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12. Operationalizing the Chain of Harm: Co-design Workshop Guidance
- Author:
- Lisa Reppell and Matt Bailey
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)
- Abstract:
- The methodological notes below provide guidance for the implementation of the International Foundation for Electoral System's (IFES's) Chain of Harm to enhance the responsiveness of information integrity programming to the needs and unique circumstances of traditionally marginalized communities. Organizations within the democratic, rights, and governance (DRG) community of practice will be able to consult these notes to replicate, build, and design programming. By following the recommendations outlined in this resource, organizations can plan and execute primary source research on information integrity issues, effectively facilitate program design workshops with relevant local partners, and implement and track new, research-based program interventions. This resource builds on and complements the methodology outlined in IFES's publication, The Chain of Harm: Designing Evidence-based, Locally Led Information Integrity Programming. It begins by describing how to collect the primary research that serves as the foundation of programming through surveys and focus group discussions. Guidance for practitioners to facilitate the Co-design Workshop follows before turning to best practices for program implementation and monitoring and evaluation. As the Chain of Harm centers the perspectives of traditionally marginalized groups, accessibility guidance is included in line with this ethos. This practical use guide is derived from IFES data collected during two pilot implementations of the Chain of Harm in Iraq and Guyana between 2021 and 2023 with support from the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. In both countries, IFES' Center for Applied Research and Learning implemented the approach in close collaboration with local partners. While these methodological notes may often reference collaborations between international and local partners, a local organization implementing directly may also leverage such an approach.
- Topic:
- Elections, Democracy, and Information Integrity
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Guyana, and United States of America
13. A scramble for legitimacy: Iraq’s political elites since the October 2019 protests
- Author:
- Marsin Alshamary
- Publication Date:
- 05-2024
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations
- Abstract:
- Iraqi political elites exhibited a variety of responses to the 2019 October protests, the largest demonstrations in post-2003 Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr, a cleric-turned politician and leader of the Sadrist movement, vacillated between attempting to co-opt and repressing the protests. Other Shi’a political elites portrayed the predominantly Shi’a protestors as foreign agents and encouraged violent repression. Yet others who urged reform and response went largely unheard. Iraq’s political system emerged largely unscathed from the protests, even though the threat of recurrence inspired the new government to undertake limited service-oriented reforms. However, traditional political elites continue to view reformists, including the politicians that emerged from the protest movement, as illegitimate usurpers of governing power they feel rightly belongs to them.
- Topic:
- Reform, Domestic Politics, Protests, Elites, Muqtada al-Sadr, and Shiite
- Political Geography:
- Iraq and Middle East
14. UNDP’s stabilization programme in and around Mosul, 2017–2022
- Author:
- Hugo de Vries
- Publication Date:
- 08-2024
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations
- Abstract:
- Between 2014 and 2017, the occupation of northwestern Iraq by the Islamic State in the Levant and the military campaign to defeat it left chaos and destruction in its wake. Six million people were displaced and damages ran to an estimated USD 88 billion. At the time, the international community swiftly threw its support behind the Iraqi government to reconstruct the affected areas. This paper tells the story of a major programmatic contribution to the reconstruction effort by assessing the rollout, implementation and impact of UNDP’s USD 1,5 billion USD Funding Facility for Stabilization (FFS) with a focus on Mosul. Tracing the frontline as it advanced, the program worked via the private sector to rebuild thousands of houses, water treatment plants, electrical stations, hospitals, schools and other key infrastructure and provided thousands of temporary jobs to people. To accomplish this, it had to negotiate security arrangements, deal with the limited capacity of the Iraqi state and above all, anticipate corruption by different actors. While the FFS was a programmatic success in terms of its own original objectives, one can also argue that the program did not significantly increase trust in the Iraqi government, positively influence Iraq’s political economy or mitigate local conflict dynamics ‘beyond the numbers’ of its concrete deliverables. As the paper has been written by the FFS’s former program coordinator in Mosul, it provides an insider perspective into the operational dynamics of a major UN program.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid, Infrastructure, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and Stabilization
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, United States of America, and Mosul
15. The War on Gaza and Middle East Political Science
- Author:
- Marc Lynch, Ibrahim S. I. Rabaia, Fiona B. Adamson, and Alexei Abrams
- Publication Date:
- 04-2024
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
- Abstract:
