‘Despite it all?’: The Failure of Iraq’s Thawrat Tishreen

The largest protest movement in Iraq’s history, Thawrat Tishreen of 2019, shouldn’t have achieved so little. The movement pursued well-tested tactics, which had succeeded elsewhere, against a weak Iraqi regime for months on end, refusing to be swayed by brutal repression, token concessions, or elite co-option.^[1] Despite the sustained mobilisation of a massive, cross-sectarian, cross-class coalition around a core set of clear demands, Thawrat Tishreen resulted in incidental, though not entirely insignificant, political gains, but failed to change its primary target, Iraq’s Muhasasa system of sectarian power sharing. In this piece, I will argue that this failure is best explained by the decentralised, diffuse character of the Muhasasa system, the weakness of which engenders opposition by failing to deliver robust governance, but, paradoxically, also enables its durability. Other factors did contribute to Thawrat Tishreen’s failure: the protest movement suffered from some organisational weaknesses; the political machinations of different factions in Iraq like the Sadrists undermined the cause; and exogenous factors such as foreign intervention and the COVID-19 pandemic played a role. Nonetheless, these obstacles acquired causal force because of the dynamics of the Muhasasa system and would not have otherwise created such significant difficulties for the opposition.

This essay will proceed as follows: (1) I will contextualise and analyse the salient features of Thawrat Tishreen, especially its organisation, its demands, and responses to the protests; (2) I will argue that, despite limited political successes, the movement should be coded a failure; and (3) I will establish that, above all else, the intractability of the Muhasasa system made failure very likely. I demonstrate this argument (3) by (a) pursing a deeper analysis of why the nature of the Muhasasa system made success unlikely; (b) outlining ways in which the protest movement was deficient, while linking the significance of these deficiencies back to the Muhasasa system; and (c) accounting for exogenous factors, which played a role, but are not of primary significance. Conversely, I will not attempt to fully explain the historical development of Iraq’s Muhasasa system or its subsequent trajectory, but rather focus on why Thawrat Tishreen failed to bring about its demise.

Thawrat Tishreen has attracted attention from scholars, analysts, and practitioners focused on the MENA region both because of its significance to the domestic politics of Iraq and its occurrence alongside the other protest movements of the ‘Second Arab Spring’ of 2018-19.^[2] Scholarly attention has broadly sought to situate the protest movement in Iraq’s post-2003 politics, assess its aims, and suggest reasons for its failure. I draw on these academic interventions to a certain degree but also rely heavily on articles published by think tanks, newspapers, and NGOs during and after the crisis. I also utilise polling data, protest datasets, and analyses of social media posts. Furthermore, I have drawn inspiration from informal conversations with academics, diplomats, activists, and citizens of Iraq. To situate my piece, then, in the emerging discourse on Thawrat Tishreen, my main goal is not to contribute new primary material, but rather, as the dust settles, to take stock of contemporaneous data and analyses of events. I focus on (1) the extent to which Thawrat Tishreen should be coded a failure and (2) the determinants of failure, because these two questions are still the main objects of contention in both academic and quotidian discussion around the uprising.

1. Context, Events, Organisation, and Responses

Thawrat Tishreen did not come out of nowhere. Since the US-led invasion of 2003, Iraqi politics has been characterised by violence, instability, and elite infighting, breeding widespread discontent. Iraq’s 43 million strong population is composed of three main sectarian groups: Shi'i Arabs (c. 61%), Sunni Kurds (c. 20%), and Sunni Arabs (c. 15%).^[3] The 2005 Constitution attempted to resolve the sectarian question, which had been a thorn in the side of Saddam Hussein’s authoritarian regime and the main priority of the Shi'i-dominated Iraqi opposition, by introducing a consociational sectarian power sharing agreement, the Muhasasa system. The word ‘Muhasasa’ comes from the Arabic for ‘apportionment’ and, in political terms, stipulates that the Iraqi government is divided among sectarian groups in an informal quota system. In institutional terms, the Presidency is reserved for a Kurd, the position of Prime Minister for a Shi'i and the Speaker of Parliament a Sunni. Cabinet positions are allocated roughly in proportion to the share of the population made up from each group, and a certain level of representation is guaranteed for Iraq’s Assyrian and Turkmen minorities.^[4] In practice, this results in a system of political economy in which the Iraqi state is divided by deeply entrenched patronage networks, political advancement depends on factional loyalty rather than competence, systemic corruption based on sectarian affiliation is rampant, and foreign interference through political parties and non-state armed groups is widespread.^[5]

