Iraqis recognize need for change

According to Reuters, it seems as though many Iraqis have recognized the shortcomings of sectarianism as a basis for political organization due to factors outside of institutionally-determined incentives — namely, the problem of governance and basic administration*:

“Religious parties didn’t keep their promises. They exploited our problems,” said Safaa Kadhim, a teacher in Basra, reflecting anger voiced across Iraq towards the major parties, mostly founded along sectarian lines and seen by many as corrupt and self-serving.

“The voter must be more careful this time, and vote for someone who is deserving,” Kadhim said.

Polling evidence seems to suggest that Kadhim’s sentiment is shared among the broader population:

In an opinion poll by the government’s National Media Centre in November, 68 percent of those questioned rejected the use of religious appeals in the campaign and 42 percent said they favoured secular parties, while 31 percent supported religious parties.

I do not highlight the above to undermine the importance of Jack’s most recent post, which provides a valuable and insightful institutional assessment. I agree with its premise as well as its speculations — institutions matter, and OLPR seems to represent an improvement.

However, I do wish to point out that Jack originally advocated for not just any “candidate-centric electoral system,” but for a specific type of system, SNTV, and I agreed. While SNTV is known to encourage several unsavory consequences over the long term (from highly factional parties to clientilism and political corruption), these appeared palatable in lieu of possible alternatives — whether that meant continuing down the path of CLPR and accepting the long-term institutionalization of sectarianism, or ham-handedly banning religious-based political discourse.

But institutions exist in a world of perceptions, both of which can change over time — the former through decree and the latter through learning, as the Reuters piece illustrates. Perhaps we did not sufficiently consider the speed at which this latter process could take place, particularly amidst Iraq’s dire circumstances (the school of hard knocks, it seems, provides a quick education). If we had, the middle way offered by OLPR — which appears superior to the extent that it does not encourage the same problems of SNTV, avoids some of the pitfalls of CLPR, and can actually be sustained if societal demands for sectarianism are not too overwhelming — might have been more apparent.

I am not sure of the specific ways in which this lesson could be of value in terms of broader application. Recognizing the fact that a dynamic learning process takes place as institutions illustrate their opportunities, advantages and failings over time is one thing; predicting the direction in which this learning process will progress is quite another. At the very least, it serves as a humbling yet necessary reminder that, in our efforts to change the world for the better, we often operate with limited means and in uncertain environments (even those of us as bright as Jack). So, fellow DGers of Georgetown and other future policy shapers, take note, for I imagine it is far more pleasant to gain an understanding of this reality as a student than at any other point hereafter.

*As a side note, while the so-called “surge” and the stability that it has helped bring about seems to have flown under Reuters’ radar, it seems incumbent upon me to point out that this was in many ways an even more basic determinant in leading Iraqi politics away from sectarianism. Falling back on the immediate certainties and familiarities associated with primordial bonds can become an appealing prospect in the midst of chaos, and thus it makes sense that as order is established, this tendency would taper and longer-term priorities (i.e., issues of governance and basic administration) would come to the fore.

Fixing Iraq’s party system: Take two

No word yet on what electoral system will be used to elect Iraq’s 18 governorate councils. I want to revisit the point because now is an historic opportunity to be proactive. Using another high-magnitude list system is alarmingly likely to reinforce the zero-sum disaster that is Iraq’s party system.

Last week I argued for open-endorsement SNTV in governorate-wide districts. Under that system, parties would have little control over nominations.¹ Each district would seat several members. Each voter would get one vote. He or she would cast it for a person, not a party.

That system could foster clientelistic constituent linkages. Such linkages would get parliamentarians talking about more than sect. This must be the goal because religious disputes are intractable under democracy.

Ayad Allawi ran a topical op-ed in the NY Times last November.² Mainly because of closed-list PR, Allawi argued, “the vast majority of the electorate based their choices on sectarian and ethnic affiliations, not on genuine political platforms.”

I propose that a new electoral law be devised to move Iraq toward a completely district-based electoral system, like the American Congress, or a “mixed party list” system like that in Germany, in which some representatives are directly elected and other seats are allotted based on the parties’ overall showing. In either case, the candidates must be announced well in advance of the election, and they must be chosen to represent the people in their locality.

Furthermore, a new law should ban the use of religious symbols and rhetoric by candidates and parties — these have no place in democratic elections [...]

This restructuring of the electoral process will be the beginning of the end of the sectarianism that now dominates Iraqi politics and our dysfunctional government [...]

