Democratization,elections and the ‘de facto state dilemma’: Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government

Abstract

De facto states are an anomalous, but well-discussed feature of international politics. The questions they raise for understandings of sovereignty and statehood are well advanced, but less understood are the internal dynamics of these entities particularly in relation to the development of democratic, participatory political institutions. Through an examination of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq from 1992 to 2014 this article will explore patterns of democratization in de facto states. Unpacking a dilemma around trends toward both exclusionary and inclusionary politics in de facto states, it is argued here that there is a positive relationship between de facto statehood and democratization. However, contrary to current views, this is the result of internal pressures and elite agency as opposed to normative pressures at the international level.

Keywords

De facto states democratization elections Iraq Kurdistan

Introduction

This article asks what accounts for democratization in de facto states. At present, research on these entities has focussed largely on their implications for understandings of sovereignty and statehood in the international system. What attention has been paid to their internal mechanics has developed two, contrary findings. On one hand, it is argued that the state-building process in de facto states facilitates exclusionary forms of politics owing to the legacy of separatist conflict and the assumption of political power by former wartime belligerents. On the other, efforts at gaining international recognition for independence claims, the product of the wartime effort, require de facto states to undergo an accelerated process of institution building, with a focus on democratization as part of their ‘pitch’ to the international community of their credentials as viable members. Through an examination of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq, it is argued here that there is a positive relationship between de facto statehood and democratization, but not due to normative pressures at the inter-state level. Instead, democratization has been an important part of the state-building process in allowing political elites to manage internal conflict as well as establish political authority within its claimed territory. However, once embedded, these democratic institutions can be difficult to dislodge. This argument will be developed firstly through an examination of the debates over de facto statehood and democratization, before locating this debate in the broader discussions on state-building and democratic transitions. The establishment of and participation in democratic institutions both in Iraq and the Kurdish Regional Government will then be examined, with a focus on the period from 1992 to 2014.

De facto statehood and democratization

De facto states are an anomaly in the international system, exorcizing clear and effective authority over a territory but lacking international recognition (Caspersen and Stansfield, 2011: 5). That is, they possess the practical, empirical, or ‘de facto’ features of sovereign states but lack the legal, judicial, or ‘de jure’ features of sovereign states. Otherwise known as ‘separatist’ (King, 2001), ‘contested’ (Geldenhuys, 2009), ‘unrecognized’ (Caspersen, 2012), and ‘quasi-recognized’ (Kolstø, 2006), these entities exist in a legal and temporal limbo in their search for membership of the society of states. However, there has been deep reluctance among states for the recognition of these aspirant entities, preferring to manage their existence within the ‘organized hypocrisy’ of the international system rather than open up inclusion (Krasner, 1998: 4).

Here, the designation of de facto comes from a disaggregation of features of sovereignty between empirical/positive/de facto and judicial/negative/de jure qualities (Jackson, 1993; Krasner, 1998). In terms of de facto sovereignty, this relates to demonstrated and effective self-rule that enjoys a considerable measure of popular support within a clearly defined territory for a period of more than two years (Pegg, 1998: 12). In terms of de jure sovereignty, this relates to efforts at seeking recognition of independence. Simply put, de facto states have achieved empirical sovereignty but lack judicial sovereignty, being sovereign in practice but not in legal reality. Although they captured attention primarily as a post-Cold War phenomenon, with the break-up of the Soviet Union and the emergence of these entities in Georgia (South Ossetia and Abkhazia), Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh), and Moldova (Transdnistria), they also pre-date these events (Taiwan and Northern Cyprus) and can be found in Africa (Somaliland), Europe (Kosovo), and the Middle East (Iraqi Kurdistan). In this regard, their very existence and continued vitality challenges preconceptions of the state system.

Where this challenge to conceptions of sovereignty has been debated at length (Caspersen, 2011, 2012; Geldenhuys, 2009; Lynch, 2004; Pegg, 1998), less attention has been paid to the internal mechanics of de facto states, particularly in terms of how their ambiguous existence affects political participation and democratization. This is due, in part, to the controversial origins, domestic ambiguity, and contested status of these entities. For instance, separatist conflict in post-Soviet Republics, state collapse in Somalia, third-party intervention in Cyprus, Serbia, and Iraq, and frozen conflicts in China/Taiwan and Morocco/Western Sahara have seen the emergence of de facto states in many parts of the world. These states now exercise effective governance over their territories, but remain unrecognized and, as such, outside of the jurisdiction of international law and, often, international scrutiny.

