Democracy Promotion in Iraq: Development, Oil, and Reform

Introduction

One of the most complex issues facing the developed world today is its humanitarian effort at promoting development across international borders. One aspect of such a challenge is the widely divergent forms of government that often perpetuate a cycle of poverty, conflict, and destruction in underdeveloped countries rather than promoting democracy and peace. For this reason, the United States has been concerned with promoting democracy and peace across the world whenever it became evident that these processes were absent in certain countries. The American effort in the Middle East and Africa might be used as examples of such endeavors, even while conflict has tended to heighten as a result.

Indeed, when the American government becomes involved in operations to transform a target society — even without any prior cause for war — the local government has more often than not reacted with resentment, while citizens have responded with a sense of increased fear. This fear is often justified, as government reactions to American intervention are frequently hostile.

In cases like Iraq, the initial cause for American involvement was war and conflict. After the 2001 attacks on the United States, the government began its "war on terrorism," which took extreme forms domestically and also led to devastating conflict in Iraq. President Obama's decision to withdraw American troops from Iraq left the country devastated by the effects of a prolonged war. Perhaps the time has therefore arrived for the United States and other developed countries to take responsibility for providing development aid aimed at promoting democracy in Iraq and its surrounding regions. The question, however, is how to accomplish this without causing further conflict.

One instructive example is the Central African Republic (CAR), as discussed by Vinck and Pham (2010: 2). This country has suffered a continual cycle of violence and poverty since its independence from France in 1960. Successive military coups and power conflicts have made it a fragmented, underdeveloped, and violent country — hardly conducive to any form of democracy. Vinck and Pham's (2010: 1) approach was to survey local citizens to determine their views on the situation in their country and their own individual experiences. On the basis of these findings, the authors made recommendations to various groups, including the CAR government and armed forces, civil society, the international community, and the International Criminal Court. The important factor is that the survey opened an initial channel of communication in which local inhabitants were provided with a voice. This citizen-centered approach, rather than an externally imposed conception of democracy, was used as the basis for further recommendations.

It is therefore suggested that the situation in Iraq should be modified to reflect a basis of respect for the local community and its culture, rather than an attempt to completely transform it — even in the name of democracy. Instead, existing culture and public opinion can serve as an initial foundation for promoting the peaceful and gradual implementation of democratic principles with minimal disruption to citizens.

Review of the Literature

Many authors have written on the American attempt at intervening in Iraq since the beginning of the war on terrorism. Robinson (2004: 442), for example, goes as far as saying that the American plan for Iraq is quite far from promoting democracy as it is commonly understood by citizens. His claim is that the United States will not attempt to establish a genuine democracy at all, and that leaders are simply applying that label to the occupation in order to lend it an air of legitimacy.

Instead, Robinson suggests that a "polyarchy" will be attempted — a system that promotes the power of a small group of rulers in which mass participation does not advance true democracy but instead strengthens the power of the few by limiting and controlling the choices of the population. This arrangement benefits a small elite while projecting the image, rather than the substance, of democracy to the rest of the world.

One of the central issues involved in the promotion of "democracy" in Iraq and the broader Middle East is the region's rich oil resources — a commodity of enormous importance to the machine- and industry-driven United States. Karl (2008: 2) addresses this issue directly. According to Karl, Iraq contains the world's third largest proven oil reserves. This is an exceptionally valuable resource given that the entire developed world relies on petroleum for its economic functioning. Although, according to Karl, the American government repeatedly denied that oil was a factor in initiating the war with Iraq, it can hardly be denied that the prospect must have made intervention seem particularly attractive.

Nonetheless, Karl argues that promoting democracy on the basis of oil exports is a highly unfeasible goal for several reasons. Countries that rely exclusively on oil for their livelihood tend to experience political and social turmoil alongside extremely poor development outcomes. Dictatorships in such countries tend to spark civil war, driving the poor into ever-deeper poverty. Hence, even if democracy were an honest governmental goal, it is unlikely to be successfully implemented when built upon an oil-dependent foundation.

Welzel and Klingemann (2007: 2) suggest that there is a link between the demand and supply of democracy, which helps explain the difficulty of establishing democratic governance in countries that appear to demand authoritarian rule. Furthermore, the authors identify widespread government corruption as a significant impediment to the democratic process. When this insight is connected to the oil issue, it is not difficult to see how competition for oil revenues might corrupt those in power to the detriment of ordinary citizens.

In order to address the problem of corruption as a threat to democratic governance, Meyerson (2006: 3) proposes a process of decentralized provincial democracy — that is, democracy implemented on a limited, more gradual scale at the local level, while national implementation proceeds more slowly. In this way, citizens who have no faith in their corrupt, authoritarian rulers have time to become accustomed to democratic practices on a smaller and more manageable scale.

Authors such as Kirkpatrick (2003: 7), on the other hand, are relatively positive about the American democratic mission abroad. The increasingly interconnected global environment demands attention to those disadvantaged by the corruption and greed that so often accompany authoritarian governance. According to Kirkpatrick, the United States has offered beneficial support to the Afghan army as part of this broader effort. This literature review serves as a foundation for contributing ideas and suggestions on simplifying the democratic process for a country that desperately needs it.

References

Karl, Terry. 2008. Democracy Over a Barrel: Oil, Regime Change and War. UC Irvine: Center for the Study of Democracy. Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9kq895kt

Kirkpatrick, Jeane J. 2003. Democracy and Human Rights — The Essential Connection. Center for the Study of Democracy, UC Irvine. Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/962495x1.pdf

Meyerson, Roger B. 2006. Federalism and Incentives for Success in Democracy. Institute for Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley. Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9940s9bv.pdf

Robinson, William I. 2004. Commentary: What to Expect from U.S. "Democracy Promotion" in Iraq. UC Santa Barbara: Global and International Studies. Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/4kn10123

Vinck, Patrick, and Pham, Phuong N. 2010. Building Peace, Seeking Justice: A Population-Based Survey on Attitudes about Accountability and Social Reconstruction in the Central African Republic. UC Berkeley: Human Rights Center. Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/763819rc

Welzel, Christian, and Klingemann, Hans-Dieter. 2007. Center for the Study of Democracy, UC Irvine. Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/3nb7x3qs