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Predation and patronage:
The paradox of legitimate corruption in Iraqi Kurdistan
Name: Walter Broersma
Student number: 5657342 Thesis supervisor: Drs. Paul Aarts Second corrector: Drs. Umut Kibrit
Date: 22 June 2013
Words: 8893 words
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Prologue
“Boys we were – but nice boys.” The opening line of Little Titans by the author Nescio about four young men who are eager to live their lives differently from everyone else is a well-known phrase in Dutch literature. The juveniles are disappointed with the path that the turn of the century Amsterdam society expects them to take. But their idealism does not stand. Ironically, the story is told by one of the Little Titans as he, years later and well-off, looks back on the young men who did not want to conform – but without exception did in the end. The Little Titans are illustrative of a universal theme in the story of humanity. Stronger than any other force, the pressure to conform to the rules, norms and expectations of others constrains and shapes human behavior.
Almost a century after the Little Titans resolved to choose their own paths, a group of students from Amsterdam travelled to Iraqi Kurdistan to learn about the working of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). They met Kurdish students, journalists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), political party leaders, the Chief of Staff of the Kurdish president and even the head of one of the ruling parties’ security apparatus (as we will see further on, not by coincidence the president’s son). The conversations, discussions and observations were fascinating as they provided a practical insight in the functioning of the region. Looking at the KRG through a Dutch lens rendered a picture of corruption, violations of civil rights and clientelism. Interestingly, the Dutch perspective had equipped the students with concepts for understanding the world that now suddenly appeared to make less sense. Formal and informal; legislative and judiciary; public and private; legitimate and illegitimate – state and society: the dichotomies that provided oversight and understanding in the Netherlands now failed to enlighten.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, part of everyday life seemed to be the stories of people who hold two or three jobs in the civil service – jobs for which they are hired by a friend or relative. Equally commonplace were the stories of the president’s family who is rich beyond measure, or the stories of criminals being acquitted by a befriended judge. The stories have a common denominator. They are similar in the sense that they take place on the intersection of state and society. They all show that in Iraqi Kurdistan state and society are intertwined with one another – can in fact be hardly distinguished. But how can the nature of this overlap be understood – let alone its existence explained?
A hint as to where the answer to that question can be found was provided by the President’s Chief of Staff, Fouad Hussain. In a discussion that took place in the context of the Zeytun Exchange Program in July 2011, he remarked on the functioning of the government that the history of the Kurds has resulted in “a way of doing things” that shaped the governing of the region. Is it possible that to understand Iraqi Kurdish governance, we need not more than to read a book about four young men in Amsterdam; is it possible that the patrons of Iraqi Kurdistan simply do what they see as expected from them?
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Money is not the answer
The region has been studied from different angles. Broadly speaking, the literature provides insights in the development of Kurdish nationalism, an interesting topic seeing the fragmented history of the region (e.g. Olson 2007, Romano 2006). Another branch of writing seeks to give an outlook on the political future of the Kurdish region (e.g. Gunter 2008, McGarry, O’Leary and Salih 2006, Wanche 2002. The third branch of literature analyzes the region’s political economy describing the development and dynamic of the region in economic terms (e.g. Chorev 2007, Leezenberg 2006, Natali 2007, Natali 2010).
The only author that elaborately theorizes about the relation between the region’s governing bodies and its society is Michiel Leezenberg. The common denominator of his various writings on the region is his analysis of the networks of patronage. These networks consist of patron-client relationships that the governing parties use to retain their influence (Leezenberg 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006). His conception of the patron-client relationship is very much economistic rational choice in nature (Leezenberg, 2006: 155). Seen as a relationship of unequal value exchange, Leezenberg (ibid.) notes that these relationships are not perceived as wholly legitimate. However, in spite of growing criticism, the Iraqi Kurdish leadership and their government still seemed to enjoy a great deal of support in society. The large majority of Iraqi Kurds have a small or modest income, but cheer for those who turned the government into a profitable business venture. This raises the question: if not economistic patron-client relationships – what explains this paradox of legitimate corruption?
A more ‘legitimate’ framework
This thesis aims to explain the paradox of legitimate corruption. The basis of this explanation is a fundamental assumption about what drives human behavior. This contains the idea that individuals are legitimacy-seeking actors; thus that in the large majority of the cases individuals tend to behave according to what is expected of them.
This provides a different view on the paradox of corruption: based on the theory, it is assumed that the actors see their behavior as legitimate rather than corrupt. The question to answer then is: why is this seen as ethical, desired behavior? To answer that question, a theoretical framework will be constructed. Built on top of the fundamental assumptions mentioned above, is a conception of institutions that conceptualizes state- and societal structures as being made of the same ‘stuff’. In this view, state and society are built from the same materials, although they can add up to different (and possibly similar!) buildings. The hypothesis that will be set forth in this thesis is that the ‘corrupt’ patterns of behavior can be traced back to societal structures in Iraqi Kurdistan and that the crossover from society to state institutions has taken place through a process called ‘institutional isomorphism’.