However, they display intriguing behavioural traits that have critical implications for discussions of both state building and transitions to democracy. These coalesce around two seemingly contradictory trends. The first emerges when focussing on the origins of de facto states, highlighting their development in the context of ethno-nationalist conflict that has left them heavily influenced by trends toward ethnically based, nationalist politics where leaders of separatist groups in remain in control of newly formed political institutions. The influence of this is most clearly seen in a tendency toward exclusionary forms of politics and discourse, such as weak participatory institutions, strong executive powers controlled by military or former military elites, rhetoric that marginalizes ethnic and religious minorities, and a lack of accountability both domestically and internationally. The second, in contrast, emerges when focussing on the place of de facto states as international actors, where the lack of international recognition de facto states face forces them to accelerate the state-building process as part of their search for international support. Here, the leadership of de facto states face greater than average normative pressures to display institutional and particularly democratic development as part of their ‘pitch’ for accession to the international community. That is, in order to be considered for membership as an independent state, de facto states must emphasise their state-like attributes and adherence to international norms, such as democratization. This has led to the development of a range of democratic institutions in de facto states alongside a growing civil society. Put simply, discussions of de facto states emphasize both their predisposition to centralized, militarized, and exclusivist rule on the one hand and rapid institutionalization and democratization on the other, with evidence in support of both arguments.

This understanding of de facto state formation as promoting exclusionary politics has drawn from the literature on state building in Europe, owing a significant debt to the work of Tilly (1985, 1992). Central to Tilly’s approach to state formation is the analogy between state making and organized crime, specifically state making as ‘quintessential protection rackets with the advantage of legitimacy’ (Tilly, 1985: 169, 1992: 12). Here, Tilly is not necessarily making a value judgment of early ‘state makers’, but argues that ‘coercive exploitation’ and resource extraction in the form of ‘war making’ was the central element in enabling modern state authorities to extend their authority over a claimed territory (1985: 169–170). This approach, labelled by some as the ‘bellicist account’ of state formation (Thies, 2005), was self-consciously limited to early modern Europe (Tilly, 1985: 169) and was echoed in a number of seminal studies on state building and state formation (Mann, 1986). However, it did provide the basis for further study on state formation and state building outside this context. In particular, studies focussed on the Middle East (Ayoob, 1995), Africa (Herbst, 2000), Latin America (Centeno, 2003) and Asia (Hui, 2005) inverted Tilly’s argument, working on the premise that it was inadequacies of the newly founded state’s ability to project power that led to weak states and weak state capacity in the post-colonial world. This was perhaps most clearly captured by Migdal’s ‘weak state’ paradigm (1988) and Jackson’s examination of ‘quasi-states’ (1993).

Critiques of this approach emerged through the 1990s and 2000s, focussed on a variety of factors, with one approach centred on the argument that ‘states in the contemporary world no longer engage in major wars that result in expansion for the victors and contraction, if not disappearance for the losers’ (Taylor and Botea, 2008: 31). In other words, the war making enterprise present in early modern Europe and elsewhere is no longer a reality (see also Lustick, 1997). However, although this may certainly be the case for existing weak, or quasi-states, this may not be so for de facto states. In relation to this, King extends Tilly, Migdal, and Jackson’s approach, arguing that de facto states are characterized by their efforts at secession from the ‘parent state’, where state sovereignty is carved out during conflict and the institutions of governance as well as national narratives are built during this period (King, 2001: 524). For King, this is not just a default process, but one that elites of new states actively involve themselves in as the maintenance of a conflictual environment, and the exclusivist politics that accompanies this, enables greater influence over new political institutions and personal profits (2001: 524). In other words, separatist leaders have enjoyed the ‘benefits of ethnic war’; becoming state builders engaged in a process of empowerment and financial gain (King, 2001: 525).

The strength of this approach is two-fold. First, it helps clarify the relationship between institutional development in de facto states and national liberation and, to an extent, post-colonialism where there has been a trend toward post-independence authoritarianism trumping democratization (Wrong, 2010). Second, it highlights the continuity of personnel from uprising to governance. However, this is also problematic with the variation in outcomes, notably evident in democratization and power rotation in some de facto states. For instance, parliamentary or pseudo-parliamentary systems exist in Nagorno-Karabakh, Iraqi Kurdistan, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Somaliland, Western Sahara (the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic), and Kosovo with presidential systems in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and Northern Cyprus. However, the strength and integrity of these institutions as vehicles for genuine popular participation varies greatly across these cases, affected by a range of variables such as the role of third parties (both ‘parent states’ and ‘patron states’), the presence of resources, the scope of international recognition, the origins of political elites, and the system of governance.

