The Iraqi connection

The Iraqi connection: `evidence' for war so far presented is loaded in favour of a pre-determined conflict and panders to a wider need for grotesque self-deception. (war).

Comparing British and Australian fear of terrorism pre and post the Iraqi war

Public attitudes to terrorism influence government positions in opinion polls and highlight the effectiveness of terrorism as a political strategy. British (N = 47) and Australian (N = 42) participants' fear of terrorism at the onset of. and after, the Iraqi war were measured. Self-efficacy, locus of control, media consumption, belief in a just world and war opinions were also measured. Initially, the British were more fearful of terrorism than Australians. However, British fear declined after the war. It is postulated that fear of terrorism is influenced by war opinions with a pro-war attitude protecting against fear.

Mediated hegemony : interference in the post-Saddam Iraqi media sector

The toppling of Saddam in 2003 brought with it the re-emergence of the free press in Iraq. This has seen Iraq shift from only a handful of state media outlets that served as propaganda machines, to a vast array of Iraqi-owned newspapers, radio stations and television channels which are being fervently produced and avidly consumed across the nation. As is to be expected, there are several problems that have accompanied such a divergent, ad-hoc and highly volatile media landscape. Leaving aside important issues such as the dangers faced by Iraqi journalists and the lack of appropriate press laws, this paper focuses instead on the influence of both foreign and domestic political bodies on the post-Saddam Iraqi media sector. Among the foreign influences are Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, all of which fund, control and manipulate various Iraqi media outlets. Not surprisingly, the United States has been the most active, using both overt and clandestine propaganda methods as well as forced closure to control the Iraqi media sector. Unfortunately, such measures are not limited to those governments which exist outside Iraq’s borders, with both the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional authority having used similar means to control and even silence Iraq’s nascent public sphere. This paper concludes by noting the irony of limiting press freedoms in Iraq during this crucial phase in its transition from despotism to democracy.

The post-Saddam Iraqi media : reporting the democratic developments of 2005

The toppling of Saddam in 2003 brought with it the re-emergence of the free press in Iraq. This has seen Iraq shift from only a handful of state media outlets that served as propaganda machines, to a vast array of Iraqi-owned newspapers, radio stations and television channels which are being fervently produced and avidly consumed across the nation. This paper therefore reviews the developments in Iraq’s post-Saddam media sector and finds that it has been central to the return of an Iraqi public sphere which has openly debated and discussed the issues surrounding the nation’s shift from despotism to democracy. This is perhaps best evidenced by the role that the Iraqi media played in hosting a rich tapestry of debate, discourse and deliberation from a panoply of political, religious and ethno-sectarian factions throughout the elections and the referendum held across the nation in 2005. Despite their respective biases and particular persuasions, the net effect of such a rich media sector has been an Iraqi populace who are both concerned and informed about the nuances of democratic governance.

The politics of Ancient Mesopotamia : prelude to democracy?

Conventional wisdom asserts that the empires of ancient Mesopotamia were ruled by blood-thirsty tyrants with a penchant for megalomania and a lust for power.
However, archaeological work conducted during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has begun to unearth a more sophisticated political landscape. Many of the empires of ancient Mesopotamia can in fact be seen to have practised forms of governance remarkably similar to the democratic systems employed by the Greeks many centuries later.
This lecture will examine the democratic tendencies of various Mesopotamian empires and trace their influence on later Grecian developments.

The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions : protests and public power in post-Saddam Iraq

Since the democratic elections held across Iraq in 2005 and 2010 much attention has understandably been paid to the new Iraqi government. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly clear that much of Iraq’s political elite are practising the type of governance referred to in the literature on other Arab states alternatively as ‘liberalised autocracy’ (Brumberg, 2002), ‘semi-authoritarianism’ (Ottaway, 2003) or ‘pluralised authoritarianism’ (Posusney & Angrist, 2005). That is to say, that the Iraqi government actually utilises (and controls) nominally democratic mechanisms such as elections, media freedoms, political opposition and civil society as part of their strategy to retain power. This is perhaps best demonstrated via the nine month political stalemate that followed the March 2010 elections and PM Maliki’s refusal to step down despite having narrowly lost the election. Not surprisingly, the Iraqi people have become increasingly disillusioned and critical of their political leaders – hence the mass protests that have swept across Iraq in the context of the popular Arab Revolutions of 2010-11.

However, these latest Iraqi protests are only the most recent and overt sign of the hidden geographies that are agitating towards democracy in this deeply troubled and increasingly authoritarian state. Since the invasion of 2003, a complex array of political, religious and ethno-sectarian factions have formed civil society movements; uncensored news has been consumed across the nation; ordinary citizens have taken to the streets to protest key government decisions; and various local councils have been formed, deliberating on key decisions facing their immediate communities (Davis, 2004, 2007). Given this context, this chapter focuses on the specific case of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU), Iraq’s largest and most powerful independent workers union. The IFOU has repeatedly taken the Iraqi government to task over their poor pay and the dangerous nature of their work, as well as the government’s initial kowtowing to US plans to privatise the entire Iraqi oil sector. To do this, the IFOU have utilised a variety of very democratic mechanisms including peaceful strikes and protests, media campaigns and political lobbying. Such moves have met with mixed results in Baghdad – at times the central government has pandered to the requests of IFOU, but it has also gone as far as issuing arrest warrants for its senior members. The IFOU therefore serve as an interesting example of public power in Iraq and may well pose one of the greatest challenges to rising authoritarianism there.