4 The theoretical framework is the result of an extensive reiterative process of research design and preliminary research. This reiterative process shows the limitations of available information on the region. Through the lens of this framework, the governing behavior of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the two ruling parties is analyzed. The nature of this governing behavior is found through an extensive literature research, which is steered by the main research question: how can the manner in which the Kurdish Regional Government and the two ruling political parties generate and reallocate resources be explained by societal structures in Iraqi Kurdistan? In order to answer the main question as efficiently and specifically as possible, based on the theoretical framework, the research question will be divided in three sub-questions:
A) What are the cultural rules, norms and expectations according to which the Kurdish Regional Government and the governing parties generate resources and allocate these?
B) To what extent are characteristics of Iraqi Kurdish society reflected in those cultural rules, norms and expectations?
C) To what extent can a possible similarity between the latter two be explained by a process of institutional isomorphism?
Theoretical framework
The fundamental assumption here employed, namely that humans are in principle legitimacy-seeking actors, is found in sociological institutionalist literature. In this branch of theories, institutions are seen as “the symbol systems, cognitive scripts and moral templates that provide the “frames of meaning” guiding human action” (Hall and Taylor, 1996). The most basic institutionalist theory reduces institutions to merely the formal rules that constitute an organizational structure in the legal sense. This of course creates a rigid distinction between the formal and the informal; between institutions and culture. In contrast, the removal of this barrier by the sociological institutionalist approach makes it possible to analyze cultural and formal institutions as two manifestations of one phenomenon. Sociological institutionalism conceptualizes individual actors as legitimacy-seeking, who face “institutional pressures to conform to cultural rules, norms and expectations, regardless of the efficiency implications of the practices that they are adopting” (Miller and Banaszak-Holl, 2005). In short, this means that political actors’ choices are driven and constrained by social confirmation of what is accepted, rather than seeking power or material well-being only.
Furthermore, (government) institutions are treated as “open systems – strongly influenced by their environments (…) many of the most fateful forces are the result not of rational pressures for more performance but of social and cultural pressures to conform to conventional beliefs” (Scott, 1992). If institutions are open systems influenced by their environment, they clearly can affect one another. This framework thus allows for an understanding of such a process takes place. Central in the sociological institutionalist approach to understanding how institutions influence each other is the concept
5 ‘organizational field’. This concept includes all of the organizations, or ‘policy subsystems’, which are concerned with a specific policy area (Sabatier, 1993). DiMaggio and Powell (1983) have posited a theory that explains why institutions in the same organizational field tend to homogenize. The process through which this homogenization takes place, they dub ‘institutional isomorphism’. Three types of isomorphic process are identified in the theory, of which two will be used in this writing. On the one hand the concept of ‘coercive isomorphism’, which “results from both informal and formal pressures exerted on organizations by other organizations upon which they are dependent and by cultural expectations in the society in which organizations function” (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983: 150) will be used to explain the hypothesized similarities between culture and governance. Specifically relevant here will be the cultural expectations, that pressure actors to confirm with what is perceived to be legitimate. This applies for example to the government official that is expected to hire his relatives, or the judge that is expected to acquit the son of an influential friend. On the other hand, ‘mimetic isomorphism’ will be used in the analysis: “when goals are ambiguous, or when the environment creates symbolic uncertainty [e.g. uncertainty on how socially desirable something will be seen as], organizations may model themselves after other organizations” (1983: 151). Thus when it unclear what needs to be done, a solution is found in mimicking institutions that work in the same organizational field, i.e. institutions that concern themselves with the same policy field. It is here hypothesized that similarities between government and society can be explained by these two forms of institutional isomorphism.
The sociological institutionalist theoretical framework allows for a wide scope of the research that potentially includes the whole of Iraqi Kurdish culture and government. In order to come to meaningful conclusions, it is thus necessary to apply realistic constraints to the scope of this thesis. The scope of this research project will be limited by theorizing about the nature of Iraqi Kurdish society. To that end, the analysis of the neopatriarchal society in Neopatriarchy by Hisham Sharabi (1988) is used. The analysis in Sharabi’s seminal work is studies society from several perspectives. For the purpose of this work, three pivotal concepts from the characterization of neopatriarchal society will be taken that the preliminary research shows to be most applicable to the Iraqi Kurdish case and topic under discussion; thus can be used best to limit the scope of this research in a meaningful way. The understanding of Iraqi Kurdish society will therefore be limited to three central aspects of a neopatriarchal society: the concepts of tribalism, patronage and the contradiction between manifest and latent structures.
Relevance of a different approach
The relevance of this thesis is to be found in the theoretical approach to the subject, which provides an addition to available work on the region. It adds to the existing literature in a few different ways. First of all, sociological institutionalism is a relatively new approach that stems from Western sociology.
6 This theoretical approach gets past the assumption of rational, strategically operating economic gain-maximizing actors in Iraqi Kurdistan. While in many other fields of inquiry it has been widely accepted that “ideas matter” (Campbell, 2002: 21), authors tend to stick to economistic theory when explaining the political behavior of Iraqi Kurdish power brokers. With this alternative approach to explaining the regional government’s policies, a multidimensional understanding of the region is possible.
Secondly, the application of the theory of institutional isomorphism that will be done in this writing is at least uncommon. The theory explicitly applies to institutions that work in the same organizational field, i.e. concern themselves with the same concrete work. In the extensive research that has been done for this project, no example of literature has been found that applies institutional isomorphism theory to both ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ institutions in one organizational field.
