Democratic Political Institutions in The New Federal Iraq

Abstract: After the fall of Saddam regime, Iraq has been trying to renew its political system in line of democratic norms and principles already present in the western democracies. Many things have been changed in Iraq with aiming to establish a new democratic country. In this thesis, I investigate whether democratic political institutions exist in Iraq or not. I investigate if they properly function. By taking the reports published by several Human Rights NGOs, the UN and the American government into account, this thesis is closely looking at Iraq's democratic political institutions and Iraq's federalism in keeping with Robert A. Dahl's definitions regarding democratic institutions, and the consociational democracy theory of Arend Lijphart.