Democracy in Iraq

Democracy in Iraq is a fledgling process, but Iraq achieved a more democratic approach than most surrounding countries.[1][2] Iraq has a score of 3.51 of ten on the 2021 The Economist Democracy Index, which is considered authoritarian. Iraq scored 0.362 on the V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index in 2023, ranking 3rd in the Middle East and 115th worldwide.[3] Numerous wars, corruption, and civil and ethnic conflict in Iraq have made it difficult for a stable democratic government to emerge.[4]

According to the Constitution of Iraq, the Iraqi government is a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic.[5][6] It is a multi-party system whereby the executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers as the head of government, as well as the President of Iraq, and legislative power is vested in the Council of Representatives.[7] The Prime Minister of Iraq appoints the Council of Ministers, which acts as the cabinet.[8]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference vdem report was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Arif, Beston (1 December 2018). "The Role of Citizenship Education in Developing Democracy in Iraq". International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies. 5 (2): 152–163. doi:10.23918/ijsses.v5i2p152.
  3. ^ Coppedge, Michael, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Staffan I. Lindberg, Jan Teorell, Nazifa Alizada, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, Agnes Cornell, M. Steven Fish, Lisa Gastaldi, Haakon Gjerløw, Adam Glynn, Allen Hicken, Garry Hindle, Nina Ilchenko, Joshua Krusell, Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, Kyle L. Marquardt, Kelly McMann, Valeriya Mechkova, Juraj Medzihorsky, Pamela Paxton, Daniel Pemstein, Josefine Pernes, Johannes von Römer, Brigitte Seim, Rachel Sigman, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jeffrey Staton, Aksel Sundström, Eitan Tzelgov, Yi-ting Wang, Tore Wig, Steven Wilson and Daniel Ziblatt. 2021. "V-Dem [Country–Year/Country–Date] Dataset v11.1" Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. https://doi.org/10.23696/vdemds21.
  4. ^ Cordesman, Anthony (25 October 2019). "Why Iraq is 'Burning'". Center for Strategic and International Studies. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  5. ^ Constitution of Iraq, Section 1, Article 1
  6. ^ "Iraq", The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 18 January 2022, retrieved 22 January 2022
  7. ^ "Iraq: Government". globaledge.msu.edu. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
  8. ^ Alshamary, Marsin (13 November 2020). "Six months into his premiership, what has Mustafa al-Kadhimi done for Iraq?". Brookings. Retrieved 22 January 2022.