‘In the End, We Are Just Bureaucrats’

This article looks at how, in Iraqi Kurdistan, two parallel bureaucracies impact the everyday life of Kurdish citizens and elicit shifting affects towards the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Iraqi state. While Kurds previously looked towards the KRG for democratic rule, they now look towards the Iraqi state for fair governance. In this context, the KRG is viewed as a ‘mock state’: both a trope and a cultural mechanism to manage disillusionment. Being ‘just bureaucrats’ refers not only to how most Kurds work in the public sector but also to how they feel they cannot benefit from or change the bureaucracies on which they depend. In navigating their desires for an independent Kurdish state and incorporation into a ‘better functioning’ Iraqi state, Kurdish people feel unrepresented by both governments.