The Prospects for Democracy in Iraq: challenges and opportunities

Abstract

There are many challenges to the development of democracy in Iraq: the many decades of authoritarian rule; ethno-sectarian divisions; lack of security; and the hegemony of the state over the national economy. But the right policies could transform these challenges into opportunities. Opinion makers should strive to resurrect into the collective memory of Iraqis the relatively liberal political practices of the 1921 – 58 period. Federal arrangements should bridge the ethno-sectarian divide, and an economy that shifts radically to the private sector should lessen middle class dependence on the state, thereby further eroding the centralisation of state power. The mushrooming of liberal and civil society institutions since April 2003 is an encouraging development.

Notes

Adeed Dawisha is in the Department of Political Science, Miami University, OH, USA. Email: [email protected]

Juan J Linz, Crisis, Breakdown, and Reequilibrium, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978, p 5.

Lawrence Whitehead, Democratization: Theory and Experience, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, p 207.

For an explanation of the criteria and a ranking of various countries in 2003, see Adrian Karatnycky, ‘The 2003 Freedom House Survey: national income and liberty’, Journal of Democracy, January 2004, pp 82 – 93. In fact, the criteria used here do not much differ from the ‘minimum requirements for democracy’ suggested by Larry Diamond & Leonardo Morlino, ‘The quality of democracy: an overview’, Journal of Democracy, October 2004, pp 20 – 31.

For instance, see San Francisco Chronicle, 13 April 2003; Middle East Institute Brief, 3 May 2004; Hoover Digest, Spring 2003, p 2; and Washington Post, 8 April 2003.

For a more detailed analysis, see Adeed Dawisha, ‘Democratic attitudes and practices in Iraq, 1921 – 58’, Middle East Journal, 59 (1), 2005, pp 11 – 30.

‘Adel Ghaffouri Khalil, Ahzab al-Mu'aradha al-'alaniya fi al-'Iraq, 1946 – 1954 (The Public Opposition Parties in Iraq, 1946 – 1954), Baghdad: al-Maktaba al-'Alamiya, 1984, pp 155 – 170; ‘Abd al-'Aziz al-Qassab, Min Dhikrayati, 1888 – 1960 (From My Memoirs, 1888 – 1960), Beirut: ‘Uwaidat Pyblications, 1962, p 316; ‘Abd al-Amir Hadi al-'Akam, Tarikh Hizb al-Istiqlal al-'Iraqi, 1946 – 1958 (History of the Independence Party, 1946 – 1958), Baghdad: Dar al-Shu'un al-Thaqafiya al-'Amma, 1986, p 219; and Kamel al-Chadirji, Mudhakarat Kamel al-Chadirji (Memoirs of Kamel al-Chadirji), Cologne: al-Jamal Publications, 2002, p 193.

‘Abd al-Karim al-Uzri, Dhikrayat fi Tarikh al'Iraq, 1930 – 1958 (History in the Memoirs of Iraq, 1930 – 1958), Baghdad: Dar al-Shu'un al-Thaqafiya al-'Amma, 1988, p 77; and Mir Basri, A'lam al-Siyasa fi al-'Iraq al-Hadith (Political Personalities in Modern Iraq), London: Riad al-Rayyes li al-Tiba'a wa al-Nashr, 1987, pp 82 – 83.

See, for example, Muhamed Mahdi Kubba, Mudhakarati fi Samim al-Ahdath, 1918 – 1958 (My Memoirs at the Heart of Events, 1918 – 1958), Beirut: Dar al-Tali'ah, 1965, p 227. Faiq Butti, a journalist who was a virulent critic of governmental policies, says that the press was instrumental in ‘fostering democratic attitudes’ in Iraq. Faiq Butti, Sahafat al-'Iraq: Tarikhuha wa Kifah Ajyaliha (Iraqi Press: Its History and the Struggle of its Generations), Baghdad: Matba'at al-Adib, 1968, p 122.

