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Department of Social Science

Master of Peace and Development work

Module 4FU42E

Donors’ Conditionality in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: The

Case of Iraq

Author: Deema Ktaileh

Supervisor: Lennart Wohlgemuth

Date of Seminar: 26/08/2016

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Acknowledgment

I would like to thank my tutor, Lennart Wohlgemuth, for his encouragement, patience and

invaluable guidance. I wish to express my gratitude to my other lecturers at Linnaeus University.

To my family and my friends, no words can describe how thankful I am for your love, support to

pursue my degree and pushing me forward.

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Abstract

Post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq started in 2003 following the military invasion by the

Coalition of Willing forces. Since 2003, numerous actors have involved themselves in Iraq’s

peacebuilding including governments, NGOs, the UN and the international financial institutions.

Also, various activities and actions have been implemented in the humanitarian, political and

economic domains. Today, all the indicators show that the country still faces the challenges of

conflict, chaos as well as weak social and economic development. Many scholars attribute that to

the deteriorating security conditions, which raises the questions of why does the country still face

insecurity and why has peace not been consolidated? This research examines the impact of

donors’ conditionality on post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq. As the liberal peace is the basis of

contemporary practice of peacebuilding, this research draws on the liberal peace theory as a

point of departure. The Liberal peace is used as theoretical lenses in order to understand donors’

strategies and arguments in the context of Iraq, according to two main themes, political and

economic transition. Overall, this research finds that the donors’ policy packages focused on how

to build liberal democratic and a free market state. Donors, primarily the US, aimed at enhancing

their control over the political process and formed the political structures according to their

interests foremost and not according to the public will. The local community has not been

adequately engaged or consulted. Also, transforming Iraq into a free-market economy by relying

on the private sector to stimulate economic growth and restricting the role of the state while the

country faces security problems has led to weak outcomes in all social and economic sectors.

Key words: peace conditionality, donors’ conditionality, liberal peace, Iraq.

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List of Abbreviations

AusAID Australian Agency for International Development

CPA Coalition Provisional Authority

GDP Gross Domestic Product

HDI Human Development Indicators

IFIs International Financial Institution

INGOs International NGOs

NCCI NGOs Coordination Committee for Iraq

NGOs Non-Governmental Organizations

PMSC Private Military and Security Companies

SIGIR Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction

SOEs State-Owned Enterprises

UN The United Nations

UNDP United Nations Development Program

USAID US Agency for International Development

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List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1………. Liberal peace

Figure 2………. Iraq’s social indicators

Table 1……… Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Iraq

Table 2 ……… The estimation of Iraq reconstruction needs

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Contents Chapter One-Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 7

1-1 Problem Statement ........................................................................................................................... 7

1-2 Research Objective and Relevance: ................................................................................................ 8

1-3 Research Questions: ....................................................................................................................... 11

1-4 Methods and Theoretical Framework .......................................................................................... 11

1-5 Disposition ....................................................................................................................................... 12

Chapter two- Theoretical Framework & Literature Review ................................................................ 12

2-1 Theoretical framework ................................................................................................................... 12

Liberal Peace Theory ........................................................................................................................ 12

Liberal Democracy ............................................................................................................................ 15

Liberal economics ............................................................................................................................. 17

Critics to liberal peace theory ......................................................................................................... 19

How the Theoretical Framework will be Applied? ........................................................................ 21

2-2 Review of existing literature: ......................................................................................................... 21

Peace conditionality .......................................................................................................................... 22

Statebuilding policy in Situations of Conflict and Fragility .......................................................... 24

Chapter Three-Methodology Framework: ............................................................................................. 27

3-1 Research Design .............................................................................................................................. 27

3-2 Research Logic ................................................................................................................................ 28

3-3 Data selection .................................................................................................................................. 29

3-4 Data Analyses methods .................................................................................................................. 30

3-5 Limitations and Delimitations ....................................................................................................... 31

3-6 Validity and Reliability .................................................................................................................. 32

Chapter Four- Presentation and Analyses of Research Results ........................................................... 32

4-1 Background ..................................................................................................................................... 33

4-2 The Pledges of Donors .................................................................................................................... 36

4-3 Political transition ........................................................................................................................... 40

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) ................................................................................... 40

The Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) ................................................................................................ 41

National conference in transitional period ..................................................................................... 42

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Constitution-making ......................................................................................................................... 43

Democracy Between Theory and Practice ...................................................................................... 44

4-4 Economic transition ........................................................................................................................ 45

Privatization and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) ...................................................................... 46

The role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) ................................................................ 48

Financial and Monetary reforms ..................................................................................................... 50

Infrastructure .................................................................................................................................... 52

Private Security Companies ............................................................................................................. 53

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 54

References .................................................................................................................................................. 56

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Chapter One-Introduction

This chapter provides an introduction to this research.

1-1 Problem Statement

Since the end of the cold war, the international community has been increasingly engaged in

internal conflicts using military, diplomacy and economic instruments. In the aftermath of

conflict, post-conflict countries with assistance from the international community face the

challenge of building peace. The aim of peacebuilding according to the former UN Secretary-

General Kofi Annan is “to create the conditions necessary for a sustainable peace in war-torn

societies” (Paris, 2004, p.2). Hence, post-conflict peacebuilding includes efforts aimed at

improving the security, economic, social and political conditions in a country in order to

consolidate peace (Tzifakis & Huliaras, 2015). Post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq refers to the

efforts that have been done by the Iraqi society and the international community after Iraq’s

invasion by the coalition’s forces in 2003. Since 2003 numerous actors have involved in Iraq’s

peacebuilding, including, governments, NGOs, the UN and the international financial

institutions. Also, various activities and actions have been implemented in the humanitarian,

political and economic domains. The second largest stabilization and reconstruction operations in

U.S history, after Afghanistan, are the nine-year in Iraq (SIGIR, 2013). About $60 billion in U.S.

taxpayer dollars and billion more in Iraqi funds were expended (ibid). Nowadays, after 13 years

of those activities, Iraq still faces the challenges of conflict, chaos as well as weak social and

economic development. Democracy is ineffective, and Iraqi people are more and more

disillusioned about their politicians.

However, the countries which emerge from long-term conflict suffer from weak economics and

fragile societies, therefore it will be vulnerable to a return to the conflict after the peace

agreement is signed (Nilsson, 2013). Hence, the success of peace agreement requires a

collaboration between all actors to create a sufficient and suitable strategy of peacebuilding,

taking into consideration the priorities of the country with long term vision in order to achieve

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sustainable development (Nilsson, 2013). Therefore, donors have been under pressure to fund

peacebuilding efforts and development initiatives in war-torn societies in an “appropriate” way.

In order to achieve this objective, one of the tools used by donors is conditionality. Donors apply

peace conditionality in order to propel the peace process forward, but what we have seen in Iraq

is that the situation anyway continued to deteriorate since 2003. The overall problem that this

research aims to investigate is: why the peace has not been built in Iraq? and more specifically,

why donor efforts have not been able to consolidate peace there?

1-2 Research Objective and Relevance:

It has been said that in answering the questions: who is peacebuilding, and what purposes does it

serve? We find that these questions are related to a large extent to donor’s interests (Tzifakis &

Huliaras, 2015). Therefore, this research investigates the extent to what donors’ conditionality

serves the needs of the majority in Iraq. Also, the nexus between aid conditionality and

peacebuilding process in Iraq will be investigated. Moreover, post-conflict peacebuilding efforts

play a fundamental role in promoting peace and formulating the future structures of war-torn

societies. They affect post-conflict countries in two-ways. First, they contribute to address the

underlying causes of conflict in order to enhance stability. Second, they contribute to determine

the future political and economic structures in the country.

Since, the international donors get increasingly involved in the peacebuilding process, the debate

arises about the effectiveness of so-called “peace conditionality” in the related activities (Frerks,

2006). Donors require specific reforms, and the main instrument to achieve these reforms has

been different types of conditionality in order to add credibility to their own policies. In the wake

of the 1980s debt crisis, bilateral donors and the international institutions such as the

International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank began to increase their conditionality

and dictate market-oriented policies in return for their loans (Montinola, 2007). The World Bank

tied its funds to “structural adjustment programs” which included requirements of public sector

reform and privatization (Montinola, 2007).

The analysis in this research includes peace conditionality at political and economic levels by all

donors engaged in Iraq’s peacebuilding. However, most conditions are related to the liberal

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peace agenda of the international institutions and key donors. The actors involved in post-

conflict peacebuilding are manifold and act at different levels including governments, civil

society, regional and international organizations. However, the externally-driven peacebuilding

operations are very complex, and differ according to donors’ vision and strategy. These

operations require delivering huge amounts of money to war-affected countries through different

channels. Those channels include non-governmental organization (NGOs), the private military

and security companies (PMSC) as well as the state agencies (Tzifakis & Huliaras, 2015). The

identification of the appropriate channel depends on the strategy of the contracting country

(Tzifakis & Huliaras, 2015).

Post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq started in 2003 and is still ongoing. It has cost billions of

dollars and too many lives, while all indicators point at that the country still suffer from chaos,

insecurity, corruption and poverty. Hence, the research objective is to provide deep-

understanding of donors and aid conditionality in the context of Iraq. According to OECD’s

statistics, the outsourcing of post-conflict reconstruction tasks through NGOs and PMSCs has

increased since 2006. In her article (2007), Suhrke says that the most prominent donors in

reconstruction operations since 1990 are the aid organizations and the UN agencies, which are

responsible for designing, financing, and monitoring post-war reconstruction programmes.

Although, billions of dollars have been spent in Iraq’s peacebuilding in order to rebuild the

infrastructure and consolidate peace, the statistics show that the development aspects are still

fragile and weak. According to the World Bank, unemployment rate in 2014 was 16.4% of total

labor force (World Bank, 2016). While 23% of Iraqis live on less than US% 2.2 a day (UNDP,

2015). Also, the security situation in the country is still bad. As a result of all this, an

investigation of the reasons behind the insufficient peacebuilding in Iraq will add value to

improve the future peacebuilding efforts.

According to the final Report from Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction: Learning

from Iraq, released in March 2013, Stuart Bowen acknowledged the lost opportunities of the

United States extraordinary efforts there. Also, he asserts the need to improve the US approach

to peacebuilding (SIGIR, 2013). The US spent $60 billion on reconstruction efforts since 2003,

according to the same report. Madrid donor conference held in 2003, estimated Iraq's

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reconstruction needs is about $55 billion over several years (Pan, 2003). However, what is

worthy to be noticed is that post-war economic reconstruction in Iraq was planned by US for

many months on the back of its planned invasion (Brown, 2005).

In their article (2016) Hassin and Isakhan examine Australia’s post-conflict reconstruction and

development initiatives after the intervention in Iraq in 2003. They found that Australia like the

other donors did support the liberal peacebuilding model. As an example of key donor beyond

US, Australia didn’t have a coherent plan with clear vision and key goals with regard to its post-

conflict reconstruction and development projects in Iraq. Despite the importance of Australian

role in post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq, there was an obvious absence of a plan and only in the

context of 2007 Australian federal election when the potential of Australia’s withdrawal from

Iraq became a controversial political issue, the government released documents on three years of

reconstruction and development projects in Iraq. It also outlined a strategy for the Australian

Agency for International Development (AusAID), which refers to three goals: supporting

agriculture; supporting public sector governance; improving basic service delivery and

supporting vulnerable populations.

