Is Iraq a Consociational State? Power - Sharing and its Shortcomings in Post - 2003 Political Process

Authors

  • Author

  • Harith Hasan Brandeis University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12816/0035425

Keywords:

consociationalism, power - sharing, majoritarian government, ethnic division

Abstract

Consociationalism is a system of government recommended for ‘divided societies’. Starting with a discussion of its theoretical components and criticisms it has received, this article addresses how consociationalism has been implemented in in post - 2003 Iraq. The article asks whether the Iraqi constitution and institutions formed by it represented a successful case of consociationalism. Key consociational mechanisms such as an electoral system based on proportional representation, governments based on big multi - party coalitions and a federal and decentralized governance were adopted. However, this model was not entirely consociational as some practices that are common in the majoritarian government have also been used. In fact, divisions between majoritarian and consociational perspectives have polarized, and sometimes paralyzed, the political process. In light of this, the article discusses the sustainability of the current model and its likely future trajectories.

Author Biography

  • Harith Hasan, Brandeis University
    Researcher in Political Sciences, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University, USA.

References

  1. Arend Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).
  2. Arend Lijphart, “Consociational Democracy,” World Politics journal , vol. 21, no. 2 (January 1969), pp. 207-225.
  3. Arend Lijphart, “Constitutional Design for Divided Societies,” Journal of Democracy , vol. 15, no. 2 (2004), pp. 96 - 109.
  4. “ Arend Lijphart on Sharing Power in Africa and the Future of Democracy,” Theory Talks , 26/5/2008, accessed on 11/12/2016, at: http:// www.theory-talks.org/2008/05/theory-talk-8.html
  5. Ian S. Lustick, “Lijphart, Lakatos, and Consociationalism,” World Politics , vol. 50, no. 1 (1997), pp. 88 - 117.
  6. Lijphart, “Consociational Democracy;” Lijphart, “Constitutional Design.”
  7. Brian Barry, “Political Accommodation and Consociational Democracy,” British Journal of Political Science , vol. 5, no. 4 (October 1975), pp. 477 - 505.
  8. Zachary Elkins & John Sides, “Can Institutions Build Unity in Multiethnic States,” American Political Science Review , vol. 101, no. 4 (2007), pp. 693-708; Ravi Kanbur, Prem Kumar Rajaram & Ashutosh Varshney, “Ethnic Diversity and Ethnic Strife: An Interdisciplinary Perspective,” World Development , vol. 39, no. 2 (February 2012), pp. 147 - 158.
  9. Fredrik Barth, “Introduction,” in Fredrik Barth (ed.) , Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Boston: Little Brown, 1969), pp. 9 - 37.
  10. “ Arend Lijphart on Sharing Power in Africa.”
  11. Joel Selway & Khris Templeman, “The Myth of Consociationalism? Conflict Reduction in Divided Societies,” Comparative Political Studies, vol. 45, no. 12 (2012), pp. 1542 - 1571.
  12. لمزيد من التفصيل حول سياسات العلمنة والمجانسة الثقافية في المنطقة، انظر: Jocelyne Cesari, The Awakening of Muslim Democracy: Religion, Modernity, and the State (Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
  13. عبد الكريم الأزري، مشكلة الحكم في العراق (لندن: د. ن،.)1991
  14. نص البيان الختامي لمؤتمر المعارضة العراقية في لندن، الجزيرة نت، 2002/12/17، شوهد في 2016/12/11، في: http://bit.ly/2ge0M8w
  15. حصل ممثلو الشيعة على 13 مقعدًا، وممثلو العرب السنة على خمسة مقاعد، وممثلو الكرد على خمسة مقاعد، وكان هناك ممثلٌ واحدٌ لكل من التركمان والمسيحيين.
  16. حوار خاص، ورفض المتحدث نشر اسمه لأنه ما زال يشغل منصبًا حكوميًا.
  17. تمّ إرسال الأسئلة والإجابة عنها عبر البريد الإلكتروني خلال الفترة.2015/7/21–20
  18. نص ما ذكره بريمير بالإنكليزية: “ American representatives had been discussing the Interim Government with a small group of seven Iraqis. But as I found (and have written) that Iraqi exile group had the impression that we would hand over power to them immediately. This was an unrepresentative group…), all exiles (except for the Kurds), all men, few Sunnis (other than the Kurds), no Turcoman, Christians, Yazidis, etc. This group refused my suggestion that they find a way to broaden themselves”.
