Exclusion and authoritarianism in Iraq: explaining the limits of institutional design and ethnic conflict management in a divided society
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Date
29/06/2016Author
Mako, Shamiran
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Abstract
This dissertation seeks to explain and ascertain the relationship between state institutions
and ethnic conflict in Iraq. The central argument is that institutions matter, and a divided
society’s early institutional setup during the critical period of state formation and
statebuilding determines that state’s sequential response to subsequent group conflict.
Contextualizing the role of state institutions alongside ethnic elite behaviour facilitates the
development of a nuanced understanding of the interplay between the state and its divided
society. As a theory-building endeavour, the dissertation identifies the conditions under
which groups grievances are advanced, the processes that lead to their mobilization, and
the institutional constraints that shape their trajectory. By identifying historically-contingent
causal links during critical junctures and under more gradual processes of
change that generate cumulative effects and patterns of ethnic dominance, we observe that
ethnic elites and institutions determine the parameters of ethnic dominance and re-dominance
of the state during critical statebuilding periods where more inclusive
governing options would have increased inter-ethnic cooperation and cohesion. In doing
so, it explicates the causal mechanisms linking institutional design and ethnic conflict in
divided, post-colonial states.
I posit that ethnic conflict in divided societies emerges as a process rather than an
abrupt rupture in the state’s structural and institutional composition. Specifically, as a
social process, it unfolds overtime, at varying speeds, and with divergent outcomes in a
given state and within a given institutional context. This process is preconditioned by the
presence of two interdependent variables at the time of state formation and throughout
various statebuilding periods—authoritarianism and exclusion that produce and reproduce
patterns of ethnic dominance. Conceptualizing the effects of these variables requires a
temporal analysis of their development overtime and in a given institutional setting. In the
case of Iraq, the state’s institutional response to discord has played a decisive role in
moulding ethnic and religious mobilization and patterns of ethnic dominance in response
to exclusion and authoritarian governance during three critical junctures—1920 as a result
of exogenous state formation and state building by Britain; 1958 with the coup d’état and
the birth of the republic, culminating in the Ba‘thist takeover in 1968 that cemented
autocratic single-party rule; and, finally, post-2003 resulting in state reformulation and
exogenously imposed democratization that has produced a stagnating state.
The dissertation applies both qualitative and quantitative research methods within
political science in order to frame the empirical puzzle. It draws on archival research using
the British National Archives in London, the Ba’th Party archives at the National Defense
University in Washington, D.C., and the Library of Congress. Extensive empirical
research was also conducted at Harvard University’s Law School library which houses
pertinent documents regarding cross-national legal codes. The quantitative component
consisted of multiple linear regressions using the Fragile State Index which contains
aggregate data measuring various socio-economic and political indicators. Lastly, the
work also relies on elite interviews with community members in and outside of Iraq as
well as American policy makers to gain a deeper understanding of U.S. policy outcomes
on Iraq’s post-2003 governing trajectory.
The dissertation’s findings are significant as it is the first study of its kind to apply
multi-level research methods to the temporal study of ethnic conflict, authoritarianism,
and democratic transition in Iraq. The findings are triangulated in order to reframe our
understanding of the processes that lead to ethnic mobilization, which has implications for
measuring the success or failure of post-conflict statebuilding in ethnically divided
societies undergoing transition from authoritarian rule.
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