Iraq’s Dysfunctional Democracy

This book examines Iraq since 2003 and argues that a new democratic Iraq cannot be grounded on destructive politics of victimization, narrow nationalism, sectarian confessionalism, and a consensual, power-sharing political arrangement. This book provides an in-depth analysis from an Iraqi perspective on the political development in Iraq since 2003, thereby filling a gap that currently exists in the discussion of this embattled nation. Within its pages, author David Ghanim scrutinizes the many contradictions of the new experience in Iraq and exposes the myth of a "new democratic Iraq." By providing a unflinching look at the dysfunctional nature of democracy in Iraq, the centrality of violence in Iraqi society and politics, and the deterioration of the rights and treatment of minorities and women in Iraq, Iraq's Dysfunctional Democracy exposes how the New Iraq after the nearly decade-long involvement of the United States is becoming a republic of corruption. Complex issues such as ethnic federalism, ethno-sectarian elections, politics of victimization, deceptive legitimacy, and the effects of de-Ba'athification are covered in detail, serving to illuminate the multilayered obstacles to stabilizing Iraq—a country that serves as the linchpin for the security of the Middle East as well as the rest of the world.