Problematic Federalism in Iraq (Text in Persian)

Subject Areas :

Ahmad Saei ¹ , Jahanbakhsh Moradi ²

1 - ( [e-mail]) دانشیار و عضو هیأت علمی گروه علوم سیاسی دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد علوم و تحقیقات تهران
2 - ([e-mail]). دکترای روابط بین الملل و عضو هیأت علمی دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد ایلام

Received: 2011-04-28 Accepted : 2011-09-12 Published : 2011-12-01

Keywords: State, nation, Federalism, provisional constitution, permanent constitution, problems of federalism in Iraq, contending views about Kurdistan region,

Abstract :

Some of the political observers and researchers consider federalism as an effective way for solving the problem of establishment of nation-state in societies which have multiple ethnic، religious and race structure. Iraq، being a multi-ethnic and religious country، on the basis of article four of the provisional constitution and article one of the permanent constitution chose federalism as its form of government in post Saddam era. In spite of these provisions، there still exists a problematic condition about the future of federalism in Iraq and the reason is due to certain innovations and ambiguities in Iraqi constitution and also legal and political problems about federation in that country. The present article examines these ambiguities and innovations. The article also shows that Iraqis have not used the positive experience of other federal systems. There also exist practical problems like geographical-territorial conditions، the problem of contending discourse about the place of Kurdistan in Iraqi political system. The above problems had led to a shaky position for Iraqi federalism and thus federalism is facing several challenges and problems.