Australia followed two ways to deliver aid in order to achieve those goals. The first way was to

continue give the money to NGOs which were neither Iraqi nor Australian. For example, the Iraq

Emergency Medicine Care Development Program, which aims to enhance the capacity of Iraqi

state employees as well as UN agencies such as the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN

Development Programme (UNDP) which were in charge of implementing the projects on the

ground like mine-clearing, rehabilitation of schools and other humanitarian efforts (ibid). The

second way was based on partnership with Iraqi government to enhance the capacity of key Iraqi

state institutions. As a result, over 600 Iraqis government employees got training, and several

state institutions were established to play the role of oversight and accountability (Hassin and

Isakhan, 2016).

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1-3 Research Questions:

The research questions to answer the research objective are the following:

1- What are the conditions that donors in Iraq have been pursuing?

2- What impact has donors’ conditionality in post-conflict peacebuilding had in the context of

Iraq?

3- What are the arguments used by donors to apply peace conditionality in Iraq?

1-4 Methods and Theoretical Framework

“Focus on how to make peace might have turned our attention away from what kind of peace is

actually being made” (Rasmussen, 2010, p.175). Based on this idea, in order to understand what

kind of peace has been made in Iraq, this research draws on liberal peace theory as a point of

departure. Since the end of the Cold War, liberal approach became the privileged approach to

build peace by the international institutions and key donors. The key elements of liberal peace

are liberal democracy and free-market economy. In more details, liberal peace dynamics include:

privatization, the rule of law, restriction the role of the state and active civil society, etc.

This research draws on the liberal peace theory presented primarily in the works of Oliver

Richmond, Roland Paris, Michael Pugh and others. In his article (2005) Michael Pugh provides a

critical theory perspective of political economy of peacebuilding. Pugh claims that “The liberal

peace has come under sustained pressure as a consequence of critiques and failures in practice.

Pragmatic shifts, to some extent towards pro-poor and emancipatory engagement with local

populations, have occurred” (Pugh, 2005, p.38). This research will also use a critical analysis of

liberal peace practice in the context of Iraq.

The research design chosen for this work is a case study. Robert Yin defines a case study as “an

empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context,

especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin,

1994, P.13). The data are analyzed according to the qualitative data analysis methods and include

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coding and thematic analysis. Abductive reasoning will be applied, as this research seeks to

investigate the impact of donors’ conditionality in Iraq through theoretical lenses.

1-5 Disposition

The content of this study is organized into five chapters. Chapter one contains an introduction to

the research which shades light on the topic of the study, and presents: statement of problem,

research objectives and relevance, research questions, and concludes with the structure of the

thesis. Subsequently, chapter two introduces and explains liberal peace theory and presents the

motivation for choosing this analytical framework. The second chapter also presents a literature

review on peace conditionality and statebuilding in fragile states. The concept of peace

conditionality will be clarified more in this chapter. Chapter three contains the methodological

framework, and the methods used to analyze the data. Also the limitations and delimitations,

validity and reliability are presented in this chapter. Chapter five present first a background

introducing Iraq, then the finding as well as the analyses of this finding will be presented in this

chapter. The final chapter summarises the conclusions of the study, as well as gives some

recommendations.

Chapter two- Theoretical Framework & Literature Review

The theoretical and analytical framework is presented in this chapter. The theory used in this

study is the liberal peace theory. The second section of this chapter comprises a literature review

with respect to the topic of the study.

2-1 Theoretical framework

Liberal Peace Theory

In the era of post-Cold War, the liberal orientation managed to be prevailing at various domains.

There was a consensus that economic and political liberalism could be a solution to wide range

of political, economic and social problems. This included conflict resolution, development and

environment issues (Paris, 2010). This trend has reflected in the mindset of policy makers in the

western-oriented international society and states as well as in the academic and public

publications. Fukuyama’s claim that the human mankind had reached the endpoint of its

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ideological evaluation, which is the liberalism, affected by post-Cold war euphoria is a very good

case in point (Fukuyama, 2006).

Accordingly, this dominant ideology has reflected in the peacebuilding approach, to become the

“liberal peace” the most effective recipe for war-torn societies. It can be said that liberal peace is

a peacebuilding consensus shared by UN, agencies, major donors and NGOs. It has dominated

their strategies of peacebuilding for at least the last twenty years (Richmond, 2006). The liberal

peace in this context means mainly liberal democracy and free-markets economy (ibid).

Moreover, the components of liberal peace are democratization, governance, the rule of law,

human rights, free and globalized markets, active civil society, neo-liberal development and

centralized secular state (ibid). This theory called internationally also “democratic peace”, based

on the idea that democracies which are liberally constituted tend to be more peaceful in their

internal affairs as well as their external relationships (Newman, Paris and Richmond, 2009).

According to Richmond (2006), liberal peace can be divided into three models based on the

evolution of conflict management and conflict resolution mechanisms. These models are

conservative, orthodox and emancipatory (ibid). The conservative model is the model applied in

Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. It is based on the idea of imposing peace by force rather than by

consensus and negotiation. According to this approach, peacebuilding is conducted through a

top-down approach, in which peacebuilding is led by states and donors, this means by external

actors without taking into account the specificity and features of the political situation on the

ground. The second model of liberal peace is the Orthodox, which is based on military presence

and the imposition of free-market economic dynamics on the state. This model had been applied

in countries such as, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. The third model is the emancipatory

model of liberal peace. This model aims to overcome the problems of the previous models. It is

an attempt to create a more legitimate model of peacebuilding. It takes into consideration the

specificity and the political conditions of each country, beyond the domination of elites’

interests, as well as based on bottom-up approach. However, according to Richmond, this

approach is still non-viable as long as it operates under the umbrella of liberal peace. It has not

managed to be applicable yet in any of post-conflict countries (ibid).

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International peacebuilding in post-conflict societies includes humanitarian assistance,

improving the internal security, development projects at both the formal level as well as the

public level and assistance toward better governance. These operations have been developed

after the cold-war according to the diversity in conflict zones, the needs of the recipients and the

diversity of the actors and donors involved. Such activities have included, enhancing ceasefire

and peace processes; responding to the refugees needs; stabilizing the economy and the creation

of job opportunities; resolving the problems of food insecurity; strengthening legislation and

justice institutions; addressing lands issues and enhancing reconciliation, human rights as well as

a wide range of other activities and values (Newman, Paris and Richmond, 2009). Hence, liberal

peacebuilding is a long term process, aiming to achieve political, social and economic reforms.

On the other hand, the assumption that the liberal values are appropriate and applicable for all

conflicted and divided societies could create a contradiction between local communities’ needs

and the international community’s agenda of liberal peace. Moreover, this might lead to neglect

the actual needs of the locals (Richmond, 2006).

As mentioned above liberal peace theory is based on the following two pillars: liberal democracy

and free-market economy.

Figure 1: Liberal Peace

Liberal Democracy

Liberal Peace

Free-market Economy

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Liberal Democracy

As Rhoden states in his article (2015) The liberal in liberal democracy, much of the works to

consolidate democracy are dominated by the lack of conceptual clarity. This could be clarified

by analysis their components, which are liberal by nature.

Liberal democracy is the contemporary form of political system which is present in the world’s

most powerful countries, and being tried in many other countries (Bollen, 1993). Therefore, it is

relevant to refer to this form of democracy when researching a contemporary peacebuilding

effort.

To explain liberal democracy, this research will primarily draw on Bollen’s article (1993).

Bollen defines liberal democracy as:

“The extent to which a political system allows political liberties and democratic rule.

Political liberties exist to the extent that the people of a country have the freedom to

express a variety of political opinions in any media and the freedom to form or to

participate in any political group. Democratic rule (or political rights) exists to the extent

that the national government is accountable to the general population, and each individual

is entitled to participate in the government directly or through representatives” (Bollen,

1993, p.1208).

Another definition is presented by Schumpeter: "the institutional arrangement for arriving at

political decisions in which the individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a

competitive struggle for the people's vote.” (Schumpeter, 1950, p.269). All modern nations have

both democratic and liberal components. Some might be more democratic, whilst others might

be more liberal (Rhoden, 2015). When a nation has a high level of democracy, it has more

political equality, while low democracy means the opposite. On the other hand, a high level of

liberalism means more rights, while low liberalism means deficit when it comes to the rule of

law and civil liberties. The two components of liberal democracy do not fit together always;

some aspects seem in conflict with each other (ibid).

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Does liberal democracy work in the developing countries? Rodrik (2016) discusses this issue, he

points out that two forces can be obstacles to achieve liberal democracy in the developing

countries. First, the lack of liberal traditions in the decolonizing countries, since democracy

requires a certain level of societal maturity. Second, the forces of industrialization, which was

important to achieve democracy in the west, as it turns the conflict between the elite and nonelite

to be about labor market regulations and welfare state dynamics (ibid). Industrialization is much

weaker today in the developing countries. This is according to Rodrik due to two factors,

technology and globalization. Since manufacturing is becoming more skill-intensive, this has

created a problem due to the lack of skilled labor in the poor countries. On the globalization

front, the decline of trade restriction as well as the flood of cheap imports have pushed a lot of

manufacturers to collapse in the developing countries. The prospects of deindustrialization

generate unemployment patterns and lack of organized institutions. In such circumstances, elites

could easily exploit the identity cleavages to achieve economic interests, while the social

movements would be hardly able to make a real change (Rodrik, 2016).

In order to explain why do externally-driven reforms often fail in transitioning regimes, in their

article (2016), Groß and Grimm try to challenge the common explanations that the failure of

external democracy promotion is due to a lack of domestic capacity and willingness to

implement democratization and statebuilding agenda (Groß and Grimm, 2016). The attribution

of liberal democratic reforms mainly to the lack of capacity and willingness of the domestic

stakeholders could be an obstacle to take into account the domestic support and needs toward

coordinated reforms (ibid). The domestic actors could have legitimate reasons to resist the

external reforms which are not aligned with their own needs and interests (ibid). The authors

emphasis the importance of involving third-party stakeholders in the reforms, and the role of

domestic government to compromise their own interests as well as the interest of the third-party

stakeholders and the external actors (ibid).

Taking up the liberal democracy promotion model in Iraq, Bridoux and Russell in their article

(2013) try to draw lessons from Iraq’s peacebuilding, which could be constructive in the wake of

the Arab uprisings. They demonstrate that there was a lack of operational flexibility in the

democratization program in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. This led to a clash between democracy and

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socio-economic demands as well as the local realities (Bridoux and Russell, 2013). Despite the

variation between Iraq and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the authors claim

that there is a sufficient similarity between those cases. This would attract the attention of

democracy promoters to implement similar model of democracy, which has been implemented in

Iraq, in the other countries in the region. According to the authors, the liberal democracy

promotion in Iraq failed. Hence, the fundamental questions are: what type of democracy

promotion matters? Furthermore, “does the dominance of liberal democratic as the Western

democracy promotion paradigm still make sense?” (Bridoux and Russell, 2013, p.328). As an

answer to this question, the authors suggest to keep in mind by local and international actors the

conceptual variants of democracy, such as participatory democracy and social democracy. These

different forms of democracy could collaboratively address social and economic injustice

concerns. While, focus on the liberal democracy as the only optimal model of democracy would

fuel socio-economic and political instability in some cases as what happened in Iraq (ibid).