Another criticism of Tilly’s account of state formation has focussed on its Eurocentrism, the geographic and critically historic specifics of changing patterns of political organization in Western Europe and North American particularly from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For instance, Lustick’s examination of pan-Arab integration has highlighted what he argued was the ‘misplaced analogy’ of using the European experience in an explanatory capacity in the Middle East (1997: 655). Specifically, the ‘moderated but violent disorder’ and lack of dominant external pressures, both normative and temporal, that framed the relations between emergent European states from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can be contrasted with the presence of European and North American domination as well as international normative constraints that shaped the environment in which modern Middle Eastern states and other post-colonial were born from the nineteenth century (1997: 656–657). This not only helps better understand the often fragile structural features of these entities, but also the lack of pan-Arab integration – what Lustick refers to as the lack of a ‘Middle Eastern great power’ (1997: 657). Although Lustick is correct in highlighting the ‘sequence-linked differences’ in state formation from Europe to the Middle East, it also prompts new questions in terms of state formation and, by extension, democratization processes faced by de facto states in the current environment (i.e. the late twentieth and early twenty-first century Middle East) (1997: 657). In particular, where state formation in the period of decolonization saw the dual pressures of external domination and global normative constraints prevent newly independent entities from waging wars or absorbing surrounding smaller states, de facto states have developed with the added layer of the relationship with the ‘parent state’ alongside superpower/post-Cold War great power domination and said normative strictures. Ironically, where newly independent states in the Middle East and elsewhere were deprived the agency for conducting so-called ‘state-building wars’, the fragility of parent states has permitted, to some extent, de facto states to engage in military activities against parent states analogous to the earlier state formation process. As is outlined below, this internally focussed dynamic has consolidated elite control over the nascent political institutions in these entities.

This persistent ambiguity surrounding state formation, and particularly institutional formation and consolidation, has prompted more recent research on divergent outcomes in relation to democratization in de facto states. In particular, Caspersen (2012) and Voller (2012) have both argued that the search for recognition and legitimacy impact institutional and policy formation in these entities. Working from the premise that the search for recognition and legitimacy are the defining features of de facto statehood, this approach argues that this search forces political elites in de facto states to display greater adherence to ‘the norms and ideas that dominate the society of states and the standards that guide its recognition and admission of new members’ (Voller, 2012: 5). Although this has gone some way toward identifying the growth of democratic and participatory institutions of governance in entities such as Iraqi Kurdistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Kosovo, Somaliland and elsewhere, it does not fully account for limits to political participation that still hinder these new institutions, for how these externally focused efforts affect domestic political discourse and participation, or for how third parties (both hostile and amenable to these de facto states) affect democratic development.

These approaches have made important contributions to the study of de facto states and their trajectories of governance. However, arguments for accelerated institution building and democratization in de facto states have taken global structural and normative pressures as a starting point, ignoring local pressures for and constraints on greater representation. On the other hand, where the argument for more restrictive politics in de facto states take greater account of the local political context, they have drawn conclusions that sit at odds with the significant steps toward democratization witnessed in these entities. Each of these approaches mirrors trends in the study of democratization, particularly efforts to understand transitions from authoritarian to democratic governance. Much of this work finds its roots in the cluster of studies on democratic transitions in Eastern and Southern Europe as well as Latin America from the 1970s to the 1990s (1991: 2). As outlined by Teorell (2010: 3–4), these approaches centred loosely around 4 themes: an adaptation of Lipset’s modernization theory (1959) where greater societal complexity and specialization drives calls for political participation; a focus on social forces and social movements, extending discussions on civil society and democratization, as pressures for change; a focus on positive economic drivers where ‘democratic institutions have been granted by the rich as a concession to the poor (Teorell, 2010: 4); and finally a focus on elite-driven and controlled democratic transitions who have sought to manipulate institutional development as a means to ensure their survival.

