University of Missouri, St. Louis IRL @ UMSL Dissertations UMSL Graduate Works 5-8-2012 Shopping for Identity: An Economic Explanation for the Post-2003 Violence in Iraq Alan M. Noory University of Missouri-St. Louis, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://irl.umsl.edu/dissertation Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Noory, Alan M., "Shopping for Identity: An Economic Explanation for the Post-2003 Violence in Iraq" (2012). Dissertations. 363. https://irl.umsl.edu/dissertation/363 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the UMSL Graduate Works at IRL @ UMSL. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of IRL @ UMSL. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Shopping for Identity: An Economic Explanation for the Post-2003 Violence in Iraq Alan M. Noory M. A. Political Science, University of Missouri - St. Louis, 2008 M. Sc. Economics, Salahaddin University – Erbil, Iraq, 1996 B. Sc. Economics. Al-Mustansiriya University – Baghdad, Iraq, 1990 A Dissertation Proposal Submitted to the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy March 2012 Advisory Committee: Kenneth Thomas, Ph.D. Chairperson Martin Rochester, Ph.D. Eduardo Silva, Ph. D. Robert Canfield, Ph.D. To Parvuna and Raveen, my kids, With the hope that they will find a place in their hearts and minds for caring about Iraq, its people and the better tomorrow that my generation failed to deliver. 2 Acknowledgments This research was made possible by the great deal of patience and support I received from my wonderful wife, Sanaria, the kids, and our extended family; those who are here in the US and those who are thousands of miles away, in Kurdistan. I offer my special debt of gratitude to my former co-workers in the economic development department of the International Institute in St. Louis, who collectively reignited my passion for academic research. I would especially recognize Dr. Ann Rynearson, my former boss, who helped me present my first paper on Iraq in a national conference and introduced me to the academic community here in the US. I also want to mention Dr. Robert Canfield’s great contribution to refining my thought process in writing this dissertation. Special thanks to my life-long friend, Iraqi journalist Rahman Gharib. He was my companion in my 1996 field research. We traveled together through battle lines during the civil war then, and he did it again this time, by taking care of all logistics of my interviews in the “bad” neighborhoods of Kirkuk with his family members and contacts. Also, my debt of gratitude to Iraqi PMs, Mr. Akram Qadir Mohammad, my former elementary school teacher, and Mufid Al-Jazairi, who volunteered to distribute my questionnaires in the Iraqi parliament. 3 I would be remiss if I forget the collegial relationship I have with Mr. Bakhtiar Baban, who provided me with his limited distribution books and copies of all print material and his personal notes from all the Agrarian conferences he participated in. His help was always essential to my understanding of the legal structure of Land tenure in Kurdistan. Special Thanks to the staff and management of Awene Newspaper for donating office space, electricity, internet connection and great companionship during my 2009 field research. Thanks to Asiacell, a telecommunication provider in Sulaimaniya for donating equipments and $500 call card to cover my communications in Iraq and with my family in the US. Also thanks to Dr. Martin Rochester for providing a grant to cover some the traveling expenses to conduct my research in Iraq. Finally, I would like to apologize to those who contributed to making this research possible, and somehow I forgot to mention them here. I am grateful to every contribution, regardless of its size. 4 Table of Contents Chapter One Introduction: How Wrong Can Simple Story Lines Be? 11-59 Chapter Two Demons of the Far and Near Past: Access to Wealth-generation Assets and Political Violence in Iraq 60-100 Chapter Three Genocide and Its Agrarian Outcomes! The Unique Agrarian Land Tenure Problems of Kurdistan 101-123 Chapter Four When Violence Becomes The Only Game in Town: Presentation of Key Data in 1996 Field Research in Sulaymania Province 124-171 Chapter Five By the Numbers: A Statistical Model to Predict Chances of Outbreaks of Violence in Local Agrarian Land Tenure Conflicts 172-190 Chapter Six A Political System Boxed into A single-Identity Representation: Post-2003 New Iraq Fights the Demons of the Past and Creates New Ones! 191-251 Conclusions Not Out of the Woods, Yet! 252-258 References 258-270 Abstract 271 5 List of Tables and Figures A. Tables: Table #1: Changes in Life Expectancy in Developing MENA Countries (1980- 2006) 86 Table #2: Infant Mortality Rate, Under-Five Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Comparison between Developing MENA, Avg. MENA and Avg. LMI Countries in 2008 87 Table#3: Net Enrollment, and Female-to-Male Enrollment in Primary and Secondary Education in Iraq, other MENA Countries, MENA Avg., and LMI Avg. in (2006) 92 Table #4: Area of Agrarian Land Rented in Accordance to Law # 35 of 1983 in Iraq’s Provinces as of 12/31/1989 103 Table #5: Destruction of Villages in Kurdistan Region in the Al-Anfal Campaign (February–September, 1988) 109-111 Table #6: List of Forced Relocation “Modern Towns” in Sulaimaniya Province and the Area of Agrarian Land They Put Out of Commission 111 Table #7: Accessibility of Agrarian Land in Sulaimaniya Province in 1990-1991 Season, as Described in a Meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Cultivation Campaign in Sulaimaniya Province in Fall of 1990 112 Table #8: Special Distribution of the 1996 Field Study 132 Table #9: Special Distribution of the Selected Documents of the Supreme Agrarian Committee in Sulaimaniya (1995-1996) 140 Table #10: Geographical Distribution of Post-fund-Allocation Conflicts and the Fate of Budgeted Projects as Experienced by the Studied NGOs in Sulaimaniya Province by Summer 1996 157 Table #11: Type of Projects and Amount of Allocated Funds, which NGOs Withdrew from 12 Communities Due to Renewed Conflicts, as Reported by the Studied NGOs in Sulaimaniya Province by Summer 1996 158 Table #12: Variables and their description in the dataset 173-174 6 Table #13: Statistic summaries of the variables 177 Table #14: Statistic summaries of the variables × Number of Households in Each County/Population center, prior to Displacement 177 Table #15: Ordinal Logit Estimates of the Model, and Odds Ratio Method of Interpreting them 180-181 Table #16: Predicted Probabilities of Violent and Non-violent Conflicts Based on Sets of 3 Criteria 186 Table #17-a to d: Model Predictions for Conflicts and Their Outcomes with A Pre-set Criteria 187-189 Table #18: Changes in the Value of US $ in Iraqi Dinars 1979-2011 192-193 Table #19: Sources of monthly Income in Iraq by Poverty Status in ID and US $ (Per Person) 195 Table #20: Repossessed and Redistributed Agrarian Land in Iraq, According to Law No. 35 of 1983 by Provinces (1989 and 2008) 203-204 Table #21: Comparison between the Iraqi Property Restitution Committees’ Processing of Claims in 2009 and 2011 210 Table #22: Cases Processed by the Iraqi Property Restitution Committees (Different Names, Same Structure), by Geographical Regions, and as of End of September, 2011 211-212 Table #23: Status of Settlement of Claims of Control and Possession on Agrarian Land in Sulaimaniya Administrative Units, as of 2008 248 B. Figures: Figure #1: Iraq’s GDP per Capita (Current US $) 1960-2010 84 Figure #2: Growth of GDP per Capita in Selected Middle East and North Africa Region (1980-2006) 85 Figure #3: Public Spending on Health as a Percentage of Total Public Expenditure in Iraq (1996-2009) 88 7 Figure #4: Changes in Total Expenditure on Health per Capita In Iraq, MENA, and LMI (Current US$) 1996-2009 89 Figure #5: Educational Attainment of Iraqis living in Jordan, Syria and inside Iraq 91 Figure #6: Net Primary Enrollment ratio (to Enrollment Age Population) in Select MENA Countries (1980-2006) 91 Figure #7: Median Hourly wage in Iraq by Education (2006) 93 Figure #8: Percentage of Working Adults (above 15) to Total Adult Population in Iraq and MENA, Avg. of MENA and Avg. of LMI Countries (most recent data as of 2008) 94 Figure #9: Percentage of Men and Women Participants in Labor Force to Their Respective Adult (above 15) population in Iraq and MENA, Avg. of MENA and Avg. of LMI Countries (most recent data as of 2008) 95 Figure #10: Poverty Headcount by Provinces in Iraq (end of 2006) 97 Figure #11: Iraq’s Position in a Scatter Plot Representing 127 Counts According to Their Gini Index and Their GDP per Capita (most recent data as of 2008) 98 Figure #12: Population Distribution by Per Capita Expenditure (Iraqi Dinar/Person/Month) in Iraq (2006) 99 Figure #13: Rural and Urban Population Distribution by Per Capita Expenditure (Iraqi Dinar/Person/Month) in Iraq (2006) 100 Figure # 14-1: Overview Map of Al- Anfal Campaign (February – September, 1988) 105 Figure # 14-2: Map of First Stage of Al- Anfal Campaign (23 February – 11 March, 1988) 105 Figure # 14-3: Map of Second Stage of Al- Anfal Campaign (22 March – 1 April, 1988) 106 Figure #14-4: Map of Northern Theatre of Third Stage of Al- Anfal Campaign (7 – 20 May, 1988) 106 Figure # 14-5: Map of Southern Theatre of Third Stage of Al- Anfal Campaign (7 – 20 May, 1988) 107 8 Figure