Liberal economics

The pros and cons of free-market economy is a subject of debate all over the world. It is widely

defined as a market economy based on supply and demand, where the government imposes little

or no restrictions and regulations. This research will focus on the concept of free-market

economy in conjunction with post-conflict peacebuilding.

As mentioned before free-market economy is a key element in liberal peacebuilding. According

to Pugh (2005), the economic patterns of post-conflict transformation have been dictated by

external agencies to a large extent. Pugh (2005) and Brown (2005) describe the liberal economic

structures as following: reducing the role of the state, where the state in addition to the

international regulations should have its role mainly to maximize competition and preserve free

trade; elimination of tariffs; fair competition and guard against fraudulence; reliance on

privatization, exports and foreign investment to stimulate economic growth. Both authors agree,

basing themselves on plentiful evidences, that this range of economic and monetary reforms is in

favor of business, and quest for private affluence. On the other hand, it is indifferent towards the

poor, culture and environment as well as the public and collective space. Moreover, it aggravates

the vulnerability of people to poverty (Pugh, 2005).

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The economic model of liberal peacebuilding is derived to a large extent from the Washington

Consensus (Pugh, 2005). However, there is a wide debate among scholars as well as inside the

financial institutions to go beyond this consensus. The Washington Consensus is a set of 10

principles adopted by the US and the international financial institutions. It is considered as

"standard" reform package and correct path of development for developing countries. It is often

seen as other words of “neoliberalism” and “globalization.” The framework of Washington

consensus includes the following points (Filho, 2010).

Fiscal discipline for limiting budget deficits

A redirection of public expenditure priorities toward fields offering both high economic

returns and the potential to improve income distribution, such as primary health care,

primary education, and infrastructure

Tax reform: to lower marginal rates and broaden the tax base

Interest rate should be market-determined

Trade liberalization

Increasing of inflows of foreign direct investment

Privatization of state enterprises

Deregulation that impede the entry of new firms, except in the areas of safety,

environment and finance

Secure intellectual property rights

Washington consensus has been criticized because its recipes failed to generate economic growth

in the countries which applied it. The criticism led to develop this consensus into post-

Washington consensus (Marango, 2012). The package of ideas and policies aims to post-

Washington Consensus included: an agreement that a successful development strategy cannot

come only from Washington but must include the developing world; development requires a

balanced role between the state and the market and the strengthening of the institutions in each;

manage liberalized trade and monetary systems; concessions to social welfare through targeted

social safety nets; including other success measurements in addition to the GDP such as income

distribution as well as social and environmental sustainability (Marango, 2012). This mix of

market and institutional reforms were consolidated later in the so-called Poverty Reduction

Strategy Papers (PRSP's). For many, the post-Washington consensus differs fundamentally from

the original. While for others the original neo-liberal agenda still underpins the post-Washington

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consensus, and the core of it remains the same: trade liberalization, deregulation and

privatization.

Another shift in the political economic aspects of the international development agenda to be

more pro-poor and social protection economic is the Sustainable Development goals SDGs. The

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), officially known as Transforming our World: the 2030

Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is an intergovernmental set of aspiration. The agenda

contained 17 goals with 169 targets covering a broad range of sustainable development issues.

These include: ending poverty and hunger; improving health and education; making cities more

sustainable; combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests as well as promoting

sustained economic growth and building resilient infrastructure and promoting industrialization

(UN, 2015).

Back to Pugh (2005), he asserts the notable shifts in peacebuilding and development agenda,

whereas, the liberal peace agenda is under pressure of criticism due to the failures in practice.

On the other hand, he emphasis the need to answer the question: what purposes does

peacebuilding serve? According to the author, by answering this question, we can identify the

real targeted beneficiaries of peacebuilding aid, and go beyond the dominated frameworks,

which serve the interest of specific capitalists as the only available options. As long as the liberal

agenda dominate the peacebuilding efforts, there is continuously potential to reproduce the same

problems in practice, “However, without transformation of the IFIs, and the liberal agenda itself,

subjugation rather than emancipation will continue to be injected into the political economy of

peacebuilding” (Pugh, 2005, p.38).

Critics to liberal peace theory 1

The concept of liberal peacebuilding and its approach to stabilize post-conflict societies are

problematic. This has raised a debate about the international efforts in peacebuilding concerning

the framework of the liberal peace and its values, which are not necessarily universally

1 These criticisms are derived from criticisms presented by Oliver Richmond, Roland Paris and Michael Pugh.

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applicable. This theory has been under growing criticism and most of the criticism include the

following points:

The liberal economic dimension of liberal peace is not necessarily suitable for societies in

conflict which do not have stable institutions. Yet, according to this point, there is

incompatibility between democratization and economic reforms at certain stages, which

could lead to fundamental weaknesses in the relation between the liberal peace and the

economic prosperity of individuals.

The liberal agenda of development projects’ donors raises important questions about their

objectivity and their ability to end civil war through their impact. For example, in some

cases the imposition of the liberal agenda could exacerbate economic-social tension, and

the promotion of liberal democracy could exacerbate political conflict and division.

Donors’ agenda could be “thin or thick” and could play the role of “carrot or stick”.

Therefore, choosing an appropriate strategy in an appropriate area is a fundamental factor

for consolidating peace.

Focus on the governance as a long-term institutional process by investing in key’s

institutions and private sector, raises the question about the extent to which liberal

peacebuilding activities are premised on grass-roots engagement, in order to deliver

benefits to the most vulnerable.

Poor coordination between different actors involved in peacebuilding activities and

weak consensus between the UN, major states, donors, agencies and NGOs, and the

potential contradiction between the different goals of peacebuilding.

From this analysis, it can be seen that the international peacebuilding project revolves currently

between the liberal peace agenda and its criticism. This opens the discussion for a need maybe to

non-liberal model of peacebuilding or to take into consideration other alternatives and models of

peacebuilding. Although the growing criticism to improve the UN and other international actors’

assistance in peacebuilding, the basic assumption of the liberal peace is not challenged and

potential alternatives are overlooked (Pugh, 2005).

21

How the Theoretical Framework will be Applied?

The result of what has been discussed so far is that the basis of contemporary practice of

peacebuilding is liberal peace. In order to answer the research questions, this research will be

conducted through examining the following criteria as theoretical lenses derived from the

theoretical framework: The criteria of the liberal agenda are the rationale of donor’s strategies in

post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq. Therefore, this research will examine how these criteria have

been applied in the case of Iraq and what implications they have.

1- Liberal democracy is supposed to lead to:

- Enhancing political liberties and democratic rule.

- People of the country have the freedom to express a variety of opinions, and form or

participate in any political group.

- Each individual is entitled to participate in the government directly or through

representatives.

2- Liberal economy is supposed to lead to:

- Trade liberalization and increasing inflows of foreign direct investment that would

stimulate economic growth.

- Reduction of the role of the state, redirection of public expenditure priorities and

privatization would offer high economic returns and the potential to improve income

distribution.

2-2 Review of existing literature

This sub-chapter is divided into two sections. The first section deals with the existing literature

on peace conditionality. The second section deals with the existing literature on statebuilding

policy in situations of conflict and fragility, based on the policy guidance of the OECD.

22

Peace conditionality

Boyce, in his (2002|) article, Aid Conditionality as a Tool for Peacebuilding: Opportunities and

Constraints defines peace conditionality as “the use of formal performance criteria and informal

policy dialogue to encourage the implementation of peace accords and the consolidation of

peace.” (Boyce, 2002, p.1025). The core idea of peace conditionality is: since not all actors are

committed to consolidate peace, the use of incentives and disincentives would strengthen the

peace process (ibid). According to Boyce, peace conditionality has political repercussions, and

could play positive or negative roles. On the one hand, appropriate aid could be an effective tool

for building peace. On the other hand, inappropriate aid could fuel conflict by deepening political

and economic rifts (ibid). The ultimate impact of peace conditionality, according to the author,

depends on if peace consolidation is really the fundamental objective of donors, and the way aid

serves this objective as well as the conflicting interests in both sides, donors and recipients.

“why should donors spend money to serve the interests of aid recipients,

rather than spending it to advance their own interests? In discussions of aid

to collapsed states and war-torn societies, it is often assumed that donors are

motivated by `good intentions', their decisions guided by sheer altruism or

enlightened self-interest. Yet, there are diverse actors with multiple

objectives on the donor side as well as the recipient side, and peacebuilding

is not always the overriding aim. To assess the scope for effective peace-

building assistance, we must jettison the assumption that the obstacles lie

entirely on the recipient side, and recognize that the policies and practices of

aid donors can be part of the problem as well as part of the solution”

(Boyce, 2002, p.1026).

Moreover, Boyce claims that aid is not delivered to the country as a united entity, but instead to

groups and individuals within the country, which affects the balance of power. Furthermore,

donors are reluctant to acknowledge the political repercussions of their aid, especially the

international financial institutions (IFIs). For example, the Articles of Agreement of the World

23

Bank stated that the bank should make loans with attention to the economic effects without

regard to the political or non-economic considerations (Boyce, 2002).

According to Boyce, building peace is not necessarily the dominant interest of donors. Yet,

geopolitical aims, economic interests and refugee repatriation are among their objectives (Boyce,

2002). In order to avoid the tradeoff, which may arise between donors’ objectives in the short

run, Boyce suggests the “smart aid” approach. This approach means that donors must apply

peace conditionality to the aid which is more beneficial to political elites than vulnerable

populations (ibid).

Olsson and Wohlgemuth (2003) present another definition of conditionality, which is “action

required of the recipient government in order to receive assistance” (Olsson and Wohlgemuth,

2003, p.10). They distinguish between four categories of conditionality:

●Legal obligations: conditions aligned with legal requirements of donor governments.

● Shared values and commitments: conditions related to poverty and human rights.

● Technically based conditions in projects and programs.

● Behavioral modification to motivate recipient government to undertake specific reforms.

Furthermore, Olsson and Wohlgemuth emphasis the importance of policy dialogue between

donors and recipient government. This dialogue would enhance the mutual understanding

between the two parties. This allows donors to understand the intentions of the recipient

government, thus intervene more effectively. In doing this, the recipient country would engage

more positively in development cooperation and enhance efficient utilization of aid. According

to the authors donors can engage in policy dialogue in several ways and forums (Olsson and

Wohlgemuth, 2003).

Concerning the successful implementation of peace conditionality, Ehrenfeld, Kogut and Hove

in their (2003) article highlight three factors. These factors include, adequate understanding of

the political situation on the ground, good cooperation between donors as well as willingness to

use threats and rewards in appropriate ways in order to enhance credibility (Ehrenfeld, Kogut

and Hove, 2003). Another definition of peace conditionality is outlined in this article as “The use

24

of formal performance criteria, and/or informal policy dialogue to encourage the implementation

of high-priority peace programs, and the mobilization of domestic resources to this purpose”

(Ehrenfeld, Kogut and Hove, 2003, p.60). However, the conditional aid according to the authors

in this article, is not only about capital, but also includes institutional development; strengthening

justice and security; and technical assistance (ibid).