The focus on elite-driven transitions has its roots in the work of Huntington and his concept of ‘waves’ of democratic transition in the late 1980s and early 1990s, arguing that particular historical periods have seen clusters of ‘transitions from nondemocratic to democratic regimes’ occurring ‘within a specified period of time … that significantly outnumber transitions in the opposite direction’ during the same period (Huntington, 1991: 15, see also Carothers, 2002). In this view, the expansion of democratic governance had come in three waves: the first from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries; the second with decolonization after WWII; and the third from the collapse of authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe and Latin America from the mid-1970s. Huntington himself recognises that this was not a one-way process, with each wave of democratization followed by a ‘reverse wave’ (particularly between WWI and WWII and through the 1960s and early 1970s). Central to Huntington’s understanding of democracy was the importance of democratic institutions (1991: 7). In particular, Huntington built on Schumpeter (1942) and Dahl (1961) in defining democracy primarily in terms of the presence of institutional arrangements through which political power is transferred. That is, democracy is most evident in institutions that allow popular participation and facilitate the orderly transfer of power between groups. This democracy was most likely achieved where groups were forced into pacts as a result of relative power symmetry at times of political transition. These pacts would form the basis of vital political institutions enabling a democratic transition. The study of democratic transitions that grew from this was influenced by Huntington’s focus on the importance of institutions that could foster democratic development, but also drew from the work of scholars such as Rustow who sought to isolate conditions relevant to the genesis of democracy as opposed to conditions relevant to the maintenance of democratic systems (Anderson, 1999; Rustow, 1970: 337). This led to the proliferation of work on understanding how and why democratic transformations take place (Hagopian and Mainwaring, 2005; Linz and Stepan, 1996; O’Donnell and Schmitter, 1986), and an effort to translate this into policies for governments and international organizations to sponsor, at least ostensibly, democracy and ‘good governance’.

Criticisms of this approach emerged through the 1990s and into the twenty-first^t century, focussed on a range of issues including the linear assumptions of an inevitable transfer from authoritarianism to democracy and the institutional focus of this approach. In terms of an assumed democratic outcome, a range of scholars have criticized the transitionalist approach as failing to account for the ‘dysfunctional equilibrium’ that many non-democratic states have been able to achieve. This is in reference to the emergence of what Diamond has labelled ‘hybrid regimes’, where liberal and electoral democracies emerged alongside electoral authoritarian regimes, pseudo-democracies and politically closed regimes (Diamond, 2002: 22). This form of liberalized autocracy or ‘electoral authoritarianism’ with its ‘mixture of guided pluralism, controlled elections, and selective repression’, initially thought an aberration or simple survival strategy, appeared to be a particular form of political system that challenged the very fundamentals of the transitionalist approach (Brumberg, 2002: 56).

This was echoed by McFaul who argued that political transitions in post-Communist states produced ‘new kinds of dictatorship’ alongside democratic regimes (2002: 231–232). For McFaul, institutions remain important, but only insofar as they represented the interests of dominant groups at the time of transition, be they democratic or authoritarian. In this regard, McFaul regarded post-Communist transitions as a new wave of political transition that differed in key respects from previous transitions and did not necessarily result in democratization. Further to this, Chaudhry (1997) and others have argued that the institutional focus of the transitionalist approach was more concerned with stability than democratic development. For Rustow, Huntington and their contemporaries, institutional development was essential to ensure democratic systems survived early periods of instability. However, this has been criticized where a perceived fixation on institutional integrity during periods of transition has helped facilitate a ‘perverse institutionalization’ that enabled an ‘upgrading (of) authoritarianism’ rather than genuine democratic development (Heydemann, 2007: 1). For instance, Geddes’ has argued that a focus on political institutions merely reflected the presence of ‘well institutionalised authoritarian regimes’ (2005). Although this appeared salient through the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century, since 2010 we have witnessed the rapid disillusion or reform of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. This has shown that many of these well-institutionalized authoritarian regimes were far more susceptible to popular uprising, normative pressures, and increasingly organized opposition than previously assumed.

The debate on the role of institutions has been critical as it has provided an ability to quantify and measure modes and levels of political participation. Here, the developing models of hybrid regimes, electoral authoritarian regimes, and anocratic regimes allows for the measurement not just of ‘degrees’ of democratization but also for understanding the range of semi-democratic and non-democratic features. However, there is a degree of imprecision in this, particularly in relation to de facto states, owing to the lack of detailed, comparative analyses of these entities. To address this, we may draw on discussions on the development of state power since the end of the Cold War, particularly efforts to reconceptualise patterns of global security and a focus on state capacity (Buzan, 1997; Jackson, 1993). This is reflected in the focus on international organizations, particularly the United Nations and the World Bank, in focussing on institutions ensuring state functionality and governance as a means to avoid conflict and enhance political participation. This is of particular importance for de facto states, where the development of institutions of governance, the trappings of statehood, are central to their efforts to claim this status. Here, political elites in de facto states have sought to conduct a significant proportion of their activity through these institutions to build their integrity, and by extension to encourage those within the de facto state to similarly participate. The most conducive means to achieve this is through the establishment of electoral politics and formal, representative bodies selected through the electoral system. As noted, this contains within it the possibility of those elites, seeing themselves as creators and often protectors of the nascent political community, at risk of being removed from office through the very institutions that they claim to have established.