The Iraqi government formed in 2005 took over the reins of a very weak state. After wars against Iran in the 1980s and the US-led coalition in 1990-91, as well as severe sections and multiple uprisings in the 1990s, the Iraqi state was all but dismantled by the US-led invasion of 2003 and the Coalition Provisional Authority’s campaign of ‘De-Ba'athification’. Institutional fragility, the US occupation, and the dysfunctional politics of post-2003 Iraq led to major civil wars from 2006-8 and 2013-17. This weakness was compounded by a reliance on oil, which makes up 99% of Iraqi exports, 85% of government budget, and 42% of total GDP.^[6] While Iraq’s oil wealth is considerable, it is largely siphoned between different factions as part of the Muhasasa arrangement, leading to acute governance failures. Especially after 2011, Iraqi citizens began protesting against government dysfunction, corruption, foreign influence, and the excesses of the Muhasasa system.^[7] These protests increasingly acquired a non-sectarian character despite the sectarian nature of Iraqi politics.

The outbreak of massive protest in Iraq in 2019 can be traced to several domestic drivers but must also be contextualised in regional and international terms. The 2010-11 Arab Uprisings ‘missed’ Iraq in the sense that no major, sustained protests broke out and the Iraqi system was never threatened by popular mobilisation. Nonetheless, like other states in MENA, Iraq was experiencing the demographic pressures of a youth bulge in the 2010s, with 67% of its population under 30 years old by 2019.^[8] Indeed, major protest movements also broke out in Sudan, Algeria, and Lebanon in the 2018-19 period. While there were strong links between the protests in Iraq and Lebanon where a similarly ‘sectarianised’ political economy exists, the eruption of protest in Sudan and Algeria was largely incidental. Overall, though, the 2010s was a particularity ‘revolutionary’ period for the MENA region as a whole.

In the context of rising corruption, economic problems, unemployment, sustained US and Iranian foreign penetration, and appalling governance failures—road, electricity, water, and sewage systems in much of the country are not functioning—government legitimacy in Iraq was steadily decreasing through the 2010s, with lower and lower turnouts at elections.^[9] So why 2019? On a basic level, Iraqi society has spent most of the post-Saddam Hussein period either recovering from the trauma of 2003 invasion and 2006-8 civil war or facing down the threat of Daesh up to at least mid-2018. Thus, these critical existential challenges to Iraq as a unified country precluded the formation of such a large-scale protest movement. Two immediate triggers, moreover, precipitated the extraordinary protests that began on 1 October 2019. First, the security forces’ violent suppression of a protest by holders of advanced degrees in Basra on 25 September generated widespread outrage on social media. Second, the demotion of Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi from the prestigious Counter Terrorism Service to a position in the Ministry of Defence on 27 September stoked anger against perceived Iranian influence in Iraq. The demotion of Saadi, who was celebrated as a war hero in Iraq’s defeat of Daesh, was interpreted by many as another capitulation by Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to Iran-aligned factions in the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), who opposed Saadi.

Nothing, however, could have predicted the scale, intensity, or duration of the protest movement, which lasted from October and petered out by early March.^[10] Berman, Clarke, and Majed’s dataset (fig 1) of weekly protests coded by main demand usefully elucidates the goals of the protestors and separates the protests into four main phases: escalation, dispersion, resuscitation, and demobilisation.^[11] A few key events are worth reflecting upon in this narrative. First, the ‘escalation’ phase was fuelled both by the protests’ original demands and by anger at the violence of state and state-affiliated actors, including the PMF and other non-stated armed groups. With the resignation of Abdu-Mahdi, the escalation phase came to an end, however protests were sustained through December by calls for more systemic reform. Massive protest was resuscitated in January, first by reactions to the assassination of Qasem Souleimani, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the head of the PMF; and second by anger at the failure of the political elite to form an alternative government to Abdul-Mahdi by the so-called ‘Nasiriyah deadline’. The final demobilisation of protest was the result of several interlinked factors, which will be the focus of part (4).

