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.

In order to stimulate entrepreneurship and strengthen the free market, postwar Iraq must begin the process of transferring resources from the public to the private sector. This shift should have an enormous political payoff: the development of a self-sustaining middle class that will become more proactive in promoting democratic institutions. A proper taxation system should also gradually be introduced; only then will the middle class demand accountability from the government.

Helping orient the middle class toward democracy is also important because it is the middle class that fills the ranks of any bureaucracy. Bureaucracies, known for their rigid adherence to legal rules and to hierarchies, are often not ideal agents for fostering democratic values. These impediments substantially increase, however, when bureaucracies are oversized and corrupt, as is Iraq's. It is therefore imperative to improve the country's civil servants, so they will not impede democratic growth.

Not unlike the rest of the Arab world, Iraq's bureaucracy today is simply a vehicle for ensuring full employment. This has resulted in allying ever larger segments of the middle class with the government, creating an abiding sense of dependence on, and acquiescence to, the state and its institutions. In order to lessen this dependency and improve efficiency, the current size of the bureaucracy needs to be reduced considerably.

Inefficiency and corruption would also diminish if entry into the civil service were based on merit alone; without regard for sect, ethnicity, or political affiliation. Making such a change would not be impossible, or even very difficult. True, in Saddam's political regime, unqualified but loyal employees were given posts of high responsibility. But the culture of merit is in fact embedded in the Iraqi consciousness. The most visible example of this is the national baccalaureate exam, which for decades has been taken at the end of high school. This exam has, in many ways, acted as a great equalizer; children of humble origins and resources who achieve high scores get a free education in the country's most prestigious colleges or are sent on scholarships abroad. Despite complaints of nepotism and influence peddling, the baccalaureate has also functioned as the main determinant of one's future career, and the great anxiety it engenders among all Iraqi high schoolers and their parents, rich and poor, testifies to its neutrality. To build on this foundation, a civil service college, modeled on the French ?cole Nationale d'Administration (ena), could be established not only to teach administrative sciences but also to train future civil servants in democratic values and practices. In order to make the bureaucracy smaller and more selective, civil servants should also be paid more. Unlike in Afghanistan, however, this will not be beyond the means of Iraq, a country with the second largest oil reserves in the world.

SETTING THE STANDARD

For the sake of all parties involved, the American endeavor in Iraq must not end in a more agreeable dictatorship or a successor regime that promises nothing beyond greater cooperation with Washington. The United States' standing in the world rests not only on its might, but also on the democratic values that it espouses and propagates. The country and its allies therefore cannot shrink from setting Iraq on a democratic path. Not only will Arab and international opposition to regime change be assuaged if a democracy results; building democracy in Baghdad is also the best way to eliminate the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Restructuring Iraq's political system will be laden with difficulties, but it will certainly be feasible. At the same time, the blueprint for Iraq's democracy must reflect the unique features of Iraqi society. Once the system is in place, its benefits will quickly become evident to Iraq's various communities; if it brings economic prosperity (hardly unlikely given the country's wealth), the postwar structure will gradually, yet surely, acquire legitimacy. As is shown by the eastern European example, where ex-communist dictatorships have now lined up to join NATO and the European Union, putting in place democratic political institutions that function properly, meet the particular needs of a given society, and deliver the goods can rather quickly produce "habituation" -- that is, inculcate democratic habits in the population that become well entrenched and resilient. A democratic federal system would turn Iraq into the standard against which other Arab governments are judged, and make the country a natural ally of the West. Such an outcome would benefit everyone -- but especially the people of Iraq, who, after suffering for so long, deserve no less.