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description=4 posts published by Reidar Visser during December 2006;

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iraq, and, for, the, gulf, analysis, archive, december, 2006, archives, categories, meta, my, latest, book, on, amazon, com, twitter, updates, subscribe, recent, posts, timetabled, conditional, surge, strategy, dealing, with, sadrists, study, group, regionalisation, not, balkanisation, federalism, from, below, in, some, historical, comparative, reflections,

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the (697), and (205), for (116), that (114), iraq (100), iraqi (85), with (75), this (65), from (59), would (58), #federalism (45), but (42), was (39), their (38), iqlim (37), some (32), are (32), 2006 (31), has (30), referendum (29), have (28), two (28), not (28), one (27), more (26), may (26), process (24), spain (24), which (24), new (24), regions (24), there (23), had (23), etherington (23), federal (22), regional (22), should (22), politicians (22), level (21), about (21), all (21), even (21), december (21), also (20), such (20), region (20), governorates (20), been (20), any (20), janub (20), united (20), shiite (19), could (19), constitution (18), local (18), political (18), government (18), states (18), surge (18), national (17), sadrists (17), law (16), autonomy (16), into (16), pre (16), governorate (16), were (16), policy (16), other (15), point (15), can (15), many (15), initiative (15), basra (15), poll (15), october (15), its (15), initiatives (15), what (15), they (15), sadrist (15), below (14), will (14), federalisation (14), wasat (14), might (14), issues (13), 2005 (13), today (13), june (13), time (13), 2008 (13), 2010 (13), 2013 (13), these (12), areas (12), current (12), scale (12), most (12), april (12), only (12), forces (12), washington (12), january (12), 2014 (12), 2007 (12), 2009 (12), 2011 (12), 2012 (12), like (11), constitutional (11), under (11), majority (11), than (11), middle (11), najaf (11), baghdad (11), between (11), september (11), kind (11), february (11), situation (11), november (11), august (11), report (10), without (10), administrative (10), politics (10), 2004 (10), state (10), spanish (10), well (10), rafidayn (10), case (10), perhaps (10), south (10), march (10), support (10), same (10), make (10), pro (10), wasit (10), general (10), security (10), reconciliation (10), war (10), control (9), small (9), through (9), whereas (9), far (9), how (9), very (9), those (9), international (9), particular (9), iraqis (9), turn 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iba bottom up through initiatives at the municipal level the 1978 constitution allows contiguous provinces to amalgamate into autonomous regions provided that at least two thirds of the municipalities concerned and representing at least a majority of the population of each of the affected provinces have assented to the federalisation initiative such efforts can be launched every five years until successful on paper this resembles the mechanisms adopted in the 2005 iraqi constitution and the subsequent legislation for implementing federalism with the exception of baghdad all iraqi governorates south of kurdistan 14 altogether are free to combine into federal regions on the basis of referendums and the initiative for the referendum rests with the local governorates in that one tenth of voters or one third of governorate council members can call a plebiscite thus the thresholds for starting an autonomy initiative are markedly lower than in spain as is the moratorium on renewed attempts one year only but the principles are similar 3 however the actual experiences of spain in the crucial years of transition from 1978 to 1983 illustrate how building federalism from below can involve unexpected complications and may prove to be less of a bottom up enterprise than initially envisaged the first point concerns the danger of federal chaos and reactions from conservative forces if the federalisation process should develop in unforeseen ways in spain it had generally been expected that two or three regions with long standing autonomy demands would take steps to ensure autonomous status whereas the remainder of the country would retain a more unitary state structure in fact however several candidates for self rule suddenly materialised out of the blue members of the old establishment particularly within the military reacted negatively towards what they saw as a decentralisation process running out of control and even many democratically inclined politicians were critical of the rapid proliferation of autonomy ideas in areas where such demands had no past history 4 matters came to a head with a military coup attempt in february 1981 at that point spanish politicians decided that greater top down control was needed and they effectively took over the job of completing and sealing the country s federal map including the demarcation of the federal regions of central spain 5 a compromise on federalism was thus an integral part of the package that facilitated spain s transition to democracy in fact in the 1990s spain was able to reopen the federalism debate in a less frenzied atmosphere now with the european union as a stabilising external factor map 1 spain s pre democracy regional structure left the administrative map of modern spain right the second important aspect of the spanish experience has to do with the relatively high influence of regional administrative divisions of the past even in this setting of extreme flux and theoretical openness to change thus ten out of the twelve mainland regions that were defined by bottom up initiatives from the municipal level before the 1981 compromise on federalism had been readily identifiable as regions in the times of general franco and earlier only two of