The Possibility of Populist Contribution in Democratizing the Iraqi Political System after 2019

Abstract

Promoting the democratic system means establishing the law, achieving justice, and developing awareness of behavior and freedom in a way that serves the public good and achieves the higher goals of society. When the process of democratic transformation is linked to the use of hard power that does not take into account internal variables, it is confronted with obstacles. The United States has taken it upon itself to employ democracy in Iraq after 2003, investing its outcomes in a way that is compatible with the arbitrary use of force, and formulating a political process based on consensual democracy and loose party pluralism. As a result of the psychological and value repercussions produced by the American project, the national forces attempted to restructure the political structure and establish a social space based on diversity, representation, and peaceful struggle for power. However, the conflict of partisan interests, external interference, and repeated collapses in building state institutions prevented progress and increased from the dissonance between the polarized centers of power, and between individuals and groups. The intelligentsia has attempted to restore the social and political balance of values ​​after the popular demands in 2019, to establish a democratic political and cultural project by dismantling the totalitarian structure of the deep state, and establishing an integrated system of freedom on rational foundations based on the poles of the citizen, society, and the state.