The streets of Iraq: protests and democracy after Saddam

This chapter seeks to document and examine the Iraqi people’s exercise of their right to protest and the influence these protests have had on the political landscape of the post-Saddam era. Since 2003, the Iraqi people have frequently taken to the streets en masse, to air their concerns about everything – from the ongoing US-led occupation to the government’s failure to provide basic security and infrastructure and to the airing of ‘indecent’ programmss on Iraqi television. This paper concludes by arguing that Iraqi citizens who play an active role in their own governance and participate in democratic mechanisms such as elections and mass demonstrations are helping to create a more robust democracy.