the regions established prior to 1981 cantabria and la rioja both uni provincial secessions from the larger region of old castile represented radical departures from this general picture arguably one important reason why the instability of the spanish transition could be contained was the relatively strong and unequivocal historical legacy that pointed towards a particular configuration of territorial entities federalism from below in iraq these two points offer historical lessons of relevance to iraq s current situation firstly federalisation is destined to become an extremely contentious issue in a state that emerges from a centralistic path clearly reactionary attitudes to federalism should not be allowed to block the progress of genuinely popular desire for radical decentralisation but the spanish example shows that moderation and compromise in federalism issues can be the key to a successful democratic transition even if this may mean that no group obtains exactly the state structure it was hoping for at the outset secondly the importance of strong regional historical legacies should not be underestimated whereas most of spain s federal units can refer to long experiences of administrative separateness only kurdistan and possibly the projected small scale region of the south known as iqlim al janub basra maysan and dhi qar the old ottoman vilayet of basra exhibit anything remotely comparable to this in iraq 6 kurdistan s special position on this score was recognised through the enshrinement of kurdish autonomy in the iraqi constitution a parallel to the spanish recognition of long standing self rule demands through the fast track route to autonomy in article 151 of the 1978 constitution but in the iraqi case done in classic top down style throughout the rest of iraq historically there has been unity and subordination to baghdad for long periods 7 thus some of today s schemes such as the project of a nine province region of the centre and the south iqlim al wasat wa al janub do not correspond to any substantial historical precedent 8 of course this in itself is no argument against the legitimacy of these projects modern voluntaristic federal entities may be just as successful as historical ones in spain creations like cantabria and la rioja were ridiculed for their alleged artificiality but one might also turn that logic on its head and argue that creativity may indeed be necessary to break centralist hegemonies of the past but the point about historical endurance is worth bearing in mind when it comes to dangers of political instability and it is one which the protagonists of the modern regions should heed so as to secure the safest possible transition to federalism for their citizens this is doubly important because of the extremely low thresholds for initiating and repeating referendum initiatives under the iraqi system something which makes the entire process even less predictable than was the case in spain possible problems in the new iraqi law on implementing federalism these general observations on the limits of existing models of federalism from below are relevant to analyses of the new legal framework for implementing federalism in iraq adopted on 11 october 2006 and in particular to discussions of possible complications that may arise once that law is put into practice one remarkable feature of the iraqi discussion of this legislation project is that very little of what has been said has been based on readings of the actual text adopted indeed for a long time it has been almost impossible for the general public to obtain copies of the considerably modified version of the law that was agreed on after an original draft had been introduced on 26 september 9 this in itself suggests that the public debate on the subject cannot be considered to have been truly exhaustive there are apparently several grey areas in the iraqi law on the implementation of federalism they include subjects such as the procedure for defining the referendum parameters in the case of mutually conflicting federalism visions for the same area if say some in najaf wish to become part of a three governorate middle euphrates entity whereas others favour a larger nine governorate all shiite super region here the law does not go into much detail beyond a single keyword istibyan or a governorate level poll to determine which particular alternative should be put to the test in a referendum similarly it is unclear to what extent there is any timeline for the start of the race once the law has entered into effect in april 2008 if someone in amara requests a referendum on day one is there any deadline for others to submit a challenge and thereby prompt a pre referendum poll within the governorate 10 perhaps most problematic of all is the question of how to proceed in case several incompatible autonomy initiatives are launched and successfully survive the poll pre selection process basra citizens may decide for a referendum on a uni governorate basra region residents of maysan may come out in favour of a vote on a slightly larger region of the south involving basra and dhi qar as well the people of dhi qar in turn may want to give a chance to the idea unifying all the shiite communities northwards to karbala except that the inhabitants of babel may want a referendum on a small scale middle euphrates region while those of wasit and karbala may not be enthusiastic about federalism at all and could fail to produce federal initiatives that would satisfy the minimum legal requirements perhaps the people of diyala and other areas with strong iraqi nationalist traditions might decide to take a pro active stance to the challenge of decentralisation by introducing a surprise nationalist federalist project a region of mesopotamia iqlim al rafidayn stretching all the way from basra to mosul and with the potential