To explore this, the Kurdish-controlled territories in northern Iraq are selected as a case study. Although a number of other de facto states exist, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG – emerging in 1992, and formalized under the Transitional Administrative Law of Iraq in 2004) is perhaps the most viable example. Viable in that it is not reliant on external patronage as are the de facto states of the Caucasus and Northern Cyprus, has a formalized governance structure based in Erbil, exerts near total control over its territory of the three provinces of Dohuk, Erbil, and Sulaymaniyah and into ‘disputed’ territories including Kirkuk, Diyala, and Ninewa provinces, has established relations with key regional states, particularly Turkey, and has a declared, if at times hedged, stated position seeking independence. In addition, the presence of participatory institutions in the KRG is exceptional in a region that lacks similar mechanisms for popular political stake holding.¹

Governance and democratization in Kurdish northern Iraq

Iraqi Kurdistan has a parliamentary democracy with multi-party elections, nominally subservient to the federal parliamentary republic of Iraq, but with extensive powers as an autonomous region through the Kurdish Regional Government within the Iraqi constitution since 2004. Its status as a de facto state rests on its political and economic activities that are increasingly in direct confrontation with authorities in Baghdad. Although not formally declaring independence prior to July 2014, the Kurdish Regional Government conducted a referendum in 2005 on independence with a 98.9% vote for secession from Iraq as well as raising the prospect of a new referendum in 2014.² In addition, its political leadership has continually used the threat of secession in its bargaining over resources rights and territorial claims vis-à-vis Baghdad. It also currently occupies provinces outside its constitutionally allocated territory in the north of Iraq. The Kurdish Regional Government has developed close links with Turkey, with the latter recently signing a number of energy and construction contracts in direct contravention of Baghdad’s position. In addition, it works with a number of private oil companies in the development of oil fields in territories it currently occupies outside its official borders.

As such, its credentials as a de facto state, accommodating the hedged claims for independence, alongside a functioning participatory political system are clear. However, the question remains as to whether this evidence of democratic functionality is a result of its status as a de facto state, supporting the argument that de facto statehood is positively linked to democratization. Through examining the establishment of governance institutions prior to 2005, Iraqi federal elections of 2005, 2010, and 2014 as well as Kurdish regional elections in 2005, 2009, and 2013, we can see that democratization is positively linked to de facto statehood, but not so much for the display of democratic tendencies as a mechanism to win over international support, although this is a factor. Indeed, the presence of exclusivist politics and the persistence of insurgent leaders in the political system, mitigating democratic development, are also present in the KRG. Instead, for the KRG it has been an effort at elite consolidation over a relatively homogenous community, drawing on previous political activity and organizations, as well as a product of the friction with the government in Baghdad that appears to have most directly fostered democratic development. Specifically, internal political considerations in terms of efforts by the two ‘old’ parties of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan to consolidate their power alongside political contestation with the central government in Baghdad over financial and territorial controversies drove early democratic consolidation in the KRG and the participation of KRG elites in national electoral politics in Iraq. Therefore, de facto statehood does promote democratization, but not for the reasons previously given

De facto independence under the ‘first’ Kurdish Regional Government

Political parties pre-date institutions of governance in the Kurdish regions of Iraq, with the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) as the first established. The KDP was founded in 1946 under the leadership of Mulla Mustafa Barzani, lacking ‘any social or economic substance’ in terms of a policy program and aims for independence or autonomy (Gunter, 1996: 227). Early divisions were apparent, ostensibly between a ‘more conservative and traditional, tribal wing of the KDP associated with Barzani, and the intellectual Marxist wing’ later headed by Jalal Talabani (Gunter, 1996: 227). Although both Morris and Stansfield have critiqued this interpretation of this period, arguing that both movements used both ideology and tribal affiliations (Morris, 1999: 47; Stansfield, 2004: 94), it remains the critical juncture at which the resulting split of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in 1975 has its origins. Indeed, this split owed much to the local origins of both Barzani and Talabani, the former in the north in Dohuk bordering Turkey and the latter in the south in Sulaymaniyah bordering Iran. Barzani and Talabani engaged in rhetorical and, at times, armed confrontation through the 1960s and 1970s, with the direct and indirect involvement of Baghdad. As a result, discussions on Kurdish autonomy oscillated through this period as all sides worked to position themselves against the other, a volatile environment fostered by repeated coups in Baghdad to 1968. The 1968 Baath coup led to the signing of an autonomy agreement in March 1970 between Barzani and Saddam Hussein collapsed soon after, with Baghdad implementing its ‘Arabization’ programme in and around Kirkuk, seeking to isolate the Kurdish leadership with Baghdad courting Moscow and leaving the Kurdish leadership reliant on Iran.

