The Crisis of Federalism and Electoral Strategies in Iraq

After uprooting Saddam Hussein from power, establishing democracy in Iraq has been declared among the most important objectives of the U.S.-led Coalition. However, the Coalition has encountered complex ethnic and religious relations and resentment of foreign intervention in Iraq. These reactions reflect decades, even centuries, of divisive and antagonistic policies whose impacts continue to complicate and threaten coexistence and civil peace. The immediate challenge of achieving stability and peace in Iraq, therefore, rests in the ability to foster a genuinely indigenous institutional political structure that can accommodate the different ethnic and sectarian aspirations. This article highlights the major potential shortcomings of the federal model established by the "Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for The Transitional Period." It also examines the shortcomings of the List Proportional Representation system as presented by the United Nations for Iraq's transition, and alternatively proposes national electoral reform strategies, with the implementation of an Alternative Vote system with Minority Provision in the election to the National Assembly, as a means to strengthen Iraq's national unity.     

Public policy and privatisation: the case of the Qatari experience

This article uses a qualitative methodology employing the elite model to describe and analyse the complex interplay of political and economic factors in the privatization experience of the state of Qatar. The article begins by providing a theoretical framework for privatisation in the context of public policy and classifying policies of privatisation into two categories: macro‐ and micro‐privatisation. The second part uses this framework to discuss the factors that gives the Qatari experience its distinguished flavour. These factors include: elite legitimacy and social culture, bureaucratic power, international pressure and patron–client networks. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parliamentary Consociationalism in Lebanon: Equal Citizenry vs. Quotated Confessionalism

This article sheds light on the governance dilemma in a deeply divided post-conflict Lebanese sectarian society undergoing democratic transition. It assesses consociational democracy as a working model institutionalised by Lebanon in light of the country's composition of multiple religious minorities. In particular, it focuses on the political forces shaping the current Lebanese National Assembly (parliament) within the confessional structure and analyses the prospect and impasses confronting the development of a stable and representative assembly. Analysis of the Lebanese parliament is made in light of five assessment areas identified as fundamental for the emergence of a stable democratic institution: political will and domestic support, representation, lawmaking, oversight, and management and infrastructure. After revealing the deep-rooted deficiency of quota-based confessional representation, the article provides institutional transitional reform recommendations that could increase the likelihood for the legislature to better fulfil the critical functions of representation, oversight, and lawmaking vital for democratic transition. The realisation of consociational democracy in Lebanon, the article argues, would require the eventual adoption of proportional representation as a means of moving the country from a ‘confessionally quotated’ to ‘equal citizenry’ based representation.