Although, the objective of peace conditionality in this article is to consolidate peace. The authors

point out that political ideologies of donors as well as their interests may push conditionality to

be a kind of blackmail or coercion (Ehrenfeld, Kogut and Hove, 2003). Moreover, the actors who

often apply aid conditionality are the international financial institutions as well as the bilateral

donors. Also, the imposition of conditionality could take three strategies: persuasion, support and

pressure. Otherwise, aid should be withheld if the conditions are not fulfilled (ibid).

Ehrenfeld et al conclude their article after drawing on three case studies, by emphasizing the

importance of donors’ coordination as an essential element for successful aid. Donors’

coordination to implement and monitor aid is considered difficult because of communication and

bureaucratic complexities (Ehrenfeld, Kogut and Hove, 2003). In addition, authors state that,

peace conditionality has limits to what it can induce. They recommend to apply conditionality in

conjunction with other measures in order to encourage parties in conflicts to consolidate peace.

Coming back to Boyce, in his article 2002 Unpacking Aid he raises the issue of “credit

forgiveness”. Aid, which is provided in the form of loans, in many cases turned to be capital

flight and cumulative private external assets financed by external borrowing (ibid). For example,

in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1970-96 period, almost 70 cents of every dollar flowed into the

region as loan, flowed back out as capital flight (Boyce, 2002). Hence, the author suggests that

donors should forgive the recipient country for that portion of loans, which the public had no

benefits from it. Yet, the public who should reject the liability for this portion of aid, which are

delivered in inappropriate way (ibid).

Statebuilding policy in Situations of Conflict and Fragility

There is a rich amount of reports presented by the international institutions and organizations

about peacebuilding in situations of conflict and fragility. Here, I will present one of the most

25

important reports in this respect, which is done by the OECD, the Policy Guidance: “Supporting

Statebuilding in Situations of Conflict and Fragility” (2011). This report was based on a

collaborative effort by members of The Development Co-operation Directorate (DCD) as well as

other concerned stakeholders. The fundamental objective of this guide is to review and reorient

the international engagement in situations of conflict and fragility. It provides a milestone for

development actors to improve their strategies, programs and their operations in this field. The

violent conflict and fragile states are one of the today’s many challenges that face our world

toward achieving the development goals (OECD, 2011). Several recommendations are given to

the development actors by this report in order to support statebuilding and strengthen state

engagement as effective state, which is a matter of development. This requires according to the

report to strengthen development agencies and work differently in this field.

The concept of statebuilding and peacebuilding according to the report are not the same, but

they develop alongside with support from external actors included in the development

community. Fragile and conflict-affected state is the state which has insufficient governance over

its population and territory, and weak capacity to build effective relations with the society. Thus,

statebuilding could be understood foremost as improvements in the relation between state and

society. It is a political process that exists within a regional and global policy context. Also, it is

an internal process, operate within the domestic polity, therefore there are always limits to the

effectiveness of external interventions (OECD,2011).

The concept of statebuilding includes three crucial dimensions. First, the political settlement,

which means a consensus between the elites about power distribution, and about the political

channels between the state and the society. Second, the capacity of the state to fulfill its key

services, and third the presence of active society, which has the capacity to identify its

expectations from the state, and to express its demands. From these three dimensions, the

legitimacy of the state emerges, which could differ according to the domestic specificity, and this

should be taken into consideration by external interventions efforts (OECD, 2011).

The guide represents recommendations around the following five priority areas for development

partners, governments and the international community in order to improve their support for

statebuilding in fragile and conflict-affected situations.

26

1- Making strategic choices: First of all, development partner involved in statebuilding process

should reorient their strategies as well as their objectives, in order to achieve that the following

steps should be taken into consideration. The report emphasizes that statebuilding in an

endogenous process, therefore it is important to understand the local context and dynamics. In-

depth analysis should be done about the political, historical, cultural, economic, institutional and

social context as well as understanding how these factors are shaping the local actors and figure

out the opportunities for statebuilding. In defining the objectives, the interests of local and

regional interests, the available resources as well as the potential limitations should be borne in

mind. In addition, answering the questions of who to work with and where to work is very

important in relation with context analysis to identify whether to work with state or non-state

actors and how to allocate the resources. Another crucial dimension in this regard is to recognize

the global and regional dimensions of statebuilding (OECD, 2011).

2- Moving from strategic choices to country program design: the report recommends that

donors should design and deliver statebuilding programs in a way compatible with the fragile

context, and it should be done in coordination with the state and the other key partners in order to

identify the priorities. Also, to design integrated intervention, in order to strengthen state-society

relations (ibid).

3- Tools for analysis and monitoring: The report invites development partners to use and

develop range of analytical tools aimed at understanding the causes of violent conflict and

prospects of peacebuilding, and to better understand political context and process effective. This

includes, analysing the current strengths and opportunities, and not only focusing on assessing

problems. Particularly, identifying institutional strengths, which exist even in the most fragile

contexts. Also, to use and develop tools aimed to monitor and evaluate interventions, to assess

their impact on statebuilding. There are different tools available, but need to be developed

according to the appropriate analysis of the context (ibid).

27

4- Aid delivery modalities and technical assistance The report discusses that the modalities of

aid and technical assistance delivery affect the peacebuilding process. Therefore, those

modalities should be compatible with statebuilding objectives (ibid).

5- Development partner operations The report invites the development partners to strengthen

their own capacity, internal organizational incentives and field presence. Since, their behavior

affects their legitimacy in the eyes of the local population. Also, to manage the risks of operating

in fragile and conflict-affected situations; create incentives for collaboration and review

procedures and regulations in the light of statebuilding objectives. This would provide effective

support to statebuilding in fragile and conflict-affected situations (ibid).

Chapter Three-Methodology Framework

The following section gives an overview of how the theoretical framework will be applied. Also,

the research methods used in the present study, the selection of data and the reasoning behind

the sources will be explained.

3-1 Research Design

This research is a qualitative study, which means the research strategy “emphasizes words rather

than quantification in the collection and analysis of data.” (Bryman, 2016, p.375). Creswell

(2009) says that qualitative research shares the following characteristics: The data are collected

by the researchers themselves through three different ways: examining documents, observing and

interviewing participants; the researcher reviews the data and organize it into themes in order to

make sense of it; the themes are built from bottom up, as the researcher develops the issue under

study by identifying the factors involved in order to generate a larger picture; qualitative

researcher often uses theoretical lens to conduct the study.

According to Mikkelsen (2005), qualitative research is dominant in development studies. It is

widely known that qualitative research is privileged across a range of disciplines, which relied

upon study of human behavior. Bryman (2016) further says that qualitative research deals with

the social properties as outcomes of the interaction between individuals, and not as separate

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phenomena. By doing this, the researcher is able to examine the phenomena from all

perspectives, in order to conduct meaningful research. This is a qualitative desk study, which

means the primary data will be collected from official documents, reports etc. Also this research

does not include field work.

The research objective is to collect and present detailed information about donors’ conditionality

in post conflict peacebuilding in Iraq, in order to examine its impact. In this sense, the research

design is qualitative case study. According to Bryman (2016, p. 60) “the basic case study entails

the detailed and intensive analysis of a single case.” A case study looks intensely at specific

group of participants, and drawing conclusions only about those participants in that specific

context. This is the most appropriate research design for this study since the research is carried

out in a single location, and it associates with intensive examination of the case identified. A case

study is focused, provides precise feedback, which could provide satisfactory answers to the

research questions. By studying a specific case, one can get a deep understanding of the focus of

study in a real life context as Yin (2014, p16) says, case study is an “empirical inquiry that

investigates a contemporary phenomenon (the case) in depth and within its real world context,

especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context may not be clearly evident.”

There are five types of case studies according to Yin (2009), and the identified case is a

representative or typical case, as it illustrates the conditions of commonplace situations.

According to Bryman (2016) the representative case exemplifies a broader category of cases.

The country of Iraq has been chosen as a case in this research as it can epitomize to some extent

other contemporary war-torn societies, and provide answers to the questions of donors’

conditionality impact in peacebuilding efforts. Creswell (2009) says that case study is a strategy

in which the researcher examines in depth a process, which is bounded by time and activity.

3-2 Research Logic

Abductive reasoning is applied in this study, as it aims at understanding the phenomenon through

theoretical lenses (Bryman, 2016). Bryman further says that with abduction the researcher relies

on a theoretical understanding of the context, in addition to understanding the perspectives of

people who provided the data. This means as (Robson, 2011) explains that abductive approach

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allows for the use of theory and observations parallel, in order to make conclusions from the

given data. The interpretations, analyses and the conclusion of this research are based on liberal

peace theory. Also, according to Walton (2004, p.34) “Abductive inference goes backward from

a given conclusion for the premises that conclusion was based on”. In the case of this study, I

assume that the identified theoretical framework, which is the liberal peace agenda provides the

preconditions which explain the conclusion. Abductive reasoning is also known as inference to

better explanation, by applying a new framework to an already known case in order to interpret

the given data (Danermark, 2002). Accordingly, this kind of reasoning matches this study, as it

will be based on criteria derived from the theoretical framework in order to find the results and

analyze it. The liberal peace agenda as privileged approach in the contemporary peacebuilding

efforts, provides an explanation for the rationale of donors’ strategies as well as the conditions

applied by the key donors and the international institutions.

3-3 Data selection

Identifying the selected data is something related to the research questions as well as the

theoretical framework of the research. The research is conducted through literature review using

primary and secondary sources. The primary sources include official documents and reports.

While, the secondary sources include articles and books, which take post-conflict peacebuilding

as an area of research. Although there is a huge amount of academic articles, reports and books

analysing post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq, only a small amount of it take donors’

conditionality as an area of research. Hence, in order to answer my research questions, the

required data will be extracted from the available sources about the identified case if needed. The

required data for this study will be collected from peer reviewed online articles and books on

electronic databases such as (One Search, Ebrary and JSTOR). Google search, including Google

Scholar, is used to get directly to other sources such as reports and figures. Also, the databases of

the World Bank, UNDP, OECD will be used to collect the required figures.

The assessment of donors’ intentions and strategies is primarily based on criteria derived from

liberal peace theory, and statements made by donors in the major donor conferences about Iraq’s

reconstruction, academic articles, books as well as the official documents. Liberal peace theory

constitutes the underlying framework of the contemporary post-conflict peacebuilding efforts.

30

Therefore, to understand what liberal peace theory means, this research primarily draws on the

works of Richmond, Paris, McGinty and Pugh. Those authors provide both explanation and

critical perspectives of the liberal peace theory. In addition, to clarify the concept of peace

conditionality, the research primarily draws on the work of Boyce (2002).

