World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim speaks to the Iraqi Parliament in Baghdad, Iraq on March 26, 2016. © Dominic Chavez/World Bank. Source: Flickr
Following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the new political order gave birth to a democratic system that was meant to allow wide political participation across Iraqi society. In August 2015, a year after ISIS’s takeover of northern Iraq, a new law titled the Political Parties Act was passed. The new legislation aimed to prevent political parties from establishing militias, promoting sectarian discourses and agendas, receiving external funding, and obliged parties to disclose their funding sources and possessions. Existing political parties were granted one year to adjust to the new restrictions. To date, no such adjustments have taken place. The lack of law enforcement and regulation of political parties’ internal and procedural aspects have led to severe violations of the 2015 Political Parties Act.
Most analyses of the post-2003 political system in Iraq focus on the elections process and the functioning of political parties within parliament and the government. This project seeks to shift the focus towards the formation and internal function of Iraq’s political parties themselves, arguing that their undemocratic practices and beliefs constitute the basis for understanding the failings of democracy in Iraq.
This project forms part of the Conflict Research Programme, funded by the UK Department for International Development to provide research and policy advice on how the risk and impact of violent conflict might be more effectively reduced through development and governance interventions.
Project Outputs:
- Undemocratic Parties in "Democratic" System: The Formation and Operation of Political Parties in Post-2003 Iraq. LSE Middle East Centre Paper Series (56).
Research Team
Omar Al-Jaffal | Principal Investigator
Omar is an Iraqi journalist, researcher and poet. His writings have appeared in Al-Monitor, Asia Times and Assafir Al-Arabi, and he has published two poetry collections. In 2017, he was awarded the Mostafa Al-Hosseiny Prize for Arab young journalists.