Next to the relevance on a theoretical level, this research can provide interesting policy implications. Both foreign and Kurdish observers have been critical of the financial policies of the KRG that allow individuals high up in the state hierarchy to use government resources for private gain. Only by understanding the cause of a problem, can it effectively be countered. Should the hypothesis be validated by empirical research, this might offer an insight in the manner in which this perceived problem can be tackled.
One possible example of such insight could be that in some cases, the legitimacy of ‘corrupt’ practices should be the focus of anticorruption policies rather than the practices themselves. Western governments and donors are an important source of income for the Iraqi Kurdish government. At the same time, contacts with Western governments appear to be an important source of legitimacy for the KRG. Should it become clear that this is part of the problem a change of policy might be beneficial for the manner in which Western funds are spent. In short, more insight in the reasons for self-enriching behavior can provide new ways to counter the misuse of donor funds.
Methodology
Sociological institutionalism posits that actors are legitimacy-seeking, thus that they will be pressured to remain within the boundaries of what they perceive to be socially acceptable. It will therefore be assumed that the manifest policies regarding the provision of material needs that are found, are perceived to be legitimate by KRG actors. Thus, in order to establish what cultural rules, norms and expectations influence the KRG, research into manifest policies will be conducted.
This will be done by the analysis of a broad range of literature. Data will be gathered on the manner in which the KRG and the governing parties have generated resources and allocated these to society. As the KRG has been founded in 1992, the manners of resource generation and allocation will be analyzed from that point onwards. In order to understand the context in which this came about, an
7 historical overview of the decades leading up to the foundation of the regional government will be provided.
Thereafter, the three central aspects of Iraqi Kurdish society will be further explained. Using the found data on the generation and allocation of resources, I will analyze whether parallels can be argued to exist in a meaningful way between societal norms, rules and expectations and the generation and allocation of resources in society.
A brief history of Iraqi Kurdistan
A quick glance on the map of Kurdistan is enough to understand the reasons for the saying “Kurds have no friends but the mountains”. Located in the more remote regions of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, the Kurdish people have since centuries lived in the mountainous area roughly between the eastern range of the Taurus Mountains and the northwestern range of Zagros Mountains. The Iraqi part of this vast region comprises the governorates of Sulaymaniyah, Dohuk and Erbil, home to approximately 5.5 to 6.5 million people. In 2003 the Kurdish region in Iraq was granted far-reaching autonomy.
The starting point of the brief historical introduction in Iraqi Kurdish politics is the establishment of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in 1946. Mulla Mustafa Barzani was elected president of the party in spite of being exiled in the Soviet Union at the time. The KDP was set up paralleling the KDP in the short-lived Republic of Mahabad, in which Mulla Mustafa played a crucial role (Roosevelt, 1947). Apart from a wish for independence, the goal of the organization was not quite clear in the first years and was described as “more of a social and cultural gathering than a well-defined political party” (Jawad, 1981: 20). The KDP would only start to play a role of any significance after the 1958 fall of the Iraqi monarchy. Before that time, the KDP was primarily characterized by internal conflicts, often personal in nature.
The conflict that would come to define Iraqi Kurdish politics for decades was the strife between Mulla Mustafa Barzani and Jalal Talabani. The latter joined the KDP in 1947 and would be elected into its central committee at age 18 in 1951. The Barzanis came from the Bahdinani-speaking northern part of Iraqi Kurdistan; Talabani from the Sorani-speaking south. Before the return of Barzani in 1958, the KDP was led by a leftist faction urban intelligentsia associated with amongst others Talabani. Barzani however represented the rural-based tribal branch of the KDP; the two factions within the party became involved in an increasingly intense power struggle from Barzani’s return onwards (Stansfield, 2006).
In 1961 Barzani launched a revolt against the Baghdad government. In the next fourteen years the KDP fought intermittently Baghdad and itself, as Talabani’s faction at times sided with the Baath army in order to challenge Barzani’s rule. Both factions received at times support from foreign
8 agencies, most notably the Iranian intelligence service and Central Intelligence Agency, who were interested in putting pressure on the Baath regime. The Kurdish struggle for independence thus was basically funded by the enmity between Iran and Iraq; when in the spring of 1975 however an agreement between the two was reached support for the Kurds ceased. Within days, the rebellion was over and Barzani left Iraqi Kurdistan, never to return. This scattered the KDP and in the summer of that same year Jalal Talabani announced the establishment of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
When in 1979 the Shah fell, the new Islamic Republic bordering Iraq did not uphold the 1975 agreement, which provided a new opportunity for the Kurds. Once more, supplies entered the region, allowing them to continue their fight for independence. The 1980 Iran-Iraq war subsequently provided a new opportunity to fight for independence for the Kurds. However, differences in views between the PUK and KDP on how to achieve their independence led to intra-Kurdish armed conflict as early as 1981, which greatly weakened the PUK. In 1986 the genocidal Anfal campaign started. In the course of this three-year campaign, thousands of Kurdish rural settlements were destroyed, as well as virtually all of the economy and many, many thousands of citizens’ lives were taken by bullets, artillery shells, chemical agents, aerial bombs, starvation, disease and exposure to the elements. From 1984 onwards the PUK attempted to reconcile with the KDP; in 1986 they declared to be no longer enemies and in 1987 founded the alliance known as the Iraqi Kurdistan Front, together with several smaller groups. This Front, led by the KDP and PUK, in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War establishes the Kurdistan Regional Government - the starting point of this thesis’ analysis (Gunter, 1996). While the term ‘front’ may have a strong connotation of unity, this was not quite the case. The 1992 elections in which the KDP and PUK were the only two serious candidates led to an almost exact 50-50 division of the votes. An uncomfortable power-sharing deal followed, that led to the creation of what could best be seen as two separate governments. The KRG-Erbil was governed by the KDP and ruled the north-east of the region; the KRG-Sulaymaniyah comprised the southern part of the region and was the hinterland of the PUK. In spite of the civil war that would follow this deal shortly after, this division is at present day still very much visible.