The assessment of donors’ actions is based on academic articles, books and reports run by key

donors’ governments and the international financial institution such as IMF, the World Bank and

OECD. Some reports provide relevant data and information about what key donors as well as the

international agencies have done until now in Iraq within peacebuilding operations. As example

of those reports this research will draw on the reports produced by the Special Inspector General

for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), Stuart Bowen. Those reports provide detailed data about

donors’ action in Iraq. The Office of SIGIR was created in October 2004 by the Congress as

successor to the Coalition Provisional Authority Office of Inspector General, and served until its

closure in October 2013. The mission of SIGIR was to provide oversight of U.S.-funded Iraq

reconstruction operations through comprehensive audits, inspections, and investigations (SIGIR,

2013). The publications of the United Nations are also relevant in this study, since the UN is one

of the key donors in carrying out development projects in Iraq.

In this research, materials from formal structures about post-conflict peacebuilding and donors’

conditionality in Iraq are used to collect data and analyses it. It can be said that a rich literature

exists about the liberal peace theory, post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq, as well as literature on

donor actions and policy reform. Also there is a variety of case studies from war affected

countries (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan and Cambodia), which are useful due to the similar

peacebuilding framework of the liberal peace. The research will investigate the links between

peacebuilding and aid conditionality in the case study of Iraq.

3-4 Data Analyses methods

The data will be analyzed according to the qualitative data analysis methods. The difficulties

with qualitative research as Bryman (2016) says that, although it generates a large number of

data, it is hard to find analytical path through its richness. Hence, the following approaches to

qualitative data analyses will be used in this research:

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Coding: In order to analyze the collected data, coding will be used as qualitative data analyses

approach. The starting point of coding is to read through the materials to become initially

acquainted with it, and jot down general notes. The second step is to read through the documents

again and generate codes as many as possible as themes associated with the data (Bryman,

2016). The codes then should be reviewed and connected to concepts and categories by figuring

out the common elements of the different codes (ibid). Each code captures a distinct idea and

helps to interpret and theorize it in relation to the given theoretical framework. By doing this, the

researcher will be able to organize the data in order to achieve a meaningful interpretation of it.

Thematic Analyses: Thematic approach to qualitative data analyses will be used also in this

research. That means, the research questions will be transformed into themes, under which other

sub-themes are found (Bryman, 2016). This makes data grouping easier, which could enhance

interpretation leading to meaningful analysis of the research findings. This approach helps the

researcher to keep track on the research questions and the information (ibid). Thematic analysis

is suitable for the exploratory attempt to better understand a phenomenon and answer research

questions associated with people’s experience or people’s views (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

In this study the identification of themes has to be related to the research objective and research

questions of the study. In order to answer the research question, the research follows this

technique, resulting in abductive coding. These methods would provide the methodological tools

to collect and analyze the collected data of donor’s conditions in post-conflict peacebuilding in

order to judge the legitimacy and the validity of those conditions.

3-5 Limitations and Delimitations

In terms of limitations and delimitations, this study does not include field work, accordingly

there is no interaction with the stakeholder on the ground. In this sense, the research does not

guarantee the credibility of the used data. Another limitation could be a challenge in this research

is the neutrality, as most of the data used in this research are published by the international

financial institution and the governments who are themselves the donors of Iraq. On the other

hand, there is a limitation regarding the lack of data available in Arabic, the official language of

Iraq, about the topic, (taking into consideration that Arabic is the mother language of the

32

researcher). I believe that this issue is a major limitation as the research does not include

adequately the Iraqis’ point of view about the topic. In this regard the high level of corruption in

Iraq is a limitation to use the available Iraqi official data. Additionally, the lack of researches

concerned specifically about donors’ conditionality in post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq is a

limitation for this research. This research is limited to the date of May/2016 when I stopped

collecting data.

3-6 Validity and Reliability

According to Bryman (2016), validity and reliability are tools to measure the quality of

qualitative research. The validity and reliability of research could be achieved “according to

certain methodological and disciplinary conventions and principles.” (Bryman, 2016, p.383).

Creswell (2009) discusses that researcher achieve qualitative validity by checking the accuracy

of the presented finding. While, qualitative reliability could be achieved by documenting the

procedures of the case study, in order to ensure that the research is consistent across different

researches. He recommends to mention the research procedures as much as possible. For a

research to be valid and reliable, the research conclusion should be reached through the research

design proposed (ibid). Bryman (2016) distinguishes between internal validity and external

validity. The external validity of qualitative research concerns the matter of generalizability, the

degree to which the results of the study can be generalized beyond the specific case. In this sense

external qualitative researches suffer from low external validity, as researchers tend to search

case studies (Bryman, 2016). The results of this research can be generalized beyond Iraq to some

extent as peacebuilding efforts after the Cold War include the similar liberal peace agenda. But

the context remains different in every country and in every period of time

Chapter Four- Presentation and Analyses of Research Results

This chapter will present and analyses the key findings. Analysis will be done by discussing and

relating the findings to the theoretical framework. The research questions will be answered in

this chapter drawing on the criteria presented in the analytical framework. First, I will present

background information about Iraq. Then move on to present donors’ strategies and analyse its

impact according to two themes: political transition and economic transition.

33

4-1 Background

Iraq is a country in Western Asia. It is distinct from the other countries in the region by diverse

and abundant resources. The resources include, vast areas of arable land, abundant water and oil.

Also, in Iraq there is a diversity in the ethnic and religious groups. The country had advanced

economic and social indicators, compared with the neighboring countries, in the 70th

and the

early of 80th

. In the 80th

the oil revenue was more than US$8 billion per year, the GDP in 1980

was $40 billion, when the population were only 13.25 million (Maamouri, 2007). Moreover, in

that period the level of the educated people was high, and the production base was diverse,

particularly in the agriculture sector (ibid).

From this level these indicators have constantly dropped. Iraq has faced severe challenges, in

spite of the abundant resources. This could be attributed to internal as well as external factors.

Iraq experienced two wars in two decades, the Iran-Iraq war, the Kuwait-Iraq war, as well as the

US-led invasion in 2003. In addition, Iraq experienced prolonged international economic

sanctions, and comprehensive commercial and financial restrictions imposed on Iraq for about 13

years, which restricted Iraqi oil exports. Another important factor is the Oil-for-Food Programme

(OIP) which was introduced as a sanction program that should allow for less pressure on the

poor. This program established by the United Nations in 1995 to allow Iraq sell oil to the world

market only in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs of Iraqi citizens (UN,

2016). It was considered a precedent in the modern history. But it did not manage to meet the

basic needs of people. When this program was applied in the period 1997-2002 the Iraqi annual

oil revenue was less than $120 per capita after the deductions for the compensation and financial

commitments to the UN (Maamouri, 2007). On the other hand, Iraq had experienced one-rule

party for about 40 years. The Baath party ruled Iraq from 1963 to 2003 and Saddam Hussein was

the president of Iraq from 1973 to 2003. Therefore, the country faced a lack of political freedom,

lack of rule of law and high level of corruption for a long time. Baath Party’s rule ended by the

US-led invasion in 2003. The invasion continued until 2011 when the military forces started to

withdraw, but military bases are still present there.

Today, Iraq is again facing pressing challenges, due to the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria)

attacks and the decline in oil prices (World Bank, 2016). The government needs resources to

34

reconstruct infrastructure and improve the delivery of public services in the liberated areas from

ISIS. Furthermore, ISIS attacks have led to massive internal displacement (UNDP, 2014). Over

1.8 million people have been displaced since January 2014, and Iraq now is considered one of

the largest Internally Displaced Population in the world (ibid).

According to the World Bank (2016), the population remains extremely vulnerable to the

ongoing economic and security problems. The latest statistics from the bank show that 20,035

civilians were killed in Iraq in 2014, the highest number since 2007; poverty levels increased and

now stand at 22.5% of the population; the number of people living below the poverty line were

estimated as 2.8 million by end-2014; oil export revenues declined by US$40 billion and

unemployment rate in 2014 was 16.4% of total labor force (ibid). Iraq is still considered to be an

upper-middle-income country, as the GDP per capita was estimated at US$6,147 in 2014 (ibid).

Table (1): shows Iraq’s GDP growth before the 2003 invasion and after as well as the

contribution of agriculture, industry and services sectors to the added value. Gross Domestic

Product (GDP) is the most common measure used to determine the economic performance, and

to compare economic activity within and among counties.

2000 2002 2003 2007 2013 2014

GDP Growth 1.4 -6.9 -33.1 1.4 6.6 -2.1

Industry, value added 2.2 -12.1 -38.6 7.1 8.1 1.1

Services, value added 9.0 -1.9 -33.1 -0.1 3.2 -7.6

Agriculture, value added -11.6 17.0 -29.1 -27.7 12.2 -8.6

Table (1) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Iraq

Source: World Bank (2016)

35

As Iraq has estimated reserves of 11 percent of the world’s oil supply, the Iraqi GDP is

influenced largely by oil production. Oil accounted for 95 percent of foreign currency earnings

and most of Iraq's GDP comes from oil (Stradiotto, 2004). Hence, Iraq’s budget is highly

vulnerable to fluctuations in the world market price of oil. When the Coalition Provisional

Authority (CPA) ruled in 2003 as a transnational government was established after the invasion

by the US and the other countries formed the coalition, it had control over Iraq’s oil through

production sharing agreement (PSAs). The agreement allowed private companies to negotiate

long-term contracts, while the government was forbidden from controlling oil production and

development (Lacher, 2007). The United States had the highest stake in Iraq’s oil industry. This

was justified by the welfare and political stability requirements of the country and the Iraqi

government’s shortage of funds (ibid). In 2012, 80% of food’s needs were met by imports

(SIGIR, 2013). Also the state of Iraq imported 3 million tons of wheat to meet the demand, and

30% of the Iraq’s wheat-growing area remained without irrigation, (ibid).

Security and economic conditions in Iraq impacted private sector consumption and investment,

and limited government spending on investment projects (World Bank, 2016). The battles to

liberate the Iraqi cities from ISIS by the joint forces of the Iraqi army and the popular forces are

still ongoing. Iraq continues to witness bombings between civilians lead to massive casualties.

As a result, Iraqi people are more disillusioned about their politicians than ever before. Recently,

popular protests have emerged calling the Iraqi government to radical changes. The government

is trying to find new solutions and actions for the sake of change. But obviously those actions are

still insufficient, which might lead to more social unrest.

Human Development Indicators

Iraq is ranked 121th out of 188 countries on the 2014 UNDP Human Development Index (HDI).

This index measures average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development—a

long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living (UNDP, 2015). The index

presents the following indicators about Iraq: an Iraqi born in 2014 could expect to live 69.4

years; gross national income (GNI) per capita is 14,003.2$; exports and imports 66.7% of GDP;

the population stands at approximately 34 million; 71% of Iraqis live in urban areas; Iraq is one

of the most youthful countries in the world- nearly 50% of the population is less than 19 years

36

Unemployment rate

old; while accounting for 65% of Iraq’s GDP the oil sector currently employs only 1% of the

total labor force. (ibid).

Figure 2: Iraq’s social indicators

Source: United Nation Development program (UNDP) 2014 and World Bank 2016.