- This special issue of POMEPS Studies offers a platform for scholars to think through what feels like a moment of rupture for the Middle East, for Middle East Studies, and for long-standing assumptions about the region’s politics. This POMEPS collection originated as an open call for papers for scholars affected by or invested in these urgent issues, in an initial effort to give a platform and a voice to those in our network who have grappled with these trends. We kept the call intentionally broad, asking potential authors to reflect on the effects of October 7 and the Gaza War on politics or scholarship. As it turned out, most of the contributors wanted to talk about academic freedoms and the conditions of public discourse in their countries – perhaps because of how profoundly they felt this crisis, perhaps because of the availability of other platforms to discuss the war itself. The issues confronting our field have never been more urgent and the need for academic networks and institutions to rise up to defend it has never been greater.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Diplomacy, Education, Genocide, Political Science, Institutions, Academia, Houthis, Forced Migration, Activism, October 7, 2023 Gaza War, and Frantz Fanon
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Yemen, Palestine, Gaza, Germany, Jordan, Czech Republic, and Gulf Nations
16. Advise, Assist, Enable: A Critical Analysis of the US Army's Security Force Assistance Mission During the War on Terror
- Author:
- John A. Nagl and Marshall Cooperman
- Publication Date:
- 11-2024
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- The U.S. Army struggled to build capable host-nation security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan because it did not give those security force assistance (SFA) missions the priority and support they deserved. Both the selection and training of U.S. advisors were highly flawed. The Army also struggled to ensure the selection of high-quality personnel into the host-nation forces. Much of the SFA effort was conducted in an ad hoc manner, without sufficient funding or strategic prioritization. Today, the Army has corrected many of the issues that plagued its SFA formations during the War on Terror by creating a permanent Security Force Assistance Command and six Security Force Assistance Brigades. It is essential for the Army to maintain and support these formations to ensure that the bitter lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan are not forgotten.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Armed Forces, and Counter-terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, Iraq, North America, and United States of America
17. Proxy battles: Iraq, Iran, and the turmoil in the Middle East
- Author:
- Hamzeh Hadad
- Publication Date:
- 04-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
- Abstract:
- The war in Gaza has deepened the Middle East’s fault lines. Iran and its proxies and the US and Israel have engaged in a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks across the region, with the Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria and Iran’s direct retaliation against Israel threatening to escalate into a regional war. Iraqi paramilitaries operating as part of Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ have also attacked US forces in Iraq, who responded with reprisals of their own. This, and the increasing risk of a wider war, imperils the relative stability Iraq has enjoyed over the past few years and the country’s fledgling role as a regional mediator. Iran’s influence in Iraq increased following the US invasion of 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hussein – but their relationship is far from being a simple agent-proxy arrangement. Iran’s strongest influence is through its paramilitaries’ presence in Iraq’s security apparatus, but Iraq has also exhibited some political independence from its neighbour and maintains financial leverage over Iran. Europeans can help increase Iraq’s autonomy. In the economic sector, they should strengthen its financial institutions through global integration and digitisation. European countries can also work alongside Gulf states to broaden their ties with Iraq, including in foreign investment and a shift from a development or humanitarian aid framework towards normal bilateral ties. However, for any European policy to be successful in Iraq, it must be designed within a broader framework of ending the war in Gaza and resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – without which the dangerous escalation across the Middle East may continue.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Political stability, Proxy Groups, Regional Politics, and Axis of Resistance
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Iran, and Middle East
18. Coordination Framework Militias Pass New Anti-LGBTQ Legislation
- Author:
- Michael Knights and Amir al-Kaabi
- Publication Date:
- 04-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
- Abstract:
- Although they avoided embarrassing Prime Minister Sudani during his recent Washington visit, they passed abhorrent new legislation as soon as he was back home. On April 27, Iraq’s parliament passed an amendment to the Anti-Prostitution Law that includes anti-LGBTQ provisions prohibiting “sexual deviation” and “changing a person's biological sex.” These trends fit into the accelerating pattern of persecution since the Sudani government was installed by the Shia militia-led Coordination Framework (CF) in October 2022. Although the parliament's decision was not purely a CF action, the lion’s share of its support came from CF and muqawama (resistance) partners, while the measure was boycotted by most Kurdish and Sunni politicians. Importantly, the idea of amending the law—whose title distracts from its primary focus on outlawing LGBTQ communities—was championed by CF factions such as the Badr Organization, Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), and the U.S.-designated terrorist movement Kataib Hezbollah via its parliamentary bloc the Hoquq Movement. The new amendment calls for punishing anyone who engages in homosexuality with a minimum jail sentence of ten years, and anyone who "promotes homosexuality" with a minimum sentence of seven years.