James Dobbins et al, America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq, Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2003, p 191.

See Frances FitzGerald, America Revisited: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century, New York: Vintage, 1980, pp 76 – 77, 90 – 91, 130 – 131.

S Frederick Star, ‘A usable past’, The New Republic, 15 May 1989.

See Adeed Dawisha, ‘The assembled state: communal conflicts and governmental control in Iraq’, in Leonard Binder (ed), Ethnic Conflict and International Politics in the Middle East, Tallahassee, FL: University Press of Florida, 1999.

Ibid, pp 65 – 66.

Daily Star (Beirut), 2 January 2004.

Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics, New York: Doubleday, 1960, pp 45 – 76. Larry Diamond, however, doubts whether this is a universally accurate statement. While he concedes that ‘richer countries fare better’, he still argues that ‘today, almost a third of the countries with “low human development” (according the UN Development Program) are democracies’. See Diamond's reply in the exchange entitled ‘Was Iraq a fool's errand?’, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2004, pp 130 – 133.

Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991, pp 59 – 72.

For a sampling of this literature, see ibid, pp 66 – 68.

See John Waterbury, ‘Democracy without democrats? The potential for political liberalization in the Middle East’, in Ghassan Salame (ed), Democracy Without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World, London: I B Taurus, 1994, p 27.

Hazem Beblawi & Giacomo Luciani (eds), The Rentier State, London: Croom Helm, 1987.

Hazem Beblawi, ‘The rentier state in the Arab world’, in ibid, pp 53 – 54.

International Crisis Group (icg), Middle East Report, 30, p 2.

Ibid. See also al-Sharq al-Awsat (London), 9 September 2004; and the interview in cfr.org with Anthony Cordesman, 16 September 2004.

icg, Middle East Report, 30, p 17; and New York Times, 1 July 2004.

The Minister of Planning, Mahdi al-Hafidh, alluded to the necessity of actively including indigenous Iraqi companies in the construction process at the meeting of donor countries held in Japan in October 2004. See al-Sabah (Baghdad), 25 October 2004.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 13 September 2004.

Daily Star, 6 July 2004.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 7 October 2004.

See al-Zaman (Baghdad), 9 October 2004; al-Sabah, 16 September 2004; al-Sharq al-Awsat, 7 October 2004; and al-Sabah, 25 October 2004.

‘Crudsader’ has been secularised in the English language, and in no way conveys the real meaning it carries in Arabic. Al-Salibeyeen literally means ‘Those of the Cross’. The reference is utterly unambiguous.

See Al-Zaman, 18 September 2004.

This statement was made by Grand Ayatollah Ishaq al-Fayadh. See al-Sabah, 9 October 2004.

Thomas L Friedman, ‘The least-bad option’, New York Times, 12 October 2003.

Al-Zaman, 29 July 2004; Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 30 September 2003; al-Sabah, 25 October 2004.

Al-Wifaq (Baghdad), 7 September 2003.

For example, a spokesman on behalf of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani expressed the Ayatollah's reservation that the utilisation of a party-list, proportional representation method in the January 2005 elections was ‘not appropriate for a country like Iraq’. Nevertheless he said that he would still ‘urge popular participation’ in the elections and the democratic process. See al-Hayat (London), 18 October 2004.

Baghdad, 8 September 2004. In another instance, this time in a Friday sermon, a spokesman for Sistani said that abstaining from voting was tantamount to ‘treason and is punished by hellfire’. Al-Zaman, 10 October 2004.

Al-Sabah, 9 October 2004.

See for example, al-Wifaq, 9 September 2003; Washington Times, 5 October 2003; al-Sharq al-Awsat, 24 October 2003; The Economist, 1 – 7 November 2003; al-Zaman, 16 February 2004; al-Sabah, 21 July 2004; and al-Sabah, 9 September 2004.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adeed Dawisha

Adeed Dawisha is in the Department of Political Science, Miami University, OH, USA. Email: [email protected]