4-2 The Pledges of Donors

In October 2003 an international conference held in Madrid ended with US$13 in pledges to

rebuild Iraq over several years, in addition to US$20 billion already promised by the USA

(Kapp, 2003). The total pledges were US$33 billion in grants and loans, the most in the form of

loans (ibid). The main donor was USA with almost two-thirds followed by World Bank,

International Monetary Fund, European Union, and Japan. Many countries, such as Egypt and

Iran donates products or services instead of money. In addition, countries including Germany,

France and Russia have promised to cooperate with the US-led effort to reduce Iraq's large debt

burden (Pan, 2003). Donors have the choice to channel their fund either bilaterally or through a

multidonor trust fund facility for Iraq which will be managed by the World Bank and United

Nations (World Bank, 2004). Moreover, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board

(IAMB) of the Development Fund for Iraq was established in 2003 pursuant to the Security

Council resolution 1483, which lifted the sanctions on Iraq and terminated the UN Oil-for-Food

Program, in order to meet the humanitarian and the reconstruction needs of Iraqi people. The

World Bank appointed representatives in this board, which was an audit oversight body for the

Iraqis live on less than US$ 2.2 a day

youth (15-24 years) are unemployed

Iraqis identify addressing poverty as the most pressing

23%

16%

18%

75%

37

Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) aimed to hold the proceeds of petroleum export sales (IAMB,

nd). The purpose of IAMB was to guarantee that those proceeds will be used in a transparent

manner to benefit the people of Iraq. Also, that the export sales of petroleum, petroleum products

and natural gas are made consistently with prevailing international market best practices (ibid).

The assessment of Iraq reconstruction needs was undertaken primarily by the United Nations

Development Group (UNDG) and the World Bank Group with assistance from the IMF in 2003.

The Joint Iraq Needs Assessment, was also discussed with the Core Group on Iraq (the United

Arab Emirates, the United States, the European Union and Japan), the purpose was to inform the

donors in Madrid conference about the estimated needs (World Bank, 2004). The estimation was

$56 billion in 2003, covers fourteen priority sectors (Kapp, 2003). This assessment agreed

among the international community at the Technical Reconstruction Meeting in New York on

June 24, 2003. In addition to experts from Iraq, the European Union, the European Commission,

Japan, and Australia. Also, with significant inputs from several NGOs and the Coalition

Provisional Authority (CPA). The purpose was to inform the donor conference in Madrid about

the reconstruction needs and address the priorities, focusing on both urgent and medium-term

(World Bank, 2004).

The World Bank/UN cumulative Iraq reconstruction needs by sector (In US$ millions)

Sector 2004 2005-2007 Total

Local administration, rule of law and civil

society

101 212 313

Health, education, employment 1.880 5.310 7.190

Education: primary, secondary, high 1.005 3.800 4.805

38

health 500 1.100 1.600

Employment 375 410 785

Infrastructure 5.836 18.368 24.204

Transport & telecommunication 1.043 2.366 3.409

Water, sanitation, solid waste 1.881 4.961 6.842

Electricity 2.377 9.745 12.122

Urban management 110 303 413

Housing and land management 425 993 1.418

Agriculture and water resources 1.230 1.797 3.027

Investment in agriculture 1.230 1.197 3.027

Private sector development 145 476 621

State-owned enterprises 30 170 200

Financial sector 71 10 81

Investment climate 44 296 340

39

Mine action 80 154 234

Total 9.272 26.317 35.589

CPA estimated by sector not covered by the UN/World Bank

Security and police 5,000 0 5,000

Oil 2,000 6,000 8,000

Culture 140 800 940

Environment 500 3,000 3,500

Human rights 200 600 800

Foreign affairs 100 100 200

Religious affairs 100 200 300

Science & technology 100 300 400

Youth & sport 100 200 300

total 8,240 11,200 19,440

40

Table (2) The estimation of Iraq reconstruction needs.

Source: World Bank (2004)

4-3 Political transition

From 2005 until the present, Iraq has remained in the top of the World’s Failed States Index

according to the annual lists published by the Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine (FFB,

2016). Furthermore, in 2015 Iraq’s rank in the Corruption Perceptions Index was 161 out of 168

countries, which indicates high level of public sector corruption (Transparency International,

2015).

The current political framework of Iraq is a federal parliamentary representative democratic

republic (IRFAD, 2014). “It is a multi-party system in which the executive power is exercised by

the Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers as the head of government, as well as the

President of Iraq, and legislative power is vested in the Council of Representatives and the

Federation Council” (ibid). The current Prime Minister of Iraq is Haider al-Abadi. There are over

31 political parties of which many are smaller tribal parties. The main parties that now makeup

the Council of Representatives include: Iraqi National Movement, State of Law Coalition, Iraqi

National Alliance, Kurdistan Alliance (ibid).

The following sections will discuss the major strategies had been implemented in Iraq since 2003

in order to achieve the political transition. Those strategies formed the foundations for the

emergence of the current political system. Therefore, it is worthwhile to go back in order to

determine the weak foundations.

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)

In the aftermath of US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)

governed Iraq on behalf of the coalition of Willing which refers to the group of allied countries

in the military intervention, from May 2003 until its dissolution on 28 June 2004. CPA as a

transitional government, was established to undertake the transnational administration, after the

ouster of Saddam Hussein government. The CPA, restored the order in the country to some

41

extent. In order to achieve transition, the CPA’s foremost concern was to uproot the entire

apparatus of the Iraqi state (Hassin and Isakhan, 2016). This happened through a process of de-

Baathification and dissolution of the former army and the security apparatus (ibid). This process

put about 400,000 Iraqis out of work (Lacher, 2007). The argument for that was to prevent the

members of the former regime from undermining the state-building efforts (ibid). However, the

CPA ignored the complex legacy of the previous regime and Baath party, which ruled Iraq for 40

years, and also the fact that Iraq had just emerged from a military battle, and was facing

challenges of lawlessness and chaos (Hassin and Isakhan, 2016). The major reason for that was

that the US as leader of “Coalition of the Willing” dominated not only the military intervention

but also the post-conflict reconstruction and development operations (ibid). According to Hassin

and Isakhan (2016), the military campaign was designed to destroy the apparatus of the “quasi-

socialist Saddam Hussein” and replace it with pillars of a new era of free-market capitalism and

liberal democracy. This should be seen coupled with the fact that as a result of the war, the basic

public infrastructure was already destroyed as well as a high number of civilian casualties.

The Iraqi Governing Council (IGC)

In 2003, the CPA in corporation with the UN set up the Iraqi Governing Council IGC. ICG was

the provisional government of Iraq from July 13, 2003 to June 1, 2004. The member of IGC were

chosen on the basis of their ethnic and religious affiliations (Lacher,2007). According to Lacher

(2007) the criteria to form this government, was one of the coalition’s actions which has

strengthened the sectarian structures of the political system in Iraq. Later on and due to a

growing insurgency, there was a decision to transfer the sovereignty to Iraqis no later than 2004.

Therefore, a transnational government was elected through indirect election. The criteria to

choose the members was specified. Including members from IGC, in addition to those who were

excluded from the political process before, but closely linked to the United States. The

government included also representative of the major Kurdish and Shia parties as well as

representatives of the Sunni opposition who were close to the US (ibid).

42

National conference in transitional period

National conferences as well as roundtables are usually held with representatives from different

political and ethnic groups to manage post-authoritarian transition in order to establish a plan for

the future of the country (Papagianni, 2006). The transitional framework of Iraq was orchestrated

by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC)

(ibid). As a part of this framework, the Iraqi national conference (2004) was held in Baghdad in

order to select the members of a 100-seat National Council which should serve as Iraq’s interim

legislature until elections in January 2005. Representatives of Iraq’s political parties, regions,

tribes, universities, women’s groups, and other civil society organizations attended the

conference (Otterman, 2004). In 2004 the IGC adopted Iraq’s interim constitution as well as the

Transitional Administrative Law (TAL). The election of National Assembly would take place no

later than 2005, the Assembly was supposed to draft the permanent constitution of the country no

later than 2005 too. However, the conference failed to achieve a consensus on the transitional

period. The failure was attributed to many reasons, one of it, the disagreement between the

participants about the presence of foreign troops as well as the appointment of the Interim

Government. The transitional framework was contested particularly by the actors who were not

included in the transitional process (Papagianni, 2006). They objected to the appointment of the

Interim Government as well as drafting the constitution under the presence of an occupying

power. Those actors hadn’t been consulted about the transitional period agenda and how the

conference should have been a part of it before the conference. Moreover, the political body of

the transition period hadn’t enough legitimacy in the eyes of people. In 2003, IGC was appointed

by US and the CPA, then reappointed as Iraqi Interim Government IIG. While, a few political

groups out of the IGC were consulted about the transition framework. Yet, the 25 members of

the ICG had limited power, as they had to consult the CPA on all major decisions and setting the

policy. In addition, most of the ICG members were exiles and predominantly didn’t have a

domestic constituency. It can be said that only the actors who were supporting the US invasion,

were involved in the political process during the transitional period. All these reasons

undermined the transparency as well as the legitimacy to formulate a successful plan which

could lead the country toward democracy and stabilization. The conference wasn’t society-

mobilizing as opposition and civil society were unable to effectively participate with lack of

43

information about the conference. There was a lack of consensus between the main stakeholders

about basic principles, hence lack of inclusive consultation (ibid).

Constitution-making

“Together with the interim Iraq constitution perhaps the most striking example of external

imposition has been in Kosovo “. (Pugh, 2005, p.26)

It is an established fact that the process of drafting the constitution in Iraq had been done under

external intervention. The situation in which there was a lack of consensus between the political

elites about the presence of foreign military forces. As a result, many of the political elite

decided to boycott the political process, including the drafting of the constitution (Dann and Al-

Ali, 2006).

The current constitution of Iraq was approved by a referendum that took place on 15 October

2005. The constitutional process began in 2003 immediately after the invasion and took place in

two stages. Between 2003 and 2004, the Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the

Transitional Period (TAL) was drafted mostly by the CPA, but in collaboration with the Iraqi

appointed actors in IGC (Benomar, 2004). This law was the framework for drafting the

permanent constitution in 2005. The constitution was actually drafted in 2005 by members of the

Iraqi Constitution Drafting Committee and ended with the referendum (Dann and Al-Ali, 2006).

The CPA had direct and indirect influence over the constitutional process (ibid). As examples of

that influence, TAL’s bill of right articulates rights as if they are absolute, thereby mimicking the

US bill of rights, and the experts from the UN provided comments to the drafts which led to

changes in the constitution (Dann and Al-Ali, 2006). On the other hand, the constitution draft

contained a section on economic-socio rights aligned with the Islamic norms, which created a

kind of semi-independent drafting process. Nevertheless, it was hard for many Iraqis to accept

the interim constitution which is partly drafted and officially approved by their occupiers

(Benomar, 2004).

One can conclude that, there was major direct and indirect interventions in the constitutional

process. The CPA’s strategy was to appoint a committee that is responsible of constitutional

44

drafting rather than holding democratic election. Also, the external actors determined the

constitutional framework in order to protect their interests.

