This is Not What a Good Prospect for Democracy Looks Like
Alissa Rubin’s look at recent political developments in Iraq is very interesting, but the lede seems overwrought to me:
With provincial elections scheduled for the end of January, Iraq appears to be plagued by political troubles that seem closer to Shakespearean drama than to nascent democracy.
It’s true that nascent democracy is hard to see in Iraq. But the events unfolding aren’t especially outlandish. What would be outlandish, really, would be for democracy to bloom in the land between the rivers. Everything we know about regime types and democratic consolidation always indicated that Iraq was an exceedingly non-promising locale for a democratic transformation. The fact that starting in mid-2003 the United States spent years combating a worsening insurgency tended to distract attention from the subject of democracy per se. But over the past year, with the insurgency on the wane this comes back into focus.
But it’s difficult for democracy to prosper in countries with serious ethnic and sectarian divides, especially when the majority group is — like Iraq’s Shiite Arabs — a less-than-overwhelming majority. It’s also difficult for democracy to prosper in countries whose economies are centered around national resource extraction. Conversely, it’s helpful for a democratic transition for a country to have democratic neighbors or to be integrating into multilateral democratic institutions. But of course, Iraq doesn’t have those things. Bad for democracy is to have neighbors with rival geopolitical designs that they’re trying to play out inside your territory.
Under the circumstances, Iraq will probably be pretty unstable for a while and then eventually someone or other will consolidate control over the country and they’ll almost certainly be using means that don’t get you an A on your democracy promotion 101 test.
28 Responses to “This is Not What a Good Prospect for Democracy Looks Like”
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December 26th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Let’s be honest, the Republicans only latched onto democracy promotion when the evidence revealed exactly what the intelligence said before they started terrorizing the Iraqi people – there was no possible way for Saddam Hussein to threaten the national security of the United States.
Democracy for the people of Iraq wasn’t a goal. Ensuring the Republicans could win the 2002 elections was a goal. Helping George W. Bush become a “War President” was a goal. Using the war to shut down critics and help George Bush get a second term was a goal. The fact that millions of lives had to be ruined to do so wasn’t even a bug, it was a feature.
December 26th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
But Matt, you have to admit that your concept of democracy as we have it here in the US, right now, didn’t exist here in the US until recently. You believe in equality of power and voice in a democracy, like a national popular vote for president, or a 50% majority vote in the Senate.
Our fine democracy was founded on the rights of landowners to participate, on exploitation of natural resources and taking of land from indigenous peoples, and slave labor. It is true that the democratic class was of one race and sex, but that was the because we carefully defined was we meant by democracy. The actual problem in Iraq is that you can’t easily distinguish between the factions. But in the history of the US we always chose easily identified groups: different race or sex. And these oppressed groups have always outnumbered the democratic class.
December 26th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
The pressure should be on Obama to realize Iraq is a failure and to get troops and all contingency forces out of that debacle by the end of the year.
http://www.sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/
December 26th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
LOL! Hilarious discussion so far. Al-bot and tomj both compare business-as-usual in Iraq to the worst examples of failures of the American democratic process and conclude that democracy is succeeding.
To extend their logic, though, democracy has not yet arrived in Iraq. You see, in America, our presidents have sometimes been assassinated. When al-Maliki is assassinated, then you will know democracy has arrived in Iraq. Right?
December 26th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
They vote- therefore they are a “democracy”.
However, there is no protection of minority rights. Protection of minority rights from the tyranny of the majority is the most important part of American political system. Voting is secondary.
December 26th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
How would “democracy” fare in the U.S. if we were under occupation by military and mercenary forces of a foreign government that didn’t have a reasonable explanation for why they attacked us in the first place, yet insisted that we needed to stand on our own feet and be democratic for them to leave?
December 27th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
But it’s difficult for democracy to prosper in countries with serious ethnic and sectarian divides, especially when the majority group is — like Iraq’s Shiite Arabs — a less-than-overwhelming majority.
Was there really a serious Sunni-Shia sectarian divide in Iraq before the invasion? I’m thinking of stuff like this:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/46871/output/print
Despite years of discrimination against the Shia during Saddam’s era, mixed marriages between the country’s major groups, including the Kurds, have been very common. There are no official statistics, but prominent sociology professor Ihsan al Hassan, who has studied the subject, estimates that of Iraq’s 6.5 million married couples, 2 million are Sunni-Shia unions.
December 27th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Heh.
Four years after waving his purple finger around, Al still can’t grasp the difference between the forms of a democratic society and the substance.
Let me give you a little head’s up: you can use the phrase “the faction withdrew its support from the government” to describe 1) the Sadrists turning against the Iraqi state and 2) some regional minority party in a European parliament leaving the governing coalition, but that doesn’t make them the same thing.
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