Middle East Centre Conflict Research Programme Iraq Synthesis Paper Understanding the Drivers of Conflict in Iraq Toby Dodge, Zeynep Kaya, Kyra Luchtenberg, Sarah Mathieu-Comtois, Bahra Saleh, Christine M. van den Toorn, Andrea Turpin-King and Jessica Watkins 2 Iraq Synthesis Paper About the LSE Middle East Centre The Middle East Centre builds on LSE’s long engagement with the Middle East and provides a central hub for the wide range of research on the region carried out at LSE. The Middle East Centre aims to enhance understanding and develop rigorous research on the societies, economies, polities and international relations of the region. The Centre promotes both specialised knowledge and public under- standing of this crucial area, and has outstanding strengths in interdisciplinary research and in regional expertise. As one of the world’s leading social science institutions, LSE comprises departments covering all branches of the social sciences. The Middle East Centre harnesses this expertise to promote innovative research and training on the region. @LSEMiddleEast @lsemiddleeastcentre lse.middleeast lse.ac.uk/mec Understanding the Drivers of Conflict in Iraq 3 Executive Summary and resolve armed conflict, reduce violence, and create conditions for more accountable and transparent govern- Introduction to the Conflict Research ance. A core component of the CRP is to contribute to a Programme better understanding of ‘what works’ in addressing violent conflict across our research sites. We will develop compar- The Conflict Research Programme (CRP) is a three-year ative understanding of how different interventions affect programme funded by the UK Department of International violent conflict and the risk of renewed conflict across Development (DFID) designed to address the drivers and our research sites. We will also examine the contextual dynamics of violent conflict in the Middle East and Africa, factors that affect the effectiveness of these interventions. and to inform the measures being used to tackle armed Intervention areas selected for comparative research are: conflict and its impacts. security interventions; civil society and community media- The overall goal of the CRP is to provide an evidence-based tion interventions; resource interventions; and interventions strategic reorientation of international engagement in plac- designed to strengthen authority and legitimacy, including es apparently afflicted by the world’s most intractable vio- at the sub-national level. We envisage emerging findings lent conflicts. Its premise is that in these places, the ability from our political economy analysis of conflict drivers to of public authorities to provide even the most basic level of shape our comparative analysis of specific interventions. governance is subject to the functioning of the ‘real politics’ We have a unique and robust infrastructure of local of gaining, managing and holding power, which we argue researchers and civil society networks across all our sites functions as a ‘political marketplace’. This approach helps that will facilitate both fieldwork research and remote re- explain the frustrations of state-building and institutional- search. The CRP team is already closely engaged with key ly-focused engagement; it can also inform the design of political processes – and regional actors – in the countries improved interventions, which reduce the risk and impact concerned, designed to promote peace, humanitarian of conflict and violence in developing countries, alleviating action, human rights and democracy. This engagement is a poverty and insecurity. key part of our method and will ensure that evidence-based The locations for research are Democratic Republic of Con- research is effectively communicated to institutions go, Syria, Somalia, South Sudan, Iraq and the wider Middle engaged in trying to reduce the risk and impact of violent East. Our central hypothesis is that governance in these conflict in our research sites. Our emphasis is upon a mix difficult places is dominated by the logic of a political mar- of research methods and mechanisms for engaging in ketplace. These political markets are turbulent, violent and policy and practice. integrated into regional and global networks of power and money. We also hypothesise that moral populism (most CRP Research on Iraq visible in identity politics, persecuting ideologies and violent It has now been over a year since the liberation of Mosul by extremism) is a counterpart to the marketisation of politics, Iraqi government forces in July 2017. This victory marks a and the two flourish in conditions of persistent uncertainty, new stage in the violent conflict that has destabilised Iraq conflict and trauma. Current policy frameworks and tools since regime change in 2003. In