The decentralised, non-hierarchical leadership structures of Thawrat Tishreen make it difficult to definitively ascertain its goals, but the bottom line is that protesters wanted an end to the Muhasasa system’s institutional division of the state along sectarian lines. Protestors also demanded fresh elections, accountability for regime violence, the technocratic improvement of public services, better employment opportunities, and the erosion of foreign influence by the USA and Iran. Berman, Clarke, and Majed’s dataset (fig 1) utilises local, Arabic-language newspapers to categorise both non-violent and violent popular mobilisation according to their primary demand. As the figure shows, protests were overtly political in character, calling for new elections and changes to the political system. Chants such as ‘No to Muhasasa, no to political sectarianism!’ and ‘The people want the fall of the regime!’ were widespread.^[12] Large scale analysis of protestor signs found on social media provides another effective mode of delineating Thawrat Tishreen’s main goals. Numan’s research employs exhaustive research on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to identify and code 2113 distinct protestor signs; his findings sustain the assertion by most commentaries on the movement that Thawrat Tishreen was overtly anti-sectarian and cast itself strongly in terms of Iraqi nationalism, with about 50% of all protestor signs containing the uniting symbol of the Iraqi flag.^[13]

In organisational terms, Thawrat Tishreen was characterised by massive, spontaneous youth mobilisation, initially organised through local networks and social media, but later coordinated by committees of activists. Like the first phases of the 2011 Arab Uprisings, leaderlessness was a defining feature of the protests.^[14] Crucially, protestors did not mobilise according to class or sectarian identity, but rather Shi'i and Sunnis united across sectarian lines around Iraqi nationalism, even if some political parties were more energetic than others in sending their supporters to protest.^[15] It is worth noting, however, that protest was concentrated in Baghdad and the Shi'i-dominated South, and a majority of protesters were working class.^[16] Action was overwhelmingly and intentionally nonviolent, manifesting through demonstrations, sit-ins, the occupation of squares, and the construction of barricades. In many activist spaces, an air of ‘fun’ and ‘communitas’ emerged, a feature of Iraq’s protests that was shared in Lebanon.^[17] Still, the use of nonlethal violence on the part of protestors was not uncommon, for example, with the burning of Iranian consulates or attacks on buildings. Attacks on security forces were sporadic and usually in response to state or state-affiliated violence.

In contrast to the avowed nonviolence of the Tishreen protesters, regime and especially regime affiliated forces meted out considerable repression, resulting in the death of at least 600 protesters, the injury of over 20,000, and incalculable trauma.^[18] This ranged from internet blackouts and curfews on the one hand to the intimidation, beating, torture, kidnapping, and killing of protestors on the other, often by hidden snipers overlooking occupied public squares. Repression inflicted by non-state actors, primarily non-state armed groups and anti-Tishreen political parties, was generally more violent and brutal than that of the regime.^[19] The facelessness of repression by non-state and state-affiliated armed groups further shielded the government from accountability.

2. Political Successes, Failed Revolution

Thawrat Tishreen failed to realise its core aims, even if it did not accomplish nothing. Following Chenoweth and Stephan, I define success as the ‘full achievement of its stated goals within a year of the peak of activities and a discernible effect on the outcome such that the outcome was a direct result of the campaign’s activities’.^[20] It has been noted that the organisational form of Thawrat Tishreen prevented the coalescence of a single, definitive list of aims, but it has also been shown that certain core demands were common across the entire movement—better governance, the reduction of foreign influence in Iraqi politics, the improvement of the economic situation, and, centrally, the end of the Muhasasa system of sectarian power sharing. In this section, I argue, contrary to some commentators, that Thawrat Tishreen had some significant successes before reflecting that, despite these successes, the revolution should be considered on the whole a failure.^[21]

In direct response to sustained pressure from the Tishreen protests, Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi resigned on 29 November despite repression and attempts behind the scenes to keep him in power. In addition, the Council of Representatives passed a significant electoral reform law on 24 December, which responded to the demands of protestors by eroding the power of the political establishment in picking candidates and establishing an independent High Electoral Commission. Early elections were scheduled for July 2021. Furthermore, when he was finally able to form a government in May 2020, the new Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi formed a more technocratic cabinet than Abdul-Mahdi, compensated the families of killed protestors with 10 million dinars each, better mitigated foreign influence, and held several meetings with Tishreen activists.^[22] Since Thawrat Tishreen, moreover, a new ‘culture of perpetual protest’ has emerged in Iraq.^[23] Largely rooted in the legacy of Thawrat Tishreen, this holds Iraqi politicians more accountable to some degree, but also has been coopted and instrumentalised by many political factions that are deeply tied to the Muhasasa system.^[24] The longer term effects of Thawrat Tishreen on Iraqi political culture remains to be seen.

