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.

As for the second question, in Iraq's case there would be several advantages to having multimember districts (MMDS). For one thing, MMDS allow a district's diversity to be more clearly mirrored in parliament. In Iraq, MMDS could thus increase the representation of the professional middle class, as well as local minorities, including Sunnis in Basra, Christians in Baghdad, Turkmen in Kirkuk, Arabs in Kurdish areas, and Kurds in Arab regions. In addition, MMDS elsewhere have been shown to boost the representation of women in parliaments. Given that Iraqi women already boast high levels of education and professional attainment, increasing their input in government would contribute considerably to democratic stability. MMDS would also allow for tribal representation without allowing it to dominate.

Another way to ensure representation of women and minorities in Iraq would be to set aside guaranteed seats in parliament. For example, Iraq's pre-1958 monarchical constitution reserved a certain number of seats for Christians and Jews. More recent examples of set-aside seats, however, show that they cement rather than eradicate ethnic divisions. For example, the guarantee of representation to diaspora Croats in Franjo Tudjman's Croatia was enacted to ensure that other minorities would not outvote Croats. But the provision gave the foreign Croats rights without any responsibilities, reinforced ultranationalism within the ruling party, and limited the development of interethnic trust. Similarly, the collapse of the Good Friday power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland, which included set-aside seats for Catholics and Protestants, has further underlined the need to avoid any quota system.

The next question is whether Iraq should enact a mixed system of voting, in which half the seats in parliament would be chosen by elections in MMDS as described above, and half would be chosen by party list. Under such a system, voters would get two ballots at each election, one for district representatives, and another for nationwide parties. Countries that currently feature mixed systems include Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, and Venezuela. The advantage of such an approach for Iraq is that it would allow voters to have direct and personal contact with their local representatives while also encouraging the development of nationwide parties with national, rather than regional or sectarian, agendas. Usually, in order to run candidates in the party-list section of the election, parties need to have offices and a large number of registered members in most electoral districts. Using such standards would ensure that purely regional parties (which may be ethnic and sectarian) could still win individual seats in the lower house through mmd elections. But if they lacked offices and a nationwide membership, they would be ineligible to run in the party-list part of the campaign. Therefore, in Iraq, for example, Kurdish representation in parliament would be limited to seats won in MMDS unless the Kurds joined with others to form a truly nationwide party.

As for the upper house, following the example of Germany's Bundesrat, each of Iraq's 18 federal units would constitute one mmd, with the number of representatives per district determined by that district's population size. Legislators elected this way would constitute half of the upper body. The remaining half could be filled by elected representatives of a broad cross-section of society, such as tribal and regional notables and key representatives of professional associations (university deans and presidents, lawyers, the heads of women's associations, journalists, doctors, teachers, engineers, industrialists, and merchants). Allowing parliamentary representation by professional associations would stimulate and support the re-emergence of civil society so vital for democracy, while allowing tribal representation would reflect Iraq's history and traditions.

In accordance with typical parliamentary procedure in other countries, the upper house would not have the power to initiate legislation, but would be able to review and send back legislation deemed incompatible with the constitution and the federal system. The upper house could also be given a role in approving judicial appointments and amendments to the constitution. Providing federal units and organized interests a seat at the democratic table, even if it is in the chamber with lesser powers for everyday rule, would enhance constitutional continuity and deliberation.

In discussing electoral and party systems for Iraq, the question arises whether certain groups that have undermined democracy in the region -- specifically, the clergy, the military, and the Baath Party -- should be banned from politics altogether. As for the clerics, they could be allowed to enter the upper house as representatives of their communities (Muslim and Christian) provided they accepted the secular character of the constitution. After all, complete exclusion of the clergy has usually had disastrous consequences in the Middle East, whereas the United Kingdom, where bishops serve in the House of Lords, has shown that religious representatives can exercise a benign influence. As for Iraqi military officers, those not barred from office for complicity in the crimes of the past should be allowed to stand for election -- if, that is, they are retired from active service. The Baath Party, however, should be banned altogether in order to stigmatize it for its responsibility for the institutionalization of tyranny under Saddam Hussein. Officials who participated in torture and other human rights violations should be prosecuted and blocked from future participation in public life. And the thousands of midlevel Baath Party careerists should be allowed to return to political life only if they join new parties. Banning the party would also avoid the mistake made in some post-Soviet states, where reformed communist parties were allowed to keep their existing assets, thereby upsetting the level playing field necessary for the emergence of a competitive party system.

DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE CLASS

As almost all political theorists agree, a fully developed middle class is essential to an effective and sustainable democracy. Fortunately, even after 12 years of debilitating sanctions, a substantial and highly educated middle class has persisted in Iraq. Thus far, however, this group has not pushed for democratization or reform. This is partly because Iraq's middle class, like other sectors of the country's society, has been terrorized by Saddam's regime into submission and inaction. But there are other reasons.

Democratic theory holds that independent and self-sustaining middle classes create the basis for democratic civil life. This notion is highlighted when one glances back at the second half of the nineteenth century and contrasts the experiences of the United Kingdom and Germany. During this period, democracy was rapidly incorporated into the British body politic through a series of parliamentary acts that not only expanded the electorate, but also placed ever increasing limitations on the power of the monarchy and the aristocracy. In Germany's Second Reich, by contrast, political elites dominated by the nobility ruled through a strong authoritarian system, and chancellors and their cabinets were not answerable to the Reichstag. Britain's progress toward democracy was spurred by an entrepreneurial middle class largely independent of the state. In Germany, the economy was much more closely connected to the government, and the industrialization of the country occurred as a result of the alliance between the state and the traditional elites. There was no robust middle class to agitate for greater freedoms and representation.

Iraq's middle class today is more like nineteenth-century Germany's than the United Kingdom's. As in many other Arab countries, much of Iraq's middle class remains directly dependent on the state, primarily through employment in the vast bureaucracy, in state-owned industries, in military and security agencies, and in Baathist political bureaus. Moreover, thanks to Iraq's immense oil wealth, government revenues come mainly from oil sales and not taxation, which further adds to middle-class docility.