This proved fateful when the short-lived rapprochement between pre-revolutionary Iran and Iraq, formalized in the 1975 Algiers Agreement, saw Iran withdraw its support from the KDP (Van Bruinessen, 1986). Baghdad moved quickly, forcing the KDP out of the north of Iraq and seeing the party splinter over the coming years, including the formation of the PUK in June the same year. Tellingly, where some formative steps toward self-governance had taken place through the 1960s, this had all but disappeared by the 1970s, with the KDP and PUK engaged in internecine conflict as well as launching raids against Iraqi army positions. Indeed, the parties were as focussed on their internal struggle as much as the confrontation with Baghdad, and continued to profess a desire to remain part of a federal Iraq as an autonomous region (Gunter, 1996: 229). This continued through the Iran–Iraq war, with disunity and conflict between the two parties manifest in their fluctuating relationships with Tehran and Baghdad. The brutality of Baghdad’s al-Anfal campaign, however, fundamentally changed the dynamic in the Kurdish region. Between 1986 and 1988, Baghdad deported around 1.5 million people form the region, destroyed over 3000 villages alongside wholesale destruction of agricultural infrastructure, and cleared and appropriated over 50% of the region’s land (Human Rights Watch, 1993; Stansfield, 2004: 46). By the end of the Iran–Iraq War, close to 200,000 people from the region had died owing to the conflict; including several thousand as a result of chemical weapons attacks.

It was into this environment, with a history of discord and internal conflict compounded by the wartime atrocities of the al-Anfal campaign, that the first formal stage of de facto statehood in Kurdistan emerged. After the Iran–Iraq War, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the subsequent UN sanctions regime, Baghdad effectively withdrew from the northern three provinces, imposing an internal embargo on trade. This was a critical juncture in the development of governance in the north, with the KDP and PUK assuming control, with little restriction on their authority outside of the dire economic environment and the legacies of persistent conflict since 1975. Security Council Resolution 688 issued in April 1991 established two no-fly zones at the thirty-sixth parallel in the north of Iraq and the thirty-second in the south. The northern zone covered Dohuk province and the northern portion of Erbil province, and was backed by UN demands for an end to armed aggression as well as allowing access to ‘international humanitarian organizations’ (United Nations Security Council, 1991), providing international backing for the removal of Iraqi forces from the Kurdish regions. It also allowed for moves by the various Kurdish political organizations, headed by the KDP and PUK, under the umbrella of the Iraqi Kurdistan Front (IKF), to both consolidate control and plan for the potential of a post-Saddam Iraq (Stansfield, 2004: 92). These early steps culminated in the May 1992 elections for the newly minted Kurdistan National Assembly where the KDP scored a narrow two-seat victory over the PUK, with the vote split between the north (KDP) and south (PUK).

During the 1990s, some viewed modes of Kurdish self-governance in the north of Iraq with scepticism (Gunter, 1999; Perthes, 1998), a view compounded by the outbreak of conflict between the KDP and PUK in 1994 and again in 1996. However, as Stansfield has argued, the mere persistence of ‘an independent Kurdish entity’ through a period of internal conflict between the KDP and PUK as well as pressure from Baghdad is testament to the resilience of the nascent governance structures in the region (2004: 3). Part of the catalyst for the outbreak of fighting was disagreement over the implications of the 1992 elections, particularly in terms of how the near equal split of votes would translate into political posts and other privileges. Coupled with the economic uncertainty flowing from the UN sanctions regime and the volatile relationship with Baghdad, the strain on the political system led to its collapse by the mid-1990s. However, even in the wake of KDP armed cooperation with Baghdad to oust the PUK from Erbil in 1998, the two parties struck a ceasefire in 1998 that led to them subsequently cooperating in the implementation of services and security arrangements.

