| Summary/Abstract |
In 1994, two years after the foundation of a de facto Semi-Autonomous Kurdistan Region, a civil war between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) broke out, jeopardizing all the Kurdish national movement had achieved. While the US-brokered Washington Peace Agreement in 1998 brought an end to the civil war, its consequences remained entrenched in the region's socio-political and governance framework. This article examines how the Kurdish civil war shaped the governing system in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) for a decade and caused the region to divide into two different administrations, impeding the establishment of effective governmental institutions. This analysis demonstrates that the governing system reflected partisan demands during and after the civil war, making it difficult to separate the political parties and the government or state apparatus.
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