Predation and patronage in Iraqi Kurdistan
What are the cultural rules, norms and expectations according to which the Kurdish Regional Government and the governing parties generate resources and allocate these?
The Kurdistan Regional Government was created by the Peshmerga that descended from the mountains as the troops of Saddam left the region. The political, economic and social situation within the region and the areas surrounding it has gone through dramatic shifts in the years that followed. The last twenty years have seen a refugee crisis, a near-famine, civil war in Syria, a decade of sectarian violence in Southern Iraq, extreme inequality within Kurdistan and much intra-Kurdish fighting. Yet none of these developments have led to breaking the red thread through recent Iraqi Kurdish history:
9 the rule of the KDP and PUK. In the coming section, the manner in which the KRG and ruling parties have used their power position to generate and allocate resources in and to society will be described. These findings will be analyzed as the manifestations of the less-so visible rules, norms and expectations that have shaped these policies.
Disaster relief phase and civil war
Encouraged by the Americans and the example of the Shia in the south of Iraq, from March 4, 1991 the Kurds rebelled against the Baath regime of Saddam Hussein (Fisk, 1991: 1). Within a few days time the Kurds managed to gain control of most of the Kurdistan region, but even more quickly lost ground when Saddam loyalists marched northwards. Fearing a repetition of the traumatic genocidal Anfal campaign, hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled before the advancing government troops, creating an almost overnight humanitarian crisis (Pope, 1991: 1). The enormous attention in the media for the fate of the Kurds led to large-scale humanitarian aid operations, as well as the creation of a ‘safe haven’ under the military umbrella of Operation Provide Comfort I and II, commencing in April 1991.
While the security situation had improved, the economic situation was dire from 1991 onwards. The Kurdish economy had always been largely agricultural, but the Anfal campaigns and the response to the 1991 uprisings had left much of means of production destroyed. At the time of the Gulf War, the Government of Iraq (GOI) was handing out food rations to the whole of Iraq, including the Kurdish region. This initially continued after the uprisings, but these were gradually cut off from October 1991 onwards, ceasing completely in June of 1992 (Leezenberg, 2000: 7). Moreover, most other social and economic relations between the Kurdish north and the rest of the country were cut off by the GOI. Together with the full sanctions imposed on Iraq by means of UN Security Council Resolution 687, the Kurds of Iraq were under a ‘double embargo’, isolating the region.
This situation prevented the Kurds from acquiring an inflow of currency, machinery and even food – making it virtually impossible for the Kurds to rebuild a self-sustaining economy. For years, this rendered them dependent on short-term disaster relief (Natali 2007: 1113). The region had no international export market to sell its goods to and no foreign currency to make investments in rehabilitation. As a result the already fragile economy completely collapsed. By 1993 only 5% of private businesses were still functioning (Natali 2010: 44).
The non-recognition by the international community of the KRG led to the latter being excluded from the international donors’ aid programs. Since there was no real economy to levy taxes from, this left the KRG with strong financial incentives to sustain and tax a parallel, black-market economy (Natali 2010: 45). In the first years of the KRG, a large share of its income was derived from levying taxes on smuggled goods – mainly fuel – over the Turkish and Iranian borders, as well as over the borders of
10 the governorates within the Kurdish region. In some of the embargo years, reportedly 85% or of the annual budget of the KRG-Arbil was generated at Turkish-Iraqi border points (Natali, 1999).
A second source of income for the KRG, both on the KDP and the PUK-side, was tapping in on the large amount of funding available for humanitarian aid. The international community had not officially recognized the KRG as the legitimate government of the region – as this would constitute an infringement of the territorial sovereignty of the Saddam government. This left the KRG largely out of the many millions of dollars of aid that flowed into Iraq after 1991 – of which two thirds went to humanitarian relief and eventually rebuilding projects in the Kurdish region (Natali, 2010). In order to be able to profit from that hard currency, both the KDP and the PUK set up local NGOs aimed at delivering humanitarian aid. The strong links to the parties led to quickly emerging reports of party members and their social connections being unequally benefiting from these aid organizations. Using these local NGOs as a middle man, the two ruling parties built and expanded their networks of patronage, funded by foreign aid funding (Leezenberg, 2000: 11). While the international community was providing aid and engaging reconstruction work, neither the KRG nor the ruling parties engaged in such efforts themselves. The funding generated was spent largely on support to party members and (former) Peshmerga as well as their relatives (Leezenberg, 2000: 10).
A third source of income for the KDP and PUK emerged with the collapse of the KRG’s civil government. In May 1994, large-scale fighting erupted between the two parties, triggered initially by a small land-ownership conflict (Hirst, 1994: 16). On the one hand, the civil war resulted in a loss of income due to many NGOs leaving the region (amongst which all of the U.S.-funded), but presented new opportunities for financial gain. The anarchy that ensued from the civil war created a space in which the KDP and PUK profited from the sale of public goods, levying taxes from the urban population, and at times taxing transports of humanitarian goods headed for the opposing party’s territory (Bozarslan 1996: 113).