Democracy Between Theory and Practice

Donors’ strategy in formation of the political structures in the transitional period, aimed at

enhancing CPA control over the political process. Lacher (2007, p.243) also asserts this idea

saying “evolving strategies to create democratic state structures have consistently relied on the

promotion of US allies and the exclusion of its adversaries”. Moreover, the councils which had

been formed independently after the war, had been dissolved. Alongside, CPA formed the local

governance councils through private contractors. The selected members of those councils were

“the most appropriate and legitimate” members according to CPA. The members got financial

support as well as civic education and democracy training in order to enhance the neoliberal

reforms (Lacher, 2007). Based on this idea, it can be said that the local initiatives which emerged

after the collapse of the previous regime, as a form of self-rule after the absence of the rule of

law, had not been developed or taken into account. On the contrary, those initiative had been

marginalized. With reference to one of the most fundamental attributes of liberal democracy

(each individual is entitled to participate in the government directly or through representatives) it

is clear from what has been seen above that, each individual in Iraq in the transition period, was

not entitled to participate in the government directly or through representatives. Instead, the

sectarian affiliation and political loyalty to each individual determined whether the individual

was entitled to participate in the government or not.

In Post-conflict peacebuilding, government representatives in Iraq were legitimate in the eyes of

the coalition. They were selected in accordance with their loyalty to the international community

and to the US interests foremost. But not as a result of Iraqi citizens’ will. That was happening at

both, the local level as well as national level. In this regard, Iraq is not an exception, this strategy

had been applied before in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan (Lacher, 2007). This strategy of

including the allies or the “moderate” as main partners, and excluding the so called “radicals” or

“terrorists” from the political process, illustrates the contemporary international community’s

efforts in state-building. It could be said that this strategy carries the imposition of the external

actors’ interests above the local community needs (ibid).

45

It can be noted that, CPA drew heavily on previous experience of peace building projects after

the Second World War (Germany, Japan, Balkan and Afghanistan) (Hassin and Isakhan, 2016).

During post-conflict state building projects, and designing the new institutions and economics

model, little consideration was given to the political, cultural, economic and social context (ibid).

In addition, poor consultation or engagement of local communities, civil society or key

stakeholders were made. Regarding all this, one can conclude that the following three

problematic actions had been implemented within the political transition period:

1- The overlapping between the military occupying forces and the governing political forces in

the aftermath of the war which undermined the legitimacy of these forces among the Iraqis.

2- The domestic political actors involved in the political transition process had been chosen in

accordance with the external actor’s interests foremost and not according to the public will.

3- The local communities were not engaged or consulted adequately, and the domestic initiatives

were marginalized to large extent. This increased the lack of trust between people toward the

political structures in the country as a whole.

4-4 Economic transition

Iraq’s economy has experienced several changes within the last decades. The statist heavy-

handed economic policies in addition to 12 years of economic sanctions and two wars have

resulted in a significantly deteriorating economy. With the arrival of the coalition in 2003, the

plan was to transform Iraq into a free-market economy as a part of the liberal agenda. Therefore,

economic policy focused on pro-market reforms. Domestic and foreign private companies were

expected to play a major role in the economic transition. Also both foreign investment and aid-

financed reconstruction programs were expected to stimulate economic growth (Looney, 2006).

However, the ongoing conflict has been an obstacle for the investment inflows. Many scholars

attributed the economic problems after the war, to violence and insurgent attacks. The following

sections will present donors’ strategies to achieve economic transition.

46

Privatization and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs)

As the liberal peace model is privileged by donors in post-conflict peacebuilding and

development projects in Iraq, the key determinant of the economic agenda is free-market

economy orientation. Hence, the privatization of various state-run institutions as well as the

liberalization of foreign investment and fiscal system were important factors toward achieving

the desired orientation (Hassin and Isakhan, 2016). The objective of CPA was to convert the

Iraqi economy from centrally controlled into free and open market. In order to achieve that, a set

of reforms were introduced with the aim to promote the private business and determine the future

of the state-owned enterprises. Promoting the private business included reducing the restrictions

on capital investment and bureaucratic regulations. Determining the future of the state-owned

enterprises included privatization part of those enterprises, leasing of competitive SOEs and the

potential of selling the large one to the private sector (SIGIR, 2013).

The state-owned enterprises SOEs in Iraq met a wide range of people needs and provided jobs

for thousands of people under the sanction before 2003. According to the World Bank (2004),

the Iraqi SOEs comprised 90% of the industrial capacity and employed 500,000 of the country’s

roughly 4 million labor force. SOEs were the largest employers after the agricultural industry,

providing majority big part of the formal sector and non-farm jobs (World Bank, 2004). It is

worthy to take note of the fact that the Iraqi constitution prohibits the privatization of key state

assets and prevents foreigners from owning Iraqi firms (Bjork and Jones, 2005). However, in

order to solve this legal problem which was facing the CPA, a new order was issued. The order

(39) allows foreign firms to retain 100% ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories, and

allows these firms to move 100% of their profits out of Iraq (CAP, 2003). The purpose of this

order according to the CPA was to “promote and safeguard the general welfare and interests of

the Iraqi people by promoting foreign investment through the protection of the rights and

property of foreign investors in Iraq.” (ibid).

Moreover, the CPA phased out the subsidy programs which were providing basket of subsidized

food to every Iraqi (SIGIR, 2013). This policy was advocated by the international financial

institutions as a part of the structural adjustment reforms in order to redirect public expenditure.

An argument in uproot of this policy in Iraq was the replacement of those program with a

47

national trust fund fed by a percentage of the country’s oil revenues (ibid). This fund was

supposed to flow to Iraqi citizens either directly as cash payments or indirectly via government

programs (ibid). The CPA pursued several other policy initiatives in order to end tariffs and

liberalize the Iraqi transportation and telecom sectors, consistent with World Trade Organization

conditions (ibid).

The same report (SIGIR, 2013): Learning from Iraq reveals that the US did the following

actions in order to revitalize the SOEs:

1- In 2012, U.S. provided a $1 million grant to support a project that would value the assets of

SOEs toward possible privatization.

2- In 2007 and 2008 The US authorized $100 million to revitalize Iraq’s SOEs. This money went

to the Task Force for Business and Stability operations (TFBSO), which was established by the

Defense Department in 2006 to help revitalize Iraq’s economy.

3- Between 2007 and 2010, a total of $174 million in Iraq Freedom Fund money was

appropriated for the TFBSO.

According to the same report TFBSO allocated less than half of these funds for

reindustrialization projects before its dissolution in 2010. In 2012, a small number of SOEs had

become viable, they functioned much as a welfare programs, distributing paychecks to an

estimated 600,000 Iraqis on SOEs payrolls, many of whom perform no actual work (ibid).

During the invasion in 2003, SOEs were looted. And after the war SOEs have been abandoned in

favor of the private sector, thereby ending decades of public ownership and its legacy. This

strategy left behind a weak public sector unable to provide sufficient services. This coupled with

the security conditions had a great impact on private sector consumption and investment, and on

government spending on investment projects (World Bank, 2016). Post-conflict peacebuilding in

Iraq has also been criticized for the dominance use of international and primary US companies

instead of Iraqi contractors (Lacher, 2007). Bojicic-Dzelilovic in her article (2010) says that

privatization as a key element of reconstruction approach has been questioned by the World

48

Bank itself. She also demonstrated that “private companies are profit-seeker, and that is the

guiding principle in deciding on the locality of their operations” (Bojicic-Dzelilovic, 2010).

The role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Before 2003 invasion, the presence of international NGOs was illegal with some exceptions,

under Iraqi law. After the invasion, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) solved the legal

problems of NGO registration by issuing new laws. It issued order 45 in 2003 providing methods

for registering NGOs. The order called all NGOs wishing to operate programs in Iraq to register

with the Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation within 90 days (CPA, 2003). The

purpose was, as it is stated in the order, “to ensure the security of the Iraqi people and prevent the

misuse of non-governmental organizations for fraudulent or illegal purposes” (ibid). The

intention of this order was not only to simplify the legal regulations. But also, to control NGOs

as it might be used by insurgent groups for other purposes (Bolton and Jeffrey, 2008). Bolton

refers to this idea expressed by one NGO as follows “the major objective of the order was to

monitor the activity of NGOs . . . whose purposes and missions’ were counter or ‘hostile’ to the

CPA.” (ibid: p.596). Under the rule of Saddam Hussein’s government, about ten western NGOs

were operating in the country, and twenty INGOs were active in the area controlled by Kurdistan

Regional Government, autonomous from the Iraqi state (Genot, 2010). After the invasion

hundreds more arrived the country. By the end of 2004 most of the INGOs withdrew their staff

from Iraq, due to the security conditions. Some of INGOs settled in the neighboring country and

implemented their operations on the ground by Iraqi staff or partner organizations (ibid).

Today, the NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI) is a member-led organization with 95

NGO members, and 6 observer NGOs, who are international and national organizations

operating in Iraq. NCCI was established in April 2003, by a group of NGOs present in Baghdad.

The NCCI’s mission is “to coordinate principled, collective NGO action in order to foster

development, address humanitarian needs, and promote respect for rights in Iraq.” (NCCI, nd).

In the beginning, membership was limited to international NGOs. In 2005 it opened up

membership to national NGOs as efforts to empower the Iraqi organizations (ibid). In the

aftermath of 2003 invasion, the INGOs were mostly engaged in emergency and short-term

responses, seeking to meet the humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable. Those needs range

49

from humanitarian protection, to the provision of basic services and supplies, shelter, clothing,

medical requirements, insurance, education and employment health, sport, relief, research,

citizen and human rights, women consultancy, (NCCI, 2006).

The NCCI’s 2010 study, which was conducted by Cecile Genot, followed Barak Obama

announcement in 2009 that the America’s combat mission in Iraq would come to an end by the

end of August 2010, by saying “We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people” (Genot,

2010). The withdrawal from Iraq was not only a military strategy. Donors were also decreasing

their financial support in favour of other countries (ibid). However, later on, most donors have

resumed funding in response to the humanitarian crisis followed continued internal struggles and

in particular ISIS attacks in 2014. According to the study, Iraq at that time did not have the

capacities yet to become politically and economically autonomous, in addition to the remaining

humanitarian gaps. Democracy was ineffective and people were disillusioned about their

politicians. Also the state was unable to provide basic public services, and increasingly

abandoning numerous sectors in need of social protection (ibid).

The question then arises: Was it an appropriate strategy to restrict the role of the state and cut

public spending, while opening the doors for NGOs to fill the gap, alongside that the presence

and function of NGOs are threatened by donors’ interests?

The role of NGOs is controversial, particularly in post-conflict environments, mainly due to their

dependence on donor funding (Dzelilovic, 2010). Their role in development had been recognized

for a long time. But the need was less obvious before the international donors did seek to

promote liberal peace agenda after the Cold War. In general, NGOs are supposed to provide the

services which are not covered by the state, and to empower local initiatives at the grass-roots

level (ibid). In the war-torn societies, NGOs are a major channel for international aid, and

fundamental in the international assistance chain (ibid). Given the fact that most programs which

are implemented by NGOs are largely externally-driven, local partnership seems to be difficult to

achieve (ibid). According to Génot (2010) “INGOs’ contributions to the evolution of the Iraqi

NGO sector have been quite varied and irregular.” For example, Australia as a key donor in Iraq,

was delivering fund to NGOs which were neither Iraqi nor Australian, such as the Iraq

Emergency Medicine Care Development Program, UN agencies like UN Children’s Fund

50

(UNICEF) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which were in charge of

implementing the projects on the ground (Hassin and Isakhan, 2016).

