Iraq’s reform efforts consistently fail due to a structural contradiction between a decentralized parliamentary political system and an ossified, hyper-centralized administrative apparatus that urgently requires a comprehensive and institutional modernization.

Introduction

Iraqis frequently discuss the concept of “reform” as a form of collective preoccupation. It is rare for an entire nation to agree so unanimously that their country requires a real, deep, and perhaps radical reform. However, the flaw always lies in translating this collective desire into precise operational details and a clear roadmap that ultimately leads to a qualitative change, breaking the closed loop of assumptions and speculations about reform, its nature, and its limits that Iraq has been trapped in for years.

This paper addresses reform from an administrative perspective, seeking to uncover the structural flaw that causes reform experiments in Iraq to result in failure, incomplete implementation, or misjudgment.

The paper is built on the hypothesis that the failure of reform in Iraq is not primarily due to a lack of political will, but rather stems from the structural incompatibility between the parliamentary political system established after 2003 and the centralized administrative system inherited by the state.

 

An Incomplete Design of the Political System

Article 1 of the Constitution defines Iraq as: “A single federal, independent, with full sovereignty, state; its system of government is republican, representative (parliamentary), and democratic.” This definition imposes itself as an overarching framework that cannot be bypassed to understand the nature of the state. It establishes concrete rules for the specific governance framework as a representative parliamentary system without giving serious attention, even in its other texts, to how the objective conditions necessary for building a deeply rooted parliamentary system can be achieved—one capable not only of enduring in its mission as the backbone of the state’s unity and effectiveness but also, prior to that, producing cumulative incentives that can preserve the state.

It is not new to say that the parliamentary system was born an orphan in Iraq. As indicated by the constitutional texts, it is designed in an ideal manner on various theoretical levels, but it is completely detached from the context of general culture, the public’s understanding of the state, and the state’s understanding of itself through its institutions. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the parliamentary experience in light of the Iraqi reality has failed in most of its expected tasks and turned, through six consecutive electoral cycles, into one of the state’s shackles instead of being a means to liberate it from its historical constraints.

It is well known that Iraq, which lived for a century under a monarchical and then a highly centralized republican rule, has been unable to define its “federal” nature as endorsed by the Constitution. Because its “federalism” came as a political compromise rather than a working methodology, Iraqis did not succeed in defining its boundaries, its nature, and how it aligns with the concept of a modern state.

The “parliamentary system” as a model of governance does not suffer from an inherent methodological flaw. However, in its Iraqi version, it was expected not merely to frame the methods of power rotation and the relationship between authorities, but to actually establish the state itself, and to shape relations within the scope of the state according to its model. This is precisely what did not happen.

There is nothing new in saying that known systems of government are not an invention or an elite speculation; rather, their birth is mostly natural, emerging from the heart of the historical social and economic experiences of nations. Therefore, they develop themselves, correct their mistakes, and bridge their gaps through practice and experience. Iraq is no exception. The Iraqi parliamentary experience post-2003 was expected to bridge its gaps through experience, rather than transforming into a sustainable gap within the body of the state itself.

Does this mean that the flaw in the Iraqi experience lies in the nature of the “parliamentary” political system itself, and that addressing the flaw requires a change in the system, such as transitioning to a presidential or semi-presidential system?

In reality, the parliamentary system on paper is the most appropriate for the nature of Iraqi society and the challenges resulting from the policies and manifestations of preceding centuries. It is also qualified to become a sustainable guarantee for the unity of the state and the harmony of its communities, were it not designed on top of an administrative system that is completely incompatible with it, producing and continuing to produce crises and obstacles.

 

A Structural Crisis

The Iraqi centralized administrative system has not undergone any development or modernization for decades. The post-2003 parliamentary political system was mapped onto the architecture of centralized institutions, rather than the reverse as the Constitution itself implies. This process was executed incorrectly and counterproductively. Here are some facets of the crisis on this level:

First: The Iraqi centralized administrative system clashed violently with the decentralization that forms the core of the Iraqi federal system, which aligns philosophically with the parliamentary system. The Iraqi administrative structures fiercely resisted any tendency toward reducing their centralized powers.

Second: The Iraqi administrative system was overburdened with millions of public employees and dozens of ministries, departments, commissions, institutions, and state-owned enterprises. This was an inherited pattern from a centralized experience suffering from a structural imbalance in the economy and extreme rentierism that kills competition, creativity, innovation, and sustainable development, alongside an ossified bureaucracy bound by paper-based regulations and instructions, which over time came to represent the core of the state while simultaneously acting as its primary shackle.

Third: Post-2003, senior positions in the state were divided along ethnic, sectarian, and partisan lines within the framework of “quota systems” (Muhasasa), reflecting the parliamentary map produced by elections. This was the most dangerous attempt by the founders of the parliamentary system to create alignment, somehow, with the administrative system. Ultimately, this mission proved to be a failure and led to the distortion of the administrative system as a reflection of the distortion of the parliamentary political system. The nature of the Iraqi administrative structure, originating from a vertical, totalitarian philosophy that confines powers within institutions, is fundamentally incompatible with a parliamentary system based on the philosophy of distributing powers horizontally.

Fourth: When the parliamentary system’s map was projected onto the Iraqi administrative hierarchy, it allowed its traditional diseases to be transmitted into state institutions. Since the Iraqi parliamentary system suffers from slowness in decision-making, fluidity in positions, and conflicting power centers, Iraqi state institutions ended up with a chronic administrative distortion and a conflict between newly introduced decentralized systems (local governments and the regional government) and a traditional, highly centralized bureaucratic system (the federal government), alongside power centers that emerge and grow within the body of institutions, inflicting further paralysis and lack of efficacy upon them.

