Thread by @MariaFantappie

How to understand the outbreak of violence in Baghdad?

A THREAD1/9 #academicthread

1. Iraq’s informal politics and its shortcomings. Much of the rules of gov. formation in Iraq are INFORMAL, the outcome of intra-elite deals—including the choice of the prime minister, usually selected among Shiite parties by consensus. @ProfTobyDodge eprints.lse.ac.uk/106532/2/Dodge…

2.Informal, old rules are unable to guide the political process. Shiite parties can no longer agree by consensus & engage in a competition to dominate representation of the Shia community. tcf.org/content/report…

3. Personality politics replaced party politics. Most traditional Shiite-Kurdish-Sunni parties dominating the post-2003 are in crisis. Single individuals have more power parties structures (e.i.politburos/leadership) making compromise more difficult to reach. Daawa is an example.

4. Shiite politics is traditionally fractious. Yet, intra-Shiite competition can now mobilise a more complex set of political resources.

Lines of fissures between Moqtada al-Sadr Vs Badr&Daawa are:

5. * Rooted in history: domestic opposition to Saddam (Sadeq al Sadr, father of Moqtada) Vs exiled Shiite opposition (Badr, ISCI, Daawa). The fissure between domestic and exiled opposition was particularly acute in the 1990s. @SajadJiyad newlinesmag.com/argument/the-t…

6. *Multilayered and intersects with Shiite actors’ reference to different/competing sources of religious emulation. See all works by @MarsinRA @DrAbbasKadhim threadreaderapp.com/thread/1564265…

7. * Rely on a complex set of political resources to prevail against each other.

First, mass-mobilization is now an important resource alongside coercion& patronage. Also, Shiite actors initiated/increased engagement with reg. actors other than Iran,such as Turkey, Gulf states.

7. Implications for political system. Violence shows that established rules of gov. formation are decaying and new ones have yet to emerge. The transition to new “rules of the game” can be dangerous, raising risks of violence as the current crisis shows. tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.108…

8. This begs the question of whether a political system governed by more formal rules, rather than informal intra-elite deals, would have prevented crisis such as this one. Future scholarship on #consociationalism in MENA may have to answer this question.

9. Reg. implications are also significant. Shiite crisis in Iraq can be THE Achille Heel for neighboring Iran, boost hopes of reg.rivals, such as Israel, that Iran’s influence is shattering like a broken glass and increase chances for reg.polarization. amwaj.media/article/muqtad…