analytical. In this regard, some parts of the article is based on historiography and the other part is theoretical based on the developmental events in the region since 2003.