Fifth: The true deep layer of the Iraqi administrative system was represented by the mid-level bureaucratic employees. These individuals attempted to preserve the state and what remained of its institutional framework amidst seasonal political storms and electoral fluctuations that change, every four or even two years, ministers, deputy ministers, directors-general, and heads of departments based on changes in the electoral map. These employees utilized the complexities and ramifications of bureaucratic law within the Iraqi state to protect institutions from partisan fluctuations and conflicts within ministries, departments, and commissions. However, while doing so out of necessity, they inadvertently restricted state institutions and paralyzed their capacity, dynamism, and potential to adapt to modernizations and reforms.

Sixth: The middle class felt threatened by changes in governments and the subsequent administrative purges that usually accompany the seasonal rotation of ministers and deputy ministers. Consequently, the pattern of formal instructions, laws, and legal offices became the most dominant, influential, and pervasive presence within the body of institutions.

Seventh: The continuous appointment of ministers, deputy ministers, and directors from outside the administrative structure on a partisan basis for each institution required granting more time for these individuals to integrate into the new environment. To facilitate integration, new officials found it necessary to avoid mistakes by relying on the permanent, experienced mid-level administrative and legal staff. Thus, legal departments became the most influential and active sections within institutions. It is well known in the history of the Iraqi state that there is an understandable, dynamic, balanced, and required friction between administrative and legal departments within institutions. The latter settled this internal friction in its favor by capitalizing on the complexities of legal regulations, thereby contributing, at least, to stabilizing the structure of institutions, though it failed to protect them as a whole from distortion, collision, and corruption.

Eighth: Electronic governance systems did not harmonize with the traditional paper-based system generally adopted in Iraqi state institutions. The implementation of e-government models was difficult, complex, and surrendered to failure, not only due to an environment of corruption and nepotism whose interests conflict with the requirements of governance and transparency, but because the very nature of the institutions, their operational mechanisms, and the bureaucratic rules inherited from previous eras are incompatible with digital governance. Governance, by its nature, requires not only organizing work and bringing transparency to state transactions, but prior to that, downsizing the administration and pushing hundreds of thousands of its employees outside its scope due to a lack of utility.

Ninth: Due to the economic blockade from 1990 to 2003, Iraq missed the global administrative, banking, and legal renaissance brought about by computerization systems. When it attempted from 2003 onward to catch up amidst crises and resistance, nations around the world were moving toward a technological revolution, adopting comprehensive governance systems, and developing their administrative frameworks based on international advancements. Today, as Iraq attempts to adopt governance concepts, the artificial intelligence revolution promises a radical change in global administrative and financial systems, moving them to an entirely different level.

 

Comprehensive Responsibility

The Iraqi Prime Minister, Ali Al-Zaidi, recently spoke about the necessity of changing and updating the Iraqi administrative and financial systems, which he considered as belonging to the socialist era. Al-Zaidi’s comment drew criticism from intellectuals and researchers, most of which focused on his use of the “socialist” analogy, which they argued cannot accurately describe the current situation of the Iraqi state.

The reality of the matter is that defining the state is an actual necessity to initiate a systematic change process. Whether state institutions are governed by “socialist” laws or represent a special case of imbalance and chaos produced by decades of mismanagement, the outcome is the same in terms of their need for a large-scale institutional change and modernization process.

What should receive a generous amount of academic and political debate at this stage pertains to the determinants governing the dynamics of change. Here, the pivotal question must be raised regarding the undeniable link between the political system and the administrative system of the state.

Before proceeding to adopt modern capitalist systems in all their available forms and models, questions must be raised about whether the Iraqi parliamentary system is suitable over the next 50 years to bring about change and harmony with the administrative system, after it failed to do so over the past 20 years.

Here, two options can be proposed:

The First Option: Reconsidering the political system and adopting a new form of governance and political representation that includes a comprehensive solution to the powers of the Kurdistan Region on confederal foundations, thereby ensuring a centralized political and administrative system in the rest of Iraq, and defining the powers of governorate governments or linking them directly to the central government.

The Second Option: Reconsidering the administrative system by adopting a comprehensive decentralization that weakens central institutions and reduces them to five sovereign federal ministries (Foreign Affairs, Defense, Oil, Planning and Finance, and National Security), and distributes the powers of inherited institutions such as Education, Health, Housing, Industry, Communications, Internal Security, and others to local governments, including the formulation of plans to distribute the employment density concentrated in Baghdad across governorates and regions.

It can be theoretically assumed that the founding leaderships of the political process in Iraq perhaps collided with this paradox, whether during the drafting of the Constitution or in its subsequent implementation phases. They might have counted on the possibility of applying a decentralized system, evidenced by their enactment of the “Law of Governorates Not Organized into a Region” in 2008. However, they were unable to implement it effectively in all subsequent stages due to the very nature of the state itself, and the fears of its fragmentation and the transformation of administrative units with near-full powers into new states within the state.

The reality of the matter is that working on a systematic reform within Iraqi state institutions must begin and coincide with reforming the political system to achieve the required integration, within long-term plans that possess durability and credibility, and are not subject to the variables of political maps. Providing the guarantees necessary for such a comprehensive change requires collective responsibility just as it requires an institutional vision for the state.