The Factors and Consequences of Corruption in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

After the establishment of the federal government, Iraqi Kurdistan has made many advances in various fields of science, economics and politics. The emergence and growth of autonomy in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, which began in 1991 and later became recognized by the Iraqi constitution in 2005, has been a source of hope for the Iraqi Kurds.In the economic realm, political power in Erbil, like the ruling system in Baghdad, is heavily dependent on oil. The oil reserves are equivalent to one third of Iraq’s total oil reserves. Currently, the main problem that the Kurdish government faces is the economic crisis in the region. Kurdistan government has always insisted on the external and imposed factors in the changes in Iraq, the region and the world. Meanwhile, economic analysts consider inaccurate and uncontrolled investment, bribery, bulky government, and reliance on the oil economy as the main drivers of the current crisis.Given the issues raised, the question arises that; what are the main cause of economic corruption in the Kurdistan region, and what crises have emerged for the this region? It is hypothesized that the single-product process (the dependence on oil sales) is the main cause of corruption and the ongoing crisis for the Kurdish region. This study was conducted based on analytical-descriptive methods and available data, and the findings indicated the persistence of corruption and crisis due to dependence on oil, the bulk of the state, lack of attention to other producing sectors and, etc.