Overall, however, public opinion data and a more thorough analysis of political developments demonstrate that Thawrat Tishreen ought to be considered a failure. While the revolution forced Abdul-Mahdi to resign, the Muhasasa system remains in place. Prime Minister aspirants Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi and Adnan Zurfi both failed to form governments during the protests because they did not command the support of the Muhasasa political class, and Kadhimi only succeeded because he did.^[25] Kadhimi succeeded because he was able to balance different sectarian factions against each other as well as placate both the USA and Iran. Government formation witnessed the same costly and corruption-ridden ‘horse-trading’ of previous ministries. The ‘early elections’ of 2021 brought about a political crisis that lasted over a year and was emblematic of everything the Tishreen protestors had rallied against. To make matters worse, only 36% of eligible voters turned out to vote in 2021, demonstrating a lack of faith in politics.^[26] While Kadhimi was perhaps more skilful at mitigating the power of non-state armed groups, the actions of non-state actors during the protests remains unpunished and these groups retain a powerful role in Iraqi politics. For example, while both Kadhimi and his successor, al-Sudani, were temporarily able to restrain violence between non-state armed groups like Kata’ib Hezbollah and US forces, the Israeli assault on Gaza that followed the 7 October attacks has led to several fatal exchanges between the US and Iran-affiliated groups. In addition, the Iraqi economy remains dependent on oil markets, having been hit hard by COVID in 2020 with a contraction of 10% and an 18.5% devaluation of the Iraqi Dinar against the dollar.^[27]

Polling data, moreover, evidences the widespread perception that Thawrat Tishreen failed to change the Iraqi system. In 2021, Arab Barometer found that just 22% of Iraqis trust the government.^[28] Only 3% believe corruption is ‘not at all’ a problem, 68% felt corruption was ‘to a large extent’ prevalent, and, perhaps most worryingly, just 27% believed the government was working to crack down on corruption. Negative perceptions of democracy have increased since 2019; 72% of Iraqis link democracy to their country’s poor economic performance and 67% link democratic government to indecision and problems, even if 68% of Iraqis still believe that, despite democracy’s problems, it is a better system than others.^[29] Nonetheless, 37% of Iraqis expressed a desire to emigrate, with the figure rising to 48% for 18-29 year olds.^[30] This widespread discontent reflects the underlying problems that drove Iraqis to protest in 2019. At the same time, it demonstrates that Thawrat Tishreen failed to bring about systemic change.

3. Strength through Weakness: Muhasasa as the Primary Cause of Failure

The fragmented character of the Muhasasa system caused Thawrat Tishreen to fail. Not only does the nature of the system make meaningful reform very difficult, the structures of Muhasasa gave causal force to other factors which would not otherwise have undermined the revolution. I will demonstrate this part of my argument by (a) dissecting the aspects of the Muhasasa system that make reform so difficult; (b) explaining how the organisational structure of the protests contributed to failure—not because of inherent deficiencies per se, but as a result of their relationship to the Muhasasa system; and (c) outlining the role of exogenous factors, while also pointing out the ways in which their causal significance was enhanced in the context of Muhasasa.