Allawi is onto something in advocating for a large nominal tier. But Iraq does not need to ban religious campaigns. Supplying incentives to talk about something else could suffice. SNTV would do a better job of that than MMP or FPP. Both MMP and FPP would require boundary delimitation that’s impossible given the lack of census data. Both systems moreover would be easy for current parties to game.

Open-endorsement SNTV can generate pork-barrel campaigns. It avoids the districting nightmare. It empowers individual candidates at the expense of the current parties. It could make Iraqi politics about more than religion.

1. Depending on ballot access rules.
2. The original TDP blog post is here.

Repairing Iraq’s party system

As I write, democracy assistance groups are helping lawmakers develop an electoral system for Iraq’s 18 governorate councils. Some creative electoral engineering could take the sectarian sting out of Iraq’s party system. One proposal worth serious thought is using the single non-transferable vote (SNTV) with open endorsements in governorate-wide districts.

Reuters last week claimed that “Iraq’s local elections could reshape power structure.”

Major players — such as the movement of populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Sunni Arab tribal groups — will be competing for the first time and are expected to make gains at the expense of those now in power.

“New alliances will form, old ones will fall. Everything will change. It will redraw the political map of Iraq,” said a senior Shi’ite government official on condition of anonymity.

Really, Reuters means reshaping a balance of power, not an underlying power structure. A party system that continues to revolve around sects will not help consolidate Iraqi democracy. Luminaries from Lipset to Lijphart have taught that stable democratic politics are about more than race, religion or language.¹ The challenge is to get Iraqi elites talking about more than sectarian interest. What candidates need are incentives to cultivate a personal vote. Campaigns need to be about what’s-in-it-for-me: jobs, schools, roads and, as a colleague quipped, a shawarma machine in every kitchen.

Thankfully, beltway rumor has it that the chosen system will be candidate-centric. This is a major step away from the closed-list PR systems that blew open Pandora’s box in 2005.

That leaves us with a few basic options:²

First-past-the-post: As long as parties don’t control who gets on the ballot, this system might work. Yet the number of votes needed to win is fairly high, meaning current parties likely would fare best, unless there were numerous candidates in each district, in which case outcomes would be wildly unpredictable. Ultimately, the lack of reliable census data would make fair apportionment virtually impossible.

Open-list PR: Basically, the system modifies list PR so that voters control who ends up being a party’s most popular parliamentarian. While it gets around the apportionment problem, it is unlikely to change much. The list logic would preserve current parties, the logic of party discipline would remain the same, and we would expect the most popular person under such circumstances to be a sectarian leader.

STV: For all its virtues, this is not appropriate for the context. Illiteracy and innumeracy are likely to cause widespread voter error. The only way to get around the apportionment problem is to use one big district in each governorate. Can we really ask Iraqis to rank up to, say, 200 candidates?

Bloc vote: Two words. Palestine 2006.³

SNTV: With open endorsements, of course. If the parties controlled who got on the ballot, there would be little chance for a shawarma machine in every kitchen. The system would stimulate hyper-personalistic campaigns, party fragmentation and pork-barrel politics at its finest. On one hand, these are ugly dynamics. On the other, they’re just what are needed to break the grip of sect on Iraq’s party system.

Using SNTV in governorate-wide districts would obviate the apportionment problem. If each council were the cube root of its respective governorate’s population, council sizes (and district magnitudes) would hover around 100, meaning each candidate would need about only one percent of votes to win.⁴

Open endorsement SNTV is not a magic bullet. Its efficacy depends on federal-governorate linkages, ballot access rules and the (in)abilities of current parties to coordinate in local contests, to name just a few variables. Iraq nonetheless faces a tradeoff. As long as its electoral rules stimulate disciplined, programmatic parties, sect is likely to be the dominant cleavage. Legislative politics will remain zero-sum with negative implications for the country’s future. On one hand, electoral engineers can reinforce the nasty equilibrium that is Iraq’s party system. On the other, they can try to force it open by stimulating fragmentation and clientelism.

1. ADDENDUM 4/17: Some have read this sentence as my suggestion that the “luminaries” advocate pork-inducing systems in order to activate non-sectarian cleavages. That is not my intention. I drew on the “luminaries” for their emphasis on the importance of such cleavages.
2. Of course, varying factors like endorsement control, pooling, ballot access restrictions, and less feasibly, district magnitude give us far more permutations.
3. For two interpretations of this disaster, see F&V and FairVote.
4. Using data from FairVote.