Cowboy Drugstore : Traces of a kleptocrat from Iraq to Delaware to Miami. By Zacck Kopplin * Masrour Barzani, Iraqi Kurdistan prime minister and owner of a Miami building housing a CVS A few blocks from the water, in the heart of Miami’s glitzy South Beach, is a drugstore not like the others. Tourists buying sunscreen and straw hats from the CVS on
Read MoreAbstract This paper aims, on the one hand, to investigate the impact of corruption on economic diversification in 11 oil-abundant Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries and three successful diversifiers (Canada, Norway, and Malaysia) over the period 1996-2019. This is done using the Arellano-Bond difference Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator that is effective
Read MoreBAGHDAD — Eighteen years after the U.S. invasion that deposed Saddam Hussein, Iraq offers a long, painful story about the limits of American power. But Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi will visit the White House this month to urge President Biden to keep trying — by maintaining a U.S. military commitment to a country that straddles the fault lines of the Middle East. Kadhim
Read MorePolitically sanctioned corruption and barriers to reform in Iraq. By Toby Dodge and Dr Renad Mansour
Politically sanctioned corruption and barriers to reform in Iraq. By Toby Dodge and Dr Renad Mansour This paper explores the pernicious effects of politically sanctioned corruption on governance in Iraq. This type of corruption is more consequential for the coherence of the state, and for its everyday functioning, than petty or personal corruption. It is the key barrier to r
Read MoreThe public sector in Iraq accounts for the majority of employment in the oil-rich country. Plummeting oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in economic crisis and an ever increasing budget deficit. Where there is crisis however, there is opportunity: will 2021 bring a much needed reform of the public sector in Iraq? When the Iraq anti-government protests erupted
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