How to Build a Democratic Iraq

Adeed I. Dawisha and Karen Dawisha

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2003

Summary:  What follows the war in Iraq will be at least as important as the war itself. Nurturing democracy there after Saddam won't be easy. But it may not be impossible either. Iraq has several assets doing for it, including an educated middle class and a history of political pluralism under an earlier monarchy.

Adeed I. Dawisha is Professor of Political Science at Miami University, Ohio. His latest book is Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair. Karen Dawisha is Walter E. Havighurst Professor of Russian Studies at Miami University, Ohio. Her books include the four volume Democratization and Authoritarianism in Post-Communist Societies.

Local governments should in general have widespread control over their territories. This includes responsibility for all citizens in a given region, not just those of a given ethnicity. The now-collapsed Israeli efforts to give the Palestinian Authority control over some Arab activity in the West Bank and Gaza, while Jerusalem retained sovereignty over Jews in the territories, was a doomed formula: modern states, with their massive infrastructures, must be organized territorially and can function only in that manner. Limiting authorities to caring for their own kind only reinforces tribal, ethnic, and religious divisions, which can undermine democracy. For these reasons, any attempts on the part of Iraq's Arab elites to once again grant the Kurds autonomy -- without also giving them substantial control over their territory as a unit in the federal structure -- will likewise be doomed to fail.

Admittedly, federalism does not always satisfy the aspirations of groups bent on independence, as demonstrated by the conflicts in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and Chechnya. At the same time, devolution of power has succeeded in stemming the rise of separatism in the other ethnic republics of Russia, in Scotland, and in Montenegro -- and could do the same for Iraq, if properly handled.

The question therefore becomes how to increase the chances that federalism will work in Iraq. To begin with, it would be a mistake to create only three ethnically or religiously based federal units: a Kurdish north, a Shi`ite south, and a Sunni center. Such a structure would only entrench current divisions and might even lead to ethnic cleansing. A far better idea would be to maintain Iraq's present administrative structure, under which the country is divided into 18 units. Keeping these provincial boundaries would serve the interests of Iraq's various communities, while avoiding inordinate emphasis on ethnic and sectarian concerns and increasing healthy political competition for resources -- even within various ethnic or religious communities.

Each of the 18 units should be allowed to elect a local government and send representatives to the upper chamber of a new parliament. Creating an upper house in parliament that -- like the German upper house or both houses of the U.S. Congress -- is based on regional representation would give regions a voice at the center, check the centralization of power, and, by providing a second set of local elites, minimize regional corruption. Such a system would be far better for Iraq than a centralized one, along the lines of France's old prefect system or that newly adopted by Russia, which lets Moscow appoint the governors of the seven new super-regions. Such centralized systems allow for enormous abuse, especially if the executive branch is not particularly devoted to the rule of law. The postwar occupiers of Iraq should therefore avoid even temporarily appointing Iraqi governors, since it may prove difficult to displace them once the occupation ends.

WHO'S IN CHARGE

Executive branches of government are usually structured in one of two ways: unified in a single, strong presidency combining the powers of the head of state and the head of government, or divided between a head of state (a president or monarch) and a head of government (a prime minister). What would be the advantages and disadvantages of each for Iraq?

In strong unitary systems, presidents are normally directly elected, enjoy wide latitude in ruling by executive order, can call referendums to override legislation, may unilaterally declare states of emergency under conditions prescribed by the constitution, and usually have broad powers of political, administrative, and even judicial appointment. Such presidents are the primi inter pares of the branches of government and, depending on their performance and perceived legitimacy, can be extremely popular -- as, for example, was Charles de Gaulle in the first years of the Fifth Republic or Boris Yeltsin until 1993.

Too much, however, depends on the character of the individual president, and thus the disadvantages of such a system outweigh its benefits. In all but the strongest democracies, such systems are vulnerable to abuse, to coups d'etat by opposition forces, or to self-overthrow by sitting presidents who refuse to leave office once their terms are up. Indeed, one need only glance at the unitary presidencies of the Middle East and Central Asia to be reminded how prone they are to corruption, repression, and self-aggrandizement. Getting strong presidents to leave office is particularly difficult and, outside the West, rarely happens without the help of a coup, assassination, or natural death. In sum, then, strong presidencies can be judged less a mainstay of democracy than a blunt instrument for its demise.

One alternative system that might be proposed for Iraq, especially given its divisions between Arabs and Kurds and Shi`ites and Sunnis, is the Bosnian model: a shared presidency, in which each ethnic community receives a seat on a presidential triumvirate. Agreed to as part of the U.S.-brokered Dayton accord, this unwieldy arrangement was the price that had to be paid for an end to the fighting. It has, however, been beset by untold problems and has resulted in almost no state building. Each of Bosnia's three presidents is elected by, and therefore responsible only to, the electorate of one of the three ethnic communities. Unfortunately, this has reinforced the tendency of Bosnia's rival substate authorities to maintain the fiefdoms they built during the war, leaving leaders no incentive to cooperate. Bosnia's Serbian ministate in particular has remained entrenched and continues to act as a vassal of ultranationalists in Belgrade. Iraq's Shi`ites might likewise be tempted to form similar bonds with Iran, and Iraqi Kurds could look to their brethren in Turkey, Iran, and Syria -- rendering a Dayton-style shared presidency particularly dangerous for the country.

A weak but unified presidency, on the other hand, would avoid both the Bosnia scenario and the problem of creeping authoritarianism. In weak presidential systems, such as in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, and Italy, the president is typically chosen by parliament and has limited, largely symbolic powers, such as recommending judges, approving constitutional amendments, and signing laws and treaties. In such systems, presidents typically cannot initiate constitutional changes, unilaterally call referendums, or prorogue parliament. The prime minister or chancellor, not the president, is the one who heads the government and does most of the work of a chief executive.