some ways, this break- can neither capture the everyday realities of politics and through can be compared firstly to the initial aftermath governance, nor adjust to the dynamics of contested power of the invasion itself from April 2003 until the insurgency relations. External interventions risk being enmeshed in transformed itself into a civil war in 2005, and secondly logics of power and may end up inadvertently supporting to the period following the US-led surge which started in violence and authoritarianism. At the same time, in all war- February 2007 and lasted until the reconstitution of Daʿesh1 torn spaces, there are relatively peaceful zones: what we and the fall of Mosul in 2014. As with the invasion and the term ‘pockets of civicness’. These might be territorial (local surge, the organisational capacity of violent opposition to ceasefires, or inclusive local authorities), social (civil society the post-2003 political order was shattered by the de- groups helping the vulnerable or countering sectarian narra- ployment of superior military force. The aftermath of this tives, or customary courts solving disputes fairly) or exter- successful military campaign clearly represents a window nal (interventions that regulate flows of political finance). of opportunity where a sudden reduction in politically The CRP will generate evidence-based research on the dynamics of conflict, contestation, ‘civicness’ and pub- 1 Daʿesh is an Arabic acronym referring to the Islamic State of Iraq lic authority, enabling better interventions to manage and Syria (ISIS), now officially known as the Islamic State (IS). These terms are used interchangeably in the paper. 4 Iraq Synthesis Paper motivated violence offers the Government of Iraq (GoI) and The rapid reconstitution of Daʿesh shows the negative its allies the opportunity to deal with long-term underly- consequences that the muhasasa taʾifia system had on ing drivers of instability that have repeatedly given rise to the Sunni section of Iraq’s polity. In the aftermath of the organised violence since 2003. liberation of Mosul and the 2018 elections, political organ- isations seeking to represent the Sunni populace remain However, as the examples of 2003 and 2007, along with fractured and are increasingly dominated by competing the rapid reconstitution of Daʿesh after 2017 indicate, if regional states. Given that the vast majority of Iraq’s inter- these underlying drivers are not properly identified and nally displaced people are Sunni, the disorganised state of mediated through accurately targeted policy interventions, those seeking to mobilise and deliver them to the ballot box then a return to the levels of organised violence that have is yet another destabilising factor. dominated Iraq for the majority of the last fifteen years is likely. This paper is an attempt to identify those underlying Between the fall of Mosul to Daʿesh in 2014, its liberation drivers of conflict using the CRP’s four key analytical con- in 2017 and the national elections of 2018, there have been cepts – moral populism, the political marketplace, public trends that have both bolstered but also undermined moral authority and ‘civicness’. populism. A trend counter to moral populism is political mobilisation, which came to the fore in the summer of The CRP’s Iraq component is based at the LSE Middle 2015 with the spontaneous protests against power short- East Centre. Professor Toby Dodge leads on the research ages, endemic corruption and the muhasasa taʾifia, starting in partnership with Dr Zeynep Kaya and Dr Jessica Wat- in Basra and then spreading through to Baghdad. The kins. The programme is managed by Sandra Sfeir. influence of the 2015 protest movement meant that the is- The CRP’s Iraqi partners are the Institute of Regional and sue of corruption dominated the 2018 elections campaign. International Studies (IRIS), American University of Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr allied with the Iraqi Communist Party to Sulaimani and Al-Bayan Center for Planning and Studies, a form the Saairun Coalition. This certainly placed the issue think tank based in Baghdad. IRIS and its Director, Chris- of corruption at the heart of the elections and played a tine M. van den Toorn, will lead research on the Kurdistan major role in Sadr’s alliance winning the largest number of Regional Government, displacement and the disputed seats, at 54. However, it looks unlikely that Sadr can trans- territories. Al-Bayan Center, led by Managing Director, Sajad form this election victory into a meaningful and sustainable Jiyad and Director of Studies, Ali al-Mawlawi, will research programme to reform the state and reduce corruption. central government politics, administration and finances, The emergence of the Hashd al-Shaʿabi