End of the civil war until the U.S. invasion
In 1996 the U.S.-funded emergency relief program in Iraqi Kurdistan ended, after which in 1997 the first shipment of goods under the Oil-For-Food-Program arrived. In the first instance this program undermined the agricultural industry that the relief and development program which commenced in 1991 had started to rebuild (Leezenberg, 2000: 16). However after some years the economy began to show improvement. This benefited the KRG financially in two ways. Firstly, for the first time the gradually growing economy provided a real tax base for the KRG. Although very modest, this tax base differed from previous levies in the sense that it was no mere ad-hoc, forcibly collected tax or essentially a bribe to be let through a checkpoint. Secondly, the KRG invested in publicly owned businesses such as rented land and factories, which yielded additional income (Natali, 2010: 8). Contrary to the humanitarian aid projects, the KRG worked closely with the United Nations in
11 administering the goods coming in through the Oil-For-Food-Program. Both the KRG-Arbil and the KRG-Sulaymaniyah were to a large extent responsible for creating the distribution plans of the program; next to that, it was exposed to various training programs designed by the UN and NGOs. This institutionalized and professionalized the KRG bureaucracy (Stansfield 2003: 134).
Little reliable primary data is available on KRG spending – the budget of the regional government, notoriously, is not made public. Two things however are quite clear. Firstly, statistics from the phase prior to the 2003 invasion already show the prominent role that the KRG has taken up as an employer in the region. A 2002 survey of household economies found that in some parts of the region, employment in the civil service or having a family member in the Peshmerga was a main source of income for the local middle class (Kirk and Sawdon, 2002: 23). Secondly, according to one observer shortly before the 2003 invasion, the KDP and PUK combined could field an army of approximately 80,000 men (Stansfield 2003: 136). Given the region’s small population relative to the number of armed personnel, it can be safely assumed that a very substantial share of the KRG budget would be spent on maintaining the two parties’ armed forces. Official figures however are not available.
The period after 2003
Professionalization and institutionalization of the KRG bureaucracy has continued since 2003. This was made possible by the new constitutional design of the Iraqi state, which grants the Kurdish region an autonomous role. The KRG that had been set up merely a decade earlier by fighters coming out of the mountains, from 2003 onwards was recognized as the legitimate ruling entity in the region.
At first, the fall of the Iraqi regime meant a loss of income for the KRG. With the Baath regime out of the way, the economic sanctions on Iraq were lifted. When the borders opened, the taxing of the illegal economy, previously one of the most profitable activities of the KRG simply ceased to exist. Moreover, whereas during the disaster relief phase in the early 1990s Kurdistan received two-thirds of all emergency relief funds for Iraq, after 2003 these tides were turned. Seeing the relative security and economic well-being of the region, much of the funding for Kurdistan was redirected to the south of the country (Natali, 2010: 80). On the other hand, as part of the new federal republic, the Kurdish region became entitled to approximately seventeen percent of the annual government budget which mainly is generated by the sale of oil. The annual budget available for the KRG increased from $2.5 billion to $6 billion in the period between 2005 to 2009 – dwarfing previous income figures (Natali, 2008: 82).
Opening the borders in 2003 opened up new economic possibilities, but the benefit of this new openness and economic dynamic is spread unequally over the region. By 2006, the KRG Chamber of Commerce estimated that both in Sulaymaniyah and Erbil an approximate one thousand millionaires (in U.S. dollars) are registered. Meanwhile, many households still live in poverty. By 2002, around sixty percent of the population was categorized as poor, with 40% having to survive on no more than
12 $300 per year and 20% on less than $150 annually (Kirk and Sawdon, 2002: 42). By 2003 the total unemployment rate of Iraq was estimated to be around 50%; according to Leezenberg there is little reason to suspect that this would be radically different in the Kurdish region (2005: 640).
Control over government resources, the allocation of lucrative contracts and jobs in the civil service or government are largely within the hands of a relatively small group of individuals who move in networks of civil society, the economy, the political parties and the government which – not coincidentally – overlap to an important extent. Competition for access to these resources takes place in terms of competition for social contacts or favors rather than merit of competition in the capitalist free market-sense (Leezenberg 2005: 643; Natali 2010: 101; Schlumberger, 2000: 251). In this system, a relatively small group of people can profit from the newly generated wealth of the region due to extensive and elaborate networks of patronage.
The Neopatriarchal State
To what extent are characteristics of Iraqi Kurdish society reflected in those cultural rules, norms and expectations?
This research aims to clarify to what extent the policies of the regional government and ruling parties can be explained by the nature of Iraqi Kurdish society. In order to determine the existence of similarities between society and these policies, theory is employed that from the bare facts and figures provided above will distill relevant concepts and relations. It is expected that using this perspective enables finding important similarities between the societal norms and the structures of governance by the ruling parties and regional government. The data will be analyzed in terms of a selection of central concepts from the theory of neopatriarchy as formulated by Hisham Sharabi (1988).