As mentioned before, reducing the role of the state, and cutting public expenditure are key

elements in the liberal-peace agenda. This might however also undermine the capacity of the

state to provide welfare, which is already weak due to the conflict. NGOs tend in such cases to

replace the role of the state in providing services and not only to fill the gap until the state

recover, which usually reduces the quality of provision (Dzelilovic, 2010). The fact that NGOs’

programs are largely externally-driven brings into question two points. First, do these

organizations act as autonomous actors? Second, what concepts and norms do those

organizations bring? Are those concepts consistent with the prevailing cultural context? As a

brief answer to these questions Dzelilovic says: “The approach that a civil society can be created

gives rise to organizations that under pressure to conform to Western model.” (Dzelilovic,

2010:95)

Financial and Monetary reforms

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) pursued the objective from the beginning to

transform Iraq into a market economy. This was applied also to the financial and monetary

structures. The CPA’s order number 56 (2003) about the central bank law, states that there is a

“need for the development of Iraq and its transition from a non-transparent centrally planned

economy to a market economy characterized by sustainable economic growth through the

establishment of a dynamic private sector.” An amendment to existing legislation was made in

order to reform the central bank and make it responsible for overseeing the commercial banks. In

addition, a series of actions have been taken in order to reform the monetary policy, and liberate

it from political intervention. According to the report (SIGIR, 2013), several U.S. reconstruction

programs were implemented to strengthen the CPA’s monetary and financial reforms, including:

- Strengthening the central bank to be an independent body, able to control the monetary and

credit policy, and oversee the commercial banks.

- Suspension the pervious law, which allow the Ministry of finance to authorize loans to other

government ministries.

51

- Establish The Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI) to finance projects, business dealings and banking

sector modernization efforts. TBI issued letters of credit valued at US$45 billion in its first five

years.

- Establish the Economic Support Fund in Iraq which funded Financial Development Program

with five $53 million for five years which started in 2010 by USAID.

According to the same report (SIGIR, 2013), in 2011 TBI’s chairman Hussein al-Uzri was

accused of financial violations, so he fled and then was replaced by Hamida al-Jaf. Moreover, the

central bank’s monetary policy achieved stability required for economic growth, but failed to

oversight the commercial banking system (ibid). Yet, according to anticorruption office GOI, the

banking industry was being involved in money laundering, and the 2012 audit conducted by the

Board of Supreme Audit confirmed that 80% of all money transferred out of Iraq involved

money-laundered funds (ibid).

Furthermore, the financial reform package in 2003 includes decreasing interest rate and credit

control as well as permitting foreign banks to operate in Iraq (Khalaf and Sanhita, 2009). The

elimination of interest rate control was expected to promote the financial intermediation of

banks, through providing loans to higher return projects in the private sector, instead of

subsidizing government firms (ibid). But, contrary to expectations, the financial intermediation

of bank reduced in Iraq. Also the credit deposits ratio declined from 22.9 per cent in 2002 to 15.7

per cent in 2006 (Khalaf and Sanhita, 2009).

Consequently, the financial liberalization policies have not led to improvement in the financial

intermediation of Iraqi banks. This is attributed to several factors including: the security

conditions, which prevented the private companies from expanding their activities; the increasing

informal economic activities of the private sector; and the deterioration in domestic investments

and activities in other sectors due to the liberalized economic policies (ibid). However,

transforming Iraq’s antiquated state-dominated banking sector into financial market was not

easy, as the centralized model is rooted in the country. This was exaggerated by the lack of trust

between people toward the US led efforts, including the efforts to reform the financial and

monetary sectors. The public sector in Iraq had deep legacy, therefore people were reluctant to

deal with the private banking sector.

52

Infrastructure

Societies emerging from conflict face the challenge of rebuilding wrecked physical infrastructure

including, hospitals, schools, roads, power stations, water pipelines, etc. Moreover, as a result of

the conflict the human and social capital will be destroyed to a large extent. Therefore, in the

aftermath of conflict, macroeconomic and society both need to be reconstructed in all their

aspects. Economic reconstruction includes rebuilding the physical infrastructure and restoring

the country’s human capital. It also applies monetary, fiscal and investment reforms in order to

foster economic growth and socio-economic development (Coyne and Pellillo, 2011).

The US’s reconstruction plan in Iraq comprised four pillars: infrastructure, justice, governance

and security (Brown, 2005). The majority of reconstruction’ fund poured into infrastructure

projects. As we see from the table (2) the estimated needs to reconstruct the infrastructure was

the biggest, comparing with the other sectors. The donors believed that rebuilding the destroyed

infrastructure, would push the economy as a whole to recover. The CPA sought to induce Iraq’s

recovery through large infrastructure projects focused on the electricity and water sectors

(SIGIR, 2013). The early phase of reconstruction spending emphasized large capital projects.

Almost $1.64 billion was spent on large projects (ibid). The CPA’s infrastructure projects

covered the following fields: water, sanitation, electricity, oil and gas, transportation,

communication health and education sectors. In the mid of 2004, about $3 billion were

reprogrammed to address the rapidly declining security situation (ibid). Thus, began a stark shift

away from the CPA’s large civic infrastructure strategy to a course aimed at improving the

country’s military and police forces.

The plan of pre-war infrastructure reconstruction can be described as a top-down operation based

on project-driven state-line activities (Brown, 2005). There was an assumption that peace would

come quickly, but the situation on the ground was different from the expectations, with high

levels of post-conflict violence. This turned the objective of infrastructure reconstruction to be

limited into the short-term impact, more than creation a sustainable infrastructure, which

according to Brown was probably never a prime objective (Brown, 2005). Consequently, this led

to weak achievements during the reconstruction process, and undermined the CPA’s legitimacy

in the eyes of Iraqi population. According to the (SIGIR, 2013) report, the U.S. government was

53

not solely to blame for poor outcomes. The Iraqis also lacked a clear set of reconstruction

priorities. Further, the deteriorating security environment undermined the positive impact of

reconstruction efforts. One viewpoint was that focusing on one major infrastructure need, like

electricity, would have been a better strategy than trying to improve every sector simultaneously

(ibid).

In 2015, the World Bank announced a new strategy to rebuild the country’s conflict-wrecked

infrastructure. About US$350 million was approved as financial assistance for this strategy

(World Bank, 2015). This strategy aimed to respond to the crisis caused by the security situation

and the sharp decrease in global oil prices. It sought to rehabilitate critical infrastructure in areas

free of the insurgency, covering multiple sectors such as health, housing, transport corridors,

urban development (ibid).

Private Security Companies

As a result of the CPA’s decision to dissolve the Iraqi armed forces and the police in 2003,

insecurity became the main threat to Iraq’s post-war recovery (Bjork and Jones, 2005). The CPA

failed to provide adequate security in the aftermath of the invasion. The absence of law and

administration, led to increased use of private security companies to protect reconstruction and

NGO activities (ibid). However, the attacks targeted both coalition forces, and humanitarian

organizations increased due to the ambiguous boundaries between those missions in the eyes of

the Iraqi population. Bjork and Jones (2005, p.1) confirm “the link between the use of private

security companies for reconstruction and NGO activities and the exacerbation of conflict.” The

authors also demonstrate that the increasing use of private security companies in Iraq was part of

the extensive private sector-led reconstruction programme, and not only as a part of the security

response (ibid).

Private security companies refer to the companies “with either armed or unarmed personnel, that

either support or actually undertake a security function, i.e. one concerned with coercive force”

(Taylor, 2011). The number of contractor personnel working in both Iraq and Afghanistan

outnumbered deployed troops in 2011, and the majority of them in Iraq were US citizens or third

country nationals (ibid). However, after the dissolution of the Iraqi army in 2003, the US started

54

to train and build up the new Iraqi armed forces, for which over $25 billion was committed over

the years (SIGIR, 2003). While the security problems had limited progress in every area, the

training and equipping of the Iraqi security forces succeed (ibid).

The presence of private security forces in Iraq is a relatively new concept for the population.

Moreover, the private sector and humanitarian NGOs are perceived as being part of the US-led

reconstruction. Therefore, risk of being attacked increased. Also, this constituted a wrong

strategy as Iraqis felt that they are excluded from peacebuilding operations which concerned

them and their country. Hence, it was felt that it is important to differentiate between military

acts and the humanitarian activities. Also to implement policies more appropriate to the local

context.

Conclusion

13 years after the beginning of peacebuilding operations in Iraq, the country still faces the

challenges of insecurity, political unrest and weak social and economic development. Based on

that, it can be concluded that the actual actions of Iraq’s donors were not conducive for

consolidating peace. This study shows that in the political transition phase, donors’ strategies

aimed at enhancing the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) over the political process. The

formulation of the state structures relied on including the US allies, and excluding its

“adversaries”. Hence, the political actors who were included in the political transition process

had been chosen in accordance with the external actor’s interests foremost and not according to

the public will. Therefore, each individual in Iraq in the transition period was not entitled to

participate in the government directly or through representatives. The local community also were

not engaged or consulted adequately. Regarding the economic transition, the economic policy of

the donors focused on transforming Iraq into a free-market economy. Therefore, various

amendments to the laws were made in order to facilitate the private sector business. On the other

hand, the rule of the state was restricted and public expenditures were reduced. Domestic and

foreign investments were expected to stimulate economic growth, which has not happened due to

the security problems. This coupled with the problem of weak and restricted Iraqi state has led to

weak outcomes in different economic and social sectors.

55

This study shows that the donors’ policy packages focused on how to build liberal democratic

and a free market state. In doing this, not sufficient attention was paid on how to understand the

political community, local culture and norms. This in turn led to too little focus was made on

citizenship, participation and legitimacy. A substantial part of available literature on Iraq post-

conflict attribute the failure of peacebuilding operations to the deteriorating security conditions.

This argument raises the question about the correlation between security and development in the

context of conflict resolution. This issue has been increasingly debated among scholars, and

many donors link the failure of development aid to conflict. This study points at the fact that by

applying appropriate policies when supplying development aid this can be an effective

instrument for stabilization. Also, plentiful evidences mentioned previously in this study shows

that the liberal peace agenda seems most often to be in favor of business, and less interested in

advancing the plight of the poor. Hence, this study advocates that a critical analysis of the links

between liberalism and unrest should be undertaken to assess liberal peace in order to improve

the future practice of peacebuilding.

Even if it is only a case study of one country, it seems that the lesson to be drawn from this study

is to involve local communities in planning and implementing peacebuilding operations as a

crucial factor of successful peacebuilding. Furthermore, the top-down approach of peacebuilding

seems to neglect the actual needs of people. Although, there was a constant assertion of the

importance of locals’ involvement in Iraq peacebuilding, the reality shows that this was

happening haphazard rather than as a fundamental principle. Finally, peace conditionality can be

an effective instrument if it is applied for better utilization of aid. This study shows however that

peace conditionality in Iraq was implemented mostly in order to enhance the implementation of

liberal peace agenda and not in view of the ultimate goal of securing peace and development for

the people. And more importantly, peace cannot be achieved through military means, people will

not grant legitimacy to their occupiers to be peace builders, this behavior rather undermines

peacebuilding efforts.

56

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