to put a stop to what could otherwise become an endless string of autonomy bids this is all theory and hypotheses but it is clear that a considerable mess as shown in table 1 can emerge at the poll level even before any referendum is held table 1 simulation of possible outcomes of pre referendum polls istibyans under the new iraqi law for implementing federalism governorate available alternatives see also note 11 winner of pre referendum poll or sole initiative launched basra iqlim al janub iqlim al wasat wa al janub iqlim al basra iqlim al rafidayn iqlim al basra maysan iqlim al janub iqlim al janub dhi qar iqlim al janub iqlim al wasat wa al janub iqlim al wasat wa al janub muthanna iqlim al wasat wa al janub iqlim al wasat wa al janub wasit iqlim al wasat wa al janub iqlim al rafidayn neither initiative reaches threshold qadisiyya iqlim al wasat wa al janub iqlim al furat al awsat iqlim al wasat wa al janub babel iqlim al wasat wa al janub iqlim al furat al awsat iqlim al furat al awsat najaf iqlim al wasat wa al janub iqlim al najaf iqlim al wasat wa al janub karbala iqlim al wasat wa al janub initiative fails to reach threshold diyala iqlim al rafidayn initiative fails to reach threshold salahaddin iqlim al rafidayn initiative fails to reach threshold anbar no initiative nineve iqlim al rafidayn iqlim al rafidayn kirkuk iqlim al rafidayn iqlim al rafidayn at least two very different scenarios can be inferred from this theoretical example one alternative would be for all the referendums to go ahead on the basis of their original formulas even as voters in najaf and muthanna would know perfectly well that some of the governorates listed in their preferred nine governorate scheme would be barred from joining their entity because in those governorates a different and mutually exclusive small scale regionalist vision had triumphed in the local pre referendum poll a possible result might be the further fragmentation of the large scale federalist project with majorities in relatively poor qadisiyya muthanna and dhi qar voting in favour but with najaf voters changing their minds and saving their vote for a uni governorate federal entity at some future stage the outcome would be a mix of uni governorate entities rump regions consisting of remnants of large scale projects that failed to acquire support in all of their targeted governorates and a rump iraq without devolution to the regional level map 2 left map 2 left rump iraq with remnants of partially successful regions right rump iraq with uni governorate and small scale regions formed on the basis of pre referendum elimination polls an alternative method would be to take more seriously the concerns of the voters there is little point in staging a referendum for a project if its infeasibility is implicitly acknowledged ahead of the vote as a result of the rise of incompatible schemes in one or more of the targeted governorates accordingly should a situation arise along the aforementioned lines with mutual incompatibility between the various proposed schemes it would make sense to ask voters to restate their preferences in light of the new realities in a second pre referendum poll to be workable this kind of elimination race would require coordination and indeed synchronisation between governorates in such a poll wealthy and autonomy minded governorates like najaf might elect to recast themselves as uni governorate regionalists thereby repeating the problem of exclusion on a smaller scale vis à vis poorer provinces like neighbouring babel qadisiyya and muthanna who might still wish to pursue a second amalgamation bid this time on a smaller scale as a middle euphrates region najaf s desire to go it alone would then perhaps impact on popular sentiment in the remaining euphrates governorates during a third pre referendum poll babel and qadisiyya might conceivably agree on a joint two governorate project leaving muthanna out in the cold the end result with this kind of procedure would be a combination of small scale regions uni governorate regions and a rump iraq of anti federalists and governorates excluded during the initial poll rounds map 2 right potential areas for legal clarifications or adjustments as of today iraqi lawmakers lean towards the second of the interpretations outlined above to be valid an autonomy referendum must correspond exactly to the territorial entity defined in the initiative regions of leftovers are unacceptable and must be built from scratch instead this means that the primary focus of future instability concerns failed regional initiatives on a larger scale it is very easy to launch an initiative but quite difficult to make it victorious in a single referendum this in turn makes the prospect of repeated initiatives and even pre referendum polls very real additionally the problem concerning partially successful regions outlined above with regard to the pre referendum poll stage may become equally relevant should a referendum on a successfully launched large scale initiative fail in the referendum in one or more of the affected governorates the spanish constitution explicitly gives recognition to such partial regions article 153 3 but it remains unclear whether a similar interpretation would be acceptable in iraq such regions could be purely accidental creations which no one had even thought about prior to the referendum and with the absence of a requirement for territorial contiguity in iraq they could in theory assume rather contorted shapes fortunately certain trends among leading iraqi politicians can go some way towards mitigating these problems much emphasis is attached to the 18 months moratorium on federalism as a period for educating public opinion about the federalism question importantly iraqi politicians have a far more sophisticated approach to the overall question of decentralisatio...