The organization of society: tribalism
Firstly, the empirical findings will be interpreted through a concept relating to the structure of society: tribalism. This structure is pivotal in understanding the neopatriarchal society is the tribal structure. Sharabi posits that the essence of the practice of tribalism is the reciprocal relation between the individual and the tribe: in exchange for the individual’s identification with the tribe, the tribe takes a collective responsibility for the individual. This reciprocity reinforces identification and in effect, loyalty (Sharabi, 1988: 28-29). The tribe is often seen as a socio-political (and often economic) structure based on lineage. Van Bruinessen (1992: 51) notes that for Kurdish tribes, kinship is not always the most important factor in determining who belongs to the tribe: oftentimes political allegiance is just as much of relevance. Membership of tribes can thus vary, particularly depending on the welfare of the tribe. This is also how the concept of tribe will be treated in this thesis: as a socio-political and possibly economic formation characterized by a patriarchal structure.
13 Seen through this lens, the manner in which the ruling parties in Iraqi Kurdistan are organized is a simply a continuation of a social practice that is far older than either of the political parties. Alike the traditional Kurdish tribe which is a geographical unit (Van Bruinessen, 1992: 51), the two ruling parties have created a clearly delineated territory for themselves. Moreover, also similar to the traditional tribes, the parties are a sociopolitical unit, organized hierarchically headed by a patriarchal figure. And more than a sociopolitical unit, the parties have become economic structures through their extensive employment of civil servants. Sharabi characterizes the dynamic of the tribe-dominated society as driven by factionalist ethics. Such ethics, he posits, define the obligations of the individual very strictly within the context of the tribe. Outside of that realm, there is no clear obligation, which results in a ‘nothing barred’-mentality for example when at war with another tribe. This mentality can be recognized in the predatory revenue-generating policies in the civil-war era, as well as the atrocities committed by both parties – for example, the execution of prisoners (Gunter, 1996: 223).
The existence of patronage networks
The second concept discussed here is a recurring theme in the analysis of the Iraqi Kurdish economy – the patronage system. Sharabi sees patronage as playing a pivotal role in the perpetuation of the patriarchy. He posits that in the neopatriarchal society, the individual’s allegiance is primarily directed at the basic social formations such as the family, clan or tribe – and specifically at the leader of this formation. This loyalty is reinforced by socializing the individual into the system of patronage. What makes the patronage system so resilient, is that everyone involved profits from it. The individual who provides the favor gains in status and the beneficiary sees a (material) need fulfilled. Sharabi conceptualizes the patronage network as the neopatriarchal society’s mechanism through which dependency and domination are sustained. Favors are exchanged for submission, and the favors rarely are big enough to lift the beneficiary out of the dependent position. Thus, by reinforcing the domination of the giver of the favor, the patronage system reinforces dependency and with it inequality. Sharabi argues that ‘wasta’, meaning ‘mediation’ or ‘intercession’ is the “lubricant of the patronage system” (1988: 45). He argues that the wasta system socializes the individual into accepting being dominated, because it learns that via the wasta system, one can still get particular favors. This he argues leads to the legitimization of the patronage structure for those who are included in it (Sharabi 1988: 45-46).
From the data that have been presented above, it became clear that networks of patronage are spread throughout the region. Utilizing the theory of neopatriarchy, the formation and consolidation of patronage networks by both ruling parties can be understood as more than a rational utility-maximizing strategy. It is both a societal practice aimed at fulfilling the obligation of the tribe for the well-being of the individual, and a manner of reinforcing and legitimizing the patriarchal rule. In return for providing, the party patriarchs have the obedience of those below them in the tribal hierarchy. Illustrative for this submission can be found in the results of the 2005 elections: the KDP
14 and PUK together gained an overwhelming majority at almost nine out of ten votes cast. The same is applicable to the 2009 elections. While strong newcomer Gorran (‘Change’) emerged, the two ruling parties still won approximately 60% of the votes, after seventeen consecutive years of governing (Hiltermann, 2010).
The contradiction between manifest and latent structures
The third and final notion that will be employed to interpret the found data is what Sharabi quite negatively calls an ‘essentially schizophrenic’ contradiction within the neopatriarchal society. With this, he addresses the tension between the modern appearances of neopatriarchal societies and the more traditional latent structures. In fact, he claims that “patriarchal societies, regardless of their variety on the manifest level, all share the same deep structures”. This means “the absence equally of genuine traditionalism and of authentic modernity” (1988: 23).
By this concept of modernity he means the structures that, when taken together, form the whole that is characterized as modern (1988: 21). An example of such a structure is the institutionalization of rationality: a bureaucracy in the Weberian sense. The latent structures he aims to draw our attention to are, for example, the structures of tribalism and patronage discussed earlier.
In the provided data, such contradictions are easily recognizable. The clearest example of this is the contradiction between the manifest, formal structures of the KRG, representing the modern on the one hand; on the other hand, the outcomes we have seen in the data show that underlying structures are equally or oftentimes more important. While the KRG should be the institution governing the region, in effect the tribal structures exercise more influence on the allocation of welfare throughout the region. At the same time, all the necessary is done to keep up the appearance of the modern surface.
