Despite many constraints on popular participation, social mobilization in Iraq has been an important yet understudied phenomenon ever since regime change in 2003. In Iraq, protests and demonstrations have posed serious challenges and had a significant impact on the emergent political landscape particularly since 2011. This has occurred against a backdrop of a dysfunctional political and economic system, as well as deeply fragmented security forces. Since 1st October 2019, protests have continued in Baghdad and other Shia-majority provinces in mid- and southern Iraq, with a wide spectrum of demands, including an end to corruption, better living conditions, Iraq’s independence from regional (mainly Iran) and international (mainly the US) powers, and, perhaps most importantly, calling for an end to the entire political system that has been in place in Iraq since 2003. Since the start of protests, over 460 people have been killed, and over 20,000 injured,1 by the Hashd al-Shaabi armed groups and Iraqi security forces. Violence and casualties are expected to rise further. Though the demands are not sectarian, the protests have largely been contained within Baghdad and the Shia provinces. Although the same problems affect all Iraqi regions, social mobilization has largely reacted to local conditions which are, in turn, part of that system of governance to which ethno-sectarian politics (muhasasa Ta’ifia) has contributed.