As such, on the eve of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, political institutions in the north of Iraq were not able to contain internecine conflict between the two major parties, but were resilient enough to persist through this conflict and form the basis for inclusionary politics after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. Critically, the democratic features of these institutions remained a central feature, with the KDP–PUK parity resulting from the 1992 elections serving to calibrate and frame the claims and interests of both parties. As such, the democratic system proved an important part of managing elite interests in the de facto state due to the knowledge that there would be no potential challengers to the dominance of these organizations. In other words, the electoral system in pre-2003 Iraq was a mechanism through which the KDP and PUK could ground their claims to authority as well as ensure that they remained the dominant groups. The post-2003 political landscape would consolidate this process, seeing the electoral system as a means by which the KRG could affect decisions in Baghdad while the emergence of new parties within the KRG, and new security challenges, would consolidate these institutions of de facto governance.

Electoral politics and the ‘second’ Kurdish Regional Government

With Turkey blocking northern access to Iraq for US-led forces in 2003, the immediate post-invasion fighting was concentrated in the south and around Baghdad. This allowed the KDP and PUK assert control over the north by mid-2003, with the KDP consolidating control in Dohuk and Erbil and the PUK in Sulaymaniyah. This control was codified in the Transitional Administrative Law of 2004 and later in the 2005 constitution that formally established the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) as part of a federal Iraq. The 2003–2005 period, including the active boycott of the post-invasion political negotiations and the 2005 elections by key members of the Iraqi Sunni Arab community, saw the Kurdish parties actively campaign and largely succeed in formalising de facto governance in the north of Iraq. Dodge echoes the views of most observers when stating:

Iraq’s post-regime-change constitution was hurriedly written and controversial. In 2005, when it was drafted it was thought to represent a victory for the two dominant Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Democratic Party. Their aim was to keep the autonomous powers they had amassed since the end of the 1991 Gulf War and simultaneously constrain the powers of the central state so that it could not become a vehicle for the oppression of Iraq’s Kurds. To this end, the constitution gave regions the right to exercise executive, legislative and judicial authority and demand an equitable share of national oil revenues. (Dodge, 2012: 158)

Here, control over the post-Saddam structure of the Iraqi state was critical for Kurdish negotiators, with the embryonic democratic system a mechanism by which they could maximise their interests, particularly with the Sunni boycott. Ironically, it was this boycott and the amplified voice with which the Kurdish leaders spoke in official negotiations at this time that, arguably, swayed the Kurdish elite from opting for immediate independence. At any rate, there was a high degree of expediency in supporting democratization at the federal level, with the ‘domestic’ (i.e. KRG) electoral system providing a means by which KRG elites could further enshrine their claims as legitimate representatives of Kurdish interests federally and, increasingly, between the KRG and regional actors. As such, further democratization in the KRG, and its initiation across Iraq was more a functional consideration than one resultant from aspirations to statehood or international normative pressures.

Saying this, the KRG has engaged in active diplomatic activity since 2003, at times using its reputation as both a ‘haven of stability’ as well as possessing a functioning democratic system for leverage. Despite Article 110 of the Iraqi constitution giving Baghdad prerogative over foreign affairs, Erbil has actively courted both regional and global powers for its own ends. The KRG department of Foreign Affairs currently has 14 representative offices at the EU, in the USA, UK, Iran, Australia, and a number of European capitals. Through these offices the KRG provide consular services usually administered by sovereign states and encourage business relationships. The offices also function as a means for the KRG to establish their independence from Baghdad. They advocate for Kurdish issues, primarily the recognition of genocide occurring during Baathist rule.³ The KRG also hosts a number of international offices, including many at consular and embassy level. KRG diplomatic activity is most evident in its burgeoning relationship with Turkey, particularly in the development of downstream refinement capacity in hydrocarbon production and as well as its export. This has been done in direct confrontation with Baghdad, with the KRG able to subvert central government authority due to the lack of a national hydrocarbon law and the ambiguous wording of Articles 111 and 112 of the constitution.⁴

The political economy of KRG de facto statehood is relevant for the issue of democratization in that the region remains reliant on Baghdad for economic viability. Currently, it receives a set 17% of the national budget, although this has been heavily critiqued by Prime Minister Maliki since 2009, an amount that is disproportionate to the population of the Kurdish regions and exceeds what the KRG could be able to produce alone (Natali, 2014). As such, the KRG benefits from ‘the ability of Kurds in the Baghdad government to curtail any centralizing excesses’ (Park, 2012: 113). In other words, KRG participation in the democratic process within Iraq serves its interests in ensuring that it continues to receive a disproportionately high budget share and can defend the considerable gains it made in the constitutional formation process in 2004 and 2005.