- Topic:
- Domestic Politics, LGBT+, and Legislation
- Political Geography:
- Iraq and Middle East
19. A New Era in Iraq’s Relations with the West?
- Author:
- Selin Uysal and Devorah Margolin
- Publication Date:
- 06-2024
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
- Abstract:
- Amid growing pressure to dissolve the coalition and withdraw troops, the United States and its partners should continue pursuing good relations with Baghdad—but this time with a lighter footprint and increased regional cooperation. At Baghdad’s request, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) has been ordered to cease operations in December 2025, following a previous decision to shut down the UN team charged with investigating the Islamic State’s crimes in Iraq (UNITAD). Meanwhile, Baghdad plans to close the country’s remaining camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs), first opened at the height of the war against IS. More broadly, it seeks to normalize its diplomatic activism in the region, which recently included mediating rapprochement talks between Turkey and the Syrian regime. Despite the international support and military cooperation that have defined Western relations with Iraq in the post-Saddam era, Baghdad has begun to reevaluate longstanding arrangements. Washington and its partners should follow suit, scrutinizing the current basis of relations with Iraq amid changes in the local and regional environment, while simultaneously preserving the relationship's most beneficial aspects.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, Displacement, and Interstate Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Iraq and Middle East
20. Oil: A Blessing for Politicians and a Curse for the People of Basra
- Author:
- Azhar Al-Rubaie
- Publication Date:
- 07-2024
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
- Abstract:
- The deterioration of public health in oil extraction cities requires tangible actions to end the suffering of the affected people by providing specialized treatment centers funded by the social benefits from petroleum profits. In June 2023, Iraq’s Council of Representatives approved the federal budget for 2023, 2024, and 2025. The state has allocated 198.9 trillion dinars ($153 billion) for each year, a staggering sum and the largest in the country’s history. Although Iraq is a top oil-producing country, observers have been alarmed at this uptick in spending, and they have good reason to believe that these vast sums will not reach the citizens but instead fill the pockets of the corrupt. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, Iraq consistently ranks as one of the most corrupt governments, and despite the massive budgets approved in Baghdad, everyday Iraqis continue to suffer from weak infrastructure, lack of job opportunities, and poor services in essential sectors such as healthcare. In the oil-rich city of Basra in Iraq’s south, local residents living near oil sites complain about the high rates of cancer, respiratory illness, and nervous system diseases, along with the scarcity of medicines and poor healthcare in the public sector. The dearth of basic services frequently forces patients to travel abroad to countries like Iran, India, Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon, spending up to $6 million monthly to receive medical treatment. This contributes to the waste of public funds and their diversion abroad, which some might use to justify the smuggling of hard currency, especially to Iran.
- Topic:
- Corruption, Development, Oil, Services, and Public Health
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Middle East, and Basra