Explaining the paradox of legitimate corruption
Can a possible similarity between the two be explained by a process of institutional isomorphism? In the findings above, we have seen that within the KRG and governing parties, various policies were perceived to be legitimate. The taxing of the illegal economy, the predatory policies during the civil war; but also the private companies masquerading as NGOs in order to receive humanitarian aid funds. Moreover, expanding the party both in size and in scope so as to make it part of all aspects of public life; lastly, the building of extensive networks of patronage – all of these phenomena were perceived to be legitimate – particularly by those involved. Furthermore, it has become clear that it can convincingly be argued that all of the neopatriarchal concepts discussed in this writing are part and parcel of resource generation and allocation policies. Tribalism, patronage and a contradiction between formal and actual policy: all are reflected in the policies that have been found. The third sub-question in this research project deals with understanding the similarities that have been found between the
15 rules, norms and expectations under sub-questions one and two. In this section it will be argued that the similarities found above can be linked using institutional isomorphism theory.
In the section on the theoretical framework, the two types of isomorphism as posited by DiMaggio and Powell (1983) have been explained. A prerequisite for isomorphic processes to take place is for institutions to find themselves in the same organizational field. Analyses in which institutional characteristics are explained by societal structures using said theory are not common. After all, in many contemporary societies situations where social and formal structures concern themselves with for example delivering the same goods (in the broadest sense of the word) are exception rather than rule. After extensive research, the author of this writing has not been able to find other literature in which institutional isomorphism theory is used in a similar fashion.
The applicability of this theory in this case follows from the argument that in the KRG-KDP and the KRG-PUK, in the wake of Saddam’s troops leaving the region in 1991, started to take up the same role as Iraqi Kurdish society had. Sharabi argues that “Patriarchal society, in its traditional as well as its modern form, derives its strength from its ability to satisfy basic needs (…): material interests, security, identity.” (Sharabi 1988: 35). Unfortunately the concepts of security and identity fall outside the scope of this research project. The overlap of organizational fields that is here hypothesized thus regards the satisfaction of material interests. It existed in its most pronounced form in the few years after the start of Operation Provide Comfort in April 1991. As has been described in a previous section, in these years the food rationing system of the Baath government ceased operations in Iraqi Kurdistan and the economy was almost completely destroyed. Natali (2010: 47) describes that in these years “most local populations depended upon the extended family system (…) to gain much-needed income”. In the terms of this theoretical framework, it was the neopatriarchal societal structure that satisfied the basic material interests of most individuals. As has been shown in the findings above, from 1991 onwards, the KRG-KDP and KRG-PUK have increasingly taken up this role. First only by supporting their own ranks and retired Peshmerga; then through patronage networks disguised as NGOs and even later through its control over the food deliveries of the Oil for Food Program. The overlap has continued to exist for at least a decade: even after the activities of the KRG and ruling parties had greatly expanded for years, in 2002 still a considerable portion of Kurds was dependent on social structures for their basic means of survival (Kirk and Sawdon, 2002). From this continued role of both societal and ‘formal’ structures in the organizational field that concerns itself with satisfying basic material needs the applicability of institutional isomorphism theories follows.
Mimetic isomorphism takes place when goals are ambiguous and the environment uncertain. In such situations, organizations model themselves on other organizations in their field that are perceived to be legitimate. Economically in dire straits, the uncertainty about the manner in which material needs could be satisfied was all-pervasive. Ironically, the goals of the KDP and PUK suddenly became ambiguous as resistance to Baghdad’s domination over Kurdistan had always been their main goal –
16 this was suddenly rendered obsolete, as the combined Allied force achieved this for them. This required a redefinition of the aims of both organizations. These circumstances were the ideal enablers of institutional processes of isomorphism. The structure that provided an example of dealing with the regional government’s task of providing for basic needs was the neopatriarchal social structure itself. As has been extensively discussed before: actors act not necessarily rationally; actors act in ways they see as legitimate. The structures of Iraqi Kurdish governance were not created by matching ends and means in a rational fashion; they were created by mimicking other structures with roughly the same function that were perceived to be legitimate. In this process of institutional isomorphism, societal structures were largely reproduced in the context of the government and the political parties.
Coercive isomorphism has taken place as a result of the informal pressures exerted on the parties and on the individual policymakers and civil servants. As both the neopatriarchal and the government structure are concerned with providing basic material needs; the civil servant is pressured to conform to the same expectations – both in a ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ context. At home he is expected to provide for the (extended) family; this is no different in his capacity as government official. Consequently the neopatriarchal societal structure including the wasta system has, through processes of isomorphism, been transferred onto the government structure.
We have seen that governing elites have shaped their tribe-parties and their policies in response to normative pressures from society. Through processes of institutional isomorphism, they have conformed to perceived norms, rules and expectations regarding the manner in which they governed the region. As a result large territory-bound, all-of-society-encompassing political parties have been created. The networks of patronage within the tribal party-structures thus are a direct reflection of the neopatriarchal society.
Same job, different roles: coercive isomorphism at work
Today in The Hague, a father – who is someone’s uncle and cousin too – left home and arrived at work. As his elevator arrived at his office’s floor and he stepped out, he tightened his tie, buttoned his suit-jacket and suddenly was no longer a father, uncle and cousin – he was a civil servant in a government department. Some days ago, a nephew who just finished his studies asked him for help finding a job. Naturally, he promised to do his best to write a great letter of recommendation. Not right then though: he was preparing the job interviews of a few new applicants. A perfect job for his nephew probably, but hiring his nephew over other applicants would at least raise some eyebrows. Eight hours later, as he stepped out and took off his tie, he was not longer a bureau chief – he was father, uncle and cousin again.