  19. نص ما ذكره بريمير في هذا الشأن بالإنكليزية: “ So working with de Mello, the CPA and the UN mission sent Arabic speaking officers to all regions of Iraq to seek out possible candidates for an Interim Government which would be more representative than the seven. Over the next two months we were able to come up with a list of some 85 candidates [...] At this point in the process, the Shia leaders, following guidance from Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, were cooperating with the Coalition, but made clear that since the Shia were a majority of the Iraqi population, they had to have a majority in the still-to-be-named Interim Government. This set off a round of protest from the other major groups- -with the Kurds asserting that they represented 40% of the population, the Sunnis protested that in fact they were in the majority”.
  20. نص ما ذكره بريمير بالإنكليزية: There was no political theory or plan behind this outcome, other than “ our insistence that the interim government should be 'representative of all.”'Iraqi people
  21. Faisal Al-Istrabadi, “Sectarian Visions of the Iraqi State: Irreconcilable Differences,” in Social Differences and Constitutionalism in Pan-Asia , Susan H. Williams (ed.), (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp.
  22. قانون إدارة الدولة العراقية للمرحلة الانتقالية"، ميديا، 2004/3/9، شوهد في 2016/12/11، في: http://bit.ly/2gs1og8
  23. John McGarry & Brendan O'Leary, “Iraq’s Constitution of 2005: Liberal Consociation as Political Prescription,” International Journal of Constitutional Law , vol. 19, no. 2 (2015), pp. 670 - 698.
  24. وهي صيغة أكثر مرونةً في رأي الكاتبين من تلك التي سادت في لبنان، والتي لم تستوعب التحولات الديموغرافية التي جعلت من المسيحيين أقليةً، ما أنتج توتراتٍ سياسية،ً وعنفًا، وحربًا أهليةً أفضت إلى اتفاق الطائف، وهي ما زالت أيضًا نموذجًا للتوافقية غير المرنة التي لم تستوعب بما يكفي التحولات في الأوزان الديموغرافية.
  25. دستور جمهورية العراق.
  26. Nussaibah Younis, “Set up to Fail: Consociational Political Structures in Post-war Iraq, 2003–2010,” Contemporary Arab Affairs , vol. 4, no. 1 (2011), pp. 1 - 18.
  27. McGarry & O'Leary.
  28. Toby Dodge, State Collapse and the Rise of Identity Politics in Iraq: Preventing a New Generation of Conflict , Markus E. Bouillon & David M. Malone & Ben Rowswell (eds.), (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2007).
  29. Harith Hasan Al-Qarawee, “Iraq’s Sectarian Crisis: A Legacy of Exclusion,” Carnegie Middle East Center, 23/4/2014, accessed on 11/12/2016, at: http://ceip.org/2gol8MN
  30. Joseph Biden Jr. & Leslie H. Gelb, “Unity Though Autonomy in Iraq,” The New York Times , 1/5/2006, accessed on 11/12/2016, at: http://nyti. ms/2hj6xUc
  31. Akbar Shahid Ahmed, “Obama Officials Pin Blame for ISIS on Iraqi Government,” The Huffington Post, 31/10/2014, accessed on 11/12/2016, at: http://huff.to/1wOKzLC
  32. Brett McGurk, “Statement for the Record: Deputy Assistant Secretary Brett McGurk,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing: Iraq at a Crossroads: Options for U. S. Policy, 24/7/2014, pp. 10-11, accessed on 11/12/2016, at: http://bit.ly/2hjcyjK
  33. Anthony H. Cordesman, “Dividing Iraq: Think Long and Hard First,” Center for Strategic and International Studies , 1/5/2006, accessed on 11/12/2016, at: http://bit.ly/2hsjJJL
2Total citations
1From ACRPS journals
1External sources

Citing articles in ACRPS journals (1)

  1. (2021) الديمقراطية التوافقية في العراق: إعادة إنتاج الأقليات الإثنية والدينية واللغوية بوصفها أقليات سياسية. Siyasat Arabiya https://doi.org/10.31430/BRAD4043

Citing articles from external sources (1)

  1. Sahar Abdulsada Duraye (2026) " National Integration Policies and Their Role in Enhancing National Unity in Iraq". The International and Political Journal, 361 https://doi.org/10.31272/ipj.i65.529

Sources: Crossref Cited-by, and the references (notes and reference lists) of the Center's own articles

Downloads

PDF (Hosted in Arabic)
HTML (Arabic)

Published

2016-11-01

Usage statistics

56 views 66 downloads

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 023 (2016): Issue 023

Section

Studies

License

Copyright (c) 2016 Harith Hasan (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.