This helps explain the cooperation between Erbil and Prime Minister Maliki in the wake of the controversial 2010 national elections. These elections resulted in a deadlock between Maliki’s State of Law Coalition and former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiyya group, with the latter gaining a two-seat lead. However, with splits emerging amongst the third placed National Iraqi Alliance led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the KDP and PUK joint ticket held the balance of power. They issued a letter to the larger coalitions with 19 demands, including the implementation of Article 140 of the constitution for the holding of a referendum on the status of Kirkuk (Abdulla, 2010).⁵ Despite Maliki campaigning against efforts by the KRG to extend their authority into Kirkuk and other disputed territories, as well as seeking to roll back their budgetary claims and potential oil production, his acquiescence to 18 of 19 of the demands saw him gain support of the Kurdish list and form government by November 2010 (Dodge, 2012: 154, 156). This tenuous coalition did not last long, with moves toward implementing Article 140 stalling almost as soon as the government was formed, as well as growing tension between Baghdad and Erbil with the completion of a direct oil pipeline from the KRG to Turkey in May 2014. Indeed, the relationship between Barzani and Maliki had deteriorated to the point where both threatened the use of force against the other (Dodge, 2012: 159–160).

With the stalling of the federal democratic process leading up to and after the April 2014 national parliamentary elections,⁶ the regional democratic process in the KRG continued. Interestingly, the three rounds of regional elections in the KRG since the US-led invasion and occupation, in 2005, 2009 and 2013, have seen both shifts in the political landscape as well as a strengthening of the democratic system itself. Not without charges of corruption, each round of elections has produced high voter turnout and decreasing reports of vote irregularities (Shrifi, 2013).⁷ In addition, the KDP–PUK duopoly has been broken by the emergence of Gorran (Movement for Change), who gained a foothold in the 2009 elections before ousting the PUK from their Sulaymaniyah stronghold in the 2013 elections. However, although this was an important rupture, it also represented a measure of continuity where Gorran’s leader, Nashriwan Mustafa, held senior posts in the PUK from its founding until his resignation in 2006 as well as being the leader of the PUK’s peshmerga militia from 1976 to 1992.

Again, this supports the claim that democratic development and transitions are positively linked to de facto statehood, but not necessarily owing to the normative pressures previously thought. The continued participation of Kurdish parties in the federal political system of Iraq, as well as the persistence and strengthening of the regional democratic process is driven largely by the utilitarian approach of political elites to pursue specific issues. This has resulted in the formalization of democratic processes in the KRG in particular, where these institutions have enough integrity to weather some turn over in leadership, as seen by the emergence of Gorran, but remain vulnerable to the efforts of these elites to maintain their power. It would be difficult to envisage, for instance, an effective electoral challenge to KDP authority in the near future without some effort by the party to engage in extra-curricular activities to prevent this taking place. However, it would be equally as difficult to envisage the complete subversion of the democratic process by any group in the KRG outside of open warfare between Erbil and Baghdad.

Conclusion

Although the realization of governance absent recognition of claims for independence may define de facto states, this does not necessarily shape their character. The KRG is indeed an anomaly in the international system, and provides critical insights into how de facto states behave in the context of this ambiguity. Its democratic transition, particularly since 2005, has been marked, but is not the product of efforts for international recognition but has developed as a conscious decision on the part of political elites that this structure can serve their interests and the perceived interests of the Kurdish community as a whole, particularly in terms of economic development through independent oil production and export and establishing territorial control over Kirkuk and the disputed territories. As such, although claims to independence are important, the case of the KRG is informative in ‘not taking nationalist rhetoric focussed upon independence at face value’ when examining the internal mechanics of de facto states (Harvey and Stansfield, 2011: 19). Democratization processes are a useful tool for establishing political authority within a territory, but once invested with integrity, can be hard to dislodge. As such, given the right environment, democratization may be an inherent feature of the modern state-building process.

Footnotes

Funding

Funding for this research was awarded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Scheme (DP130100933) for the project ‘Elections and enhancing political participation in Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq’ (2013-2015). Research funded by this project contributing to this article was conducted in March and August 2013, including interviews with KRG officials and NGO representatives. All participants spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Notes

Author biography

Benjamin MacQueen is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations, School of Social Sciences at Monash University. His publications include An Introduction to Middle East Politics (London: Sage, 2013), American Democracy Promotion in the Changing Middle East (London: Routledge, 2013, with S. Akbarzadeh, J. Piscatori and A. Saikal), and Political Culture and Conflict Resolution in the Arab World: Lebanon and Algeria (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2009).

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