Today in Erbil, a father – who is someone’s uncle and cousin too – left home and arrived at work. Stepping in his office of the he tightened his tie, buttoned is suit-jacket and greeted his secretary at the Ministry. Some days ago, a nephew who just finished his studies asked him for help finding a job. Luckily, a job has just opened up at the department of an acquaintance of his – and indeed, a few phone calls turned out to be enough to get his nephew to work. A good thing that he is a man with connections: to have to refuse a request for help would at least raise some eyebrows. Eight hours later, as he stepped out of the office, his nephew was already waiting outside, eager to pay his respects.
17
Conclusion
This thesis has attempted to answer the question how the manner in which the Kurdish Regional Government and the two ruling political parties generate and reallocate resources can be explained by societal structures in Iraqi Kurdistan. It has been argued that Iraqi Kurdish society can be characterized as a neopatriarchal society. Employing the theory of neopatriarchy, the empirical research has focused on three characteristics of societal structures.
When analyzing the data focusing on these three concepts, it was found that societal structures and the structures of resource generation and allocation are remarkably similar. They follow the same patterns. It has been argued that this can be explained by the model of institutional isomorphism.
This has argued to be possible because government and ruling parties of Iraqi Kurdistan work in the same ‘organizational field’ as the neopatriarchal societal structures of the region. Both structures are concerned with providing their constituents’ basic material needs. At the time of its formation, societal structures provided the only legitimate example of dealing with this issue. The actors involved in the policymaking were conceptualized not as rationally maximizing economic gain, but as social creatures that are pressured into adhering to normative structures. And in being so, they copied existing already legitimate structures into the context of governance.
The merit of the analytical take presented in this thesis lies in the fact that it adds to the existing literature on the region, allowing a more profound understanding of Iraqi Kurdistan. First of all, by using the normative context of the regional government to explain specific policies, the outside observer is able to understand phenomena such as patronage networks in a different way. Written from a Western perspective, it is easy to treat for example patronage as a form of corruption by definition. In doing so, we easily forget that in fact ‘corrupt’ policy makers face significant normative pressures to engage in such policymaking behavior. In order to effectively deal with such a complex phenomenon, of course one needs to understand its root causes.
Secondly, having seen that indeed Iraqi Kurdish society can be understood as neopatriarchal, new interesting insights open up for the observer wishing to understand the dynamic of the region. Most of the theory has not been discussed in this thesis, but it offers much more hypothetical explanatory power than just the nature of resource generation and allocation policies. Based on the theory, one could hypothesize that the cause for the rise of the opposition party Gorran as well as recent protests directed against the KRG, would be the gradually increasing influence of a modern consciousness in Iraqi Kurdish society; or that a powerful means to change the patronage system would be to empower the women of the region – two ideas that are too complex to go into in more detail here, but would deserve research of their own.
Thirdly, this analysis provides a means of conceptualizing the relation between state and society in Iraqi Kurdistan. For example, models used to understand policymaking processes in contexts where
18 the bureaucracy more closely resembles the Weberian ideal type, would hardly apply in this setting. The presupposed fundamental rationalization of institutions, which clearly separates the state from society, does not fit the case of Iraqi Kurdistan. An approach that deserves mention in this context is the ‘State in Society-approach’ by Joel Migdal. This approach focuses on the power struggle between organizations associated with the state and organizations in society. Migdal defines the state as “a field of power (…)” (2001: 15-16), whereby ‘field’ “highlights relationships in a multidimensional space, one in which the symbolic element is as important as the material. (…) The central phenomenon is struggle. “Every field is the site of a more or less overt struggle over the definition of the legitimate principles of division in of the field.””. The implication of this definition is that within the territorial boundaries of the state, several organizations – those which are associated with the state as well as those which are not – struggle to impose their ‘legitimate principles’ on other organizations. Similar to the approach presented in this writing, the state in society-approach focuses on the role of values in examining how state and society influence one another. Yet, the driving factor of action is seen by Migdal as the struggle for domination, while in this thesis the driving factor is living up to rules, norms and expectations. Moreover, while he acknowledges the blurred line between state and society, Migdal conceptualizes the various organizations that make up state and society as more or less unitary. This makes it difficult to account for the dual roles that individual actors within the government have, for example both ‘father’ and ‘civil servant’: one individual can be a member of more than one organization. This yields a different dynamic than the struggle for dominance that Migdal describes. Nevertheless, Migdal’s approach can make for another interesting analysis of the dynamic within Iraqi Kurdistan, for example when focusing on the various organizations within the region.
The implications of these findings are interesting in more than one way: to the western observer, they provide a less subjective framework of understanding a phenomenon such as patronage. Secondly, neopatriarchal theory offers hypotheses for explaining societal change in Iraqi Kurdistan that deserve follow-up research projects. For example, the suggestion was made to inquire into the hypothesis that empowering women in the region’s society can be a way to fundamentally change the deeper structures of the region’s society for those who seek more equality in the division of welfare over society.
The paradox of legitimate corruption thus has been argued be solved by analyzing the societal structures that provide legitimization for ‘corrupt’ behavior: a valuable insight for those interested in changing the course of the region towards less particularism and more equality.
19
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