Suchergebnisse

"This article examines the role of pan-Shiite solidarities in the formation of Iraqi governments in 2006, 2010 and 2014. It argues that the role of Shiite sectarian loyalties varied greatly during this period, but that the net effect of these political processes was the persistence of Shiite sectarian identity as a fundamental category of post-2003 Iraqi politics. After a temporary move away from sectarian politics in the 2007-2009 period, sectarianism has once more come to the forefront of Iraqi post-2003 politics as the result of international, regional and internal Iraqi factors. It has now become so preponderant that its reversal seems increasingly unlikely in the short term." (author's abstract)

This article discusses power-sharing in Iraq as a case of consociational democracy. It is argued that in post-2003 Iraq, consociational features have been employed to an extent that goes beyond what is normal for power-sharing democracies. Not only unspoken ethno-sectarian quota arrangements
are used in the country's legislature and executive, but also attempts to impose such features through extra-constitutional councils aimed at weakening existing executive and prime ministerial powers are frequent. The article examines three such attempts: the political council of national
security (2006), the federal oil and gas council in the draft oil and gas law (2007) and the projected national council for high policies (2010-11). It is concluded that support for the moves towards greater dispersal (and fragmentation) of state power in Iraq comes not only from the Kurds,
but also from the secular Iraqiya party, United States and Iran.

"This article examines how the Iraqi Supreme Court has adjudicated relations between the central government and the governorates of Iraq. The article concludes that the court has moved from advocating rights for the governorates to a position that is increasingly sympathetic to Baghdad. The findings highlight a contradiction in the constitution whereby governorates and federal regions enjoy equal powers according to article 115, whereas subsequent articles of the constitution as well as key legislation passed in 2008 envisage an asymmetrical federal design." (author's abstract)

This article examines the territorial aspect of sectarian relations in Iraq. The main argument is that such a territorial component is largely missing in Iraq and that historically, there have been very few attempts to connect sectarian identity in Iraq to specific, more restricted
territories of the country. The article reviews the limited attempts in such a direction, both historically and in the post-2003 atmosphere. Today, federal options exist for governorates to merge into sectarian regions if they prefer to do so. So far, however, neither Sunnis or Shi'ites have
demonstrated any great interest in the creation of such sectarian regions, which can be explained with the historical durability of the Iraq concept as a proto-region in late Ottoman times and the concomitant need to revise the near-omnipresent cliché of Iraq as a completely 'artificial'
product lumped together solely thanks to the actions of industrious British imperialists.

This article criticizes the way in which the concept of 'tribalism' has been used by Western policy-makers and media in post-2003 Iraq. It has been commonplace to see tribalism as yet another symptom of the supposed 'fragmentation' of Iraqi society, and there has been a debate about ways in which a tribe-oriented policy might bring about national reintegration and political progress. Using the case of Banū Mālik – the 'tribe of Prime Minister Nūrī al-Mālikī' – it is demonstrated that tribalism is a poor predictor of political behaviour in Iraq and that basic 'bread-and-butter' issues are of far greater importance to the population of the country, just like in most other countries in the world.

This article criticizes the so-called artificiality paradigm concerning the emergence of the modern state on Iraq, according to which the kingdom of Iraq that came into being in 1921 was nothing but a random collection of Ottoman provinces that had little in common. On the basis of
documents from the late Ottoman period, the article shows that the opposite appears to be the case: In many ways, the modern state of Iraq had regional antecedents that predated the British invasion in 1914. The article shows that for long periods before 1914 there existed a pattern of administrative
centralization of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul under Baghdad as a paramount regional capital, that this regional entity was often described as Iraq in administrative and diplomatic correspondence, and that the local inhabitants often referred to Iraq in a patriotic sense.

The Shiite clergy in Iraq is commonly described by Western analysts in one of two ways: as quietist and uninterested in politics or, alternatively, as aspiring to the political awakening of a "Shiite Crescent" throughout the broader Middle East. Neither of these characterizations is correct. While the Iraqi clergy has no intention of following the Khomenist model of direct involvement in governance, it is nevertheless unwilling to abdicate all authority related to political matters. Iraq's Shiite clergy seeks to exercise power over Iraqi politics from outside the system to both exercise a veto power above the law of the land and to preserve its claim to a pan-Shia system that transcends the borders of modern states. This stance makes the Iraqi Shiite clergy, paradoxically, both deeply invested in the current state system and a non-state player par excellence. Adapted from the source document.