a. The Intractability of the Muhasasa System

The last two decades have shown Muhasasa to be a poor system of government in Iraq, and yet its very frailty became a lifeline during Thawrat Tishreen. The system of factional bargaining and internal division is rooted in an elite pact model whereby disparate, mutually antagonistic elites representing distinct sectarian groups share an interest in the continuation of the system of rule, even if they are perpetually in competition over how the spoils of government are allocated.^[31] As a result, the resignation of individual politicians does not precipitate systemic change because, unlike the (temporarily) successful 2010-11 uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, there is no Ben Ali or Mubarak to remove and replace with a democratically elected executive.^[32] In short, there is no king whose head the revolutionaries can cut off. Furthermore, Muhasasa’s system of power sharing means that any attempts to bring about meaningful reform are likely to be interpreted by some political actors in sectarian terms, which risks the outbreak of violence and, in the worst case, civil war. Non-state armed groups are another source of its durability; they pressure the state to do their bidding, advance the interests of foreign powers, coordinate illicit economic activity, and intimidate, abduct, and assassinate opponents.^[33] To provide a visual analogy, Muhasasa operates like a chain of people holding hands in a circle, leaning back away from one another. It is hard for the ring to move in any single direction, but also nearly impossible for one hand in the chain to pull away without being pulled back into the fold or precipitating total collapse.

Strong financial incentives exist for the continuation of the Muhasasa system.^[34] Competition over state resources, primarily derived through oil rents, has defined post-2003 Iraqi politics from the beginning.^[35] Indeed, between 2005 and 2018 the government payroll expanded from $3.8 billion to nearly $36 billion.^[36] Although corruption is very difficult to measure, through confidential interviews with high ranking members of the Iraqi political elite Dodge has estimated that around 25% of government resources are lost through contractual fraud.^[37] Non-state armed groups and affiliated political parties benefit directly from access to these resources, but also use their elevated position to extract tolls at checkpoints and attract foreign patronage, mainly from Iran. As Majed forcefully argues, Muhasasa is intimately bound together with a system of political economy of corruption by design.^[38] Factions have consciously fought ‘over’ the state with this system in mind. As one PMF affiliate, Mohammad al-Basri, put it: ‘Do they really think that we would hand over a state, an economy, one that we have built over 15 years? That they can just casually come and take it? Impossible! This is a state that was built with blood’.^[39] Ultimately, the nature of the political system, financial incentives for its perpetuation, and a perception by groups of having ‘won’ control over portions of the state make the Muhasasa system extremely difficult to reform.

b. Deficiencies in the Organisation of the Protests

The organisational structure of the Thawrat Tishreen protests weakened the movement, but primarily because of the correspondent form of its target, the Muhasasa system. As a result of the targeting of opposition figures by non-state armed groups, as well as the protesters’ rejection of mainstream politics, the protests were largely leaderless, preventing them from offering clear alternatives to the political elite.^[40] Much like the first wave of the Arab Uprisings, the protestors demanded that the political class reform itself. Unlike the 2010-11 uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt where protestors had a single, unified state to rally against, the internal fragmentation of Iraqi institutions into siloed sectarian groupings made it more difficult to effect change. Furthermore, at the 2021 elections Tishreen activists failed to set up political parties that could attract widespread support. Scholars have noted that revolutionary movements in democracies often face this obstacle because they arise from diverse, negative coalitions.^[41] The non-hierarchical organisation of Thawrat Tishreen is a case in point.

It must be noted, however, that non-hierarchical, negative coalitions have succeeded in regime change elsewhere, with the uprisings of 2010-11 being the most obvious example.^[42] With this in mind, Thawrat Tishreen’s organisational patterns must be understood as deficient primarily in relation to the system they were targeting. First, the demand that the Iraqi political elite reform itself was precluded by the strong incentives for elite collusion. Second, no alternative ‘pacted-transition’ option existed; in Grewal’s comparison of the 2018-19 uprisings in Sudan and Algeria, he suggests that the opposition in Sudan (temporarily) succeeded because an organised civil society arranged a transitional pact with the regime under the aegis of the Sudanese Professionals’ Association.^[43] In contrast, the target system of oppression in Iraq is diffuse and hard to pin down, which makes a packed transition impossible.

c. Exogenous Factors: Political Contingency, Foreign Interference, and COVID-19

Prevailing narratives often suggest that Thawrat Tishreen was brought down by exogenous factors such as Iranian influence, the political machinations of Muqtada al-Sadr, the assassination of Qasem Souleimani by the USA, or the COVID-19 pandemic. While all of these factors were relevant, they—like the organisational form of the protests—acquired causal significance primarily by affecting the operation of the Muhasasa system.

Iraq is so vulnerable to foreign interference to a large degree as a result of the Muhasasa system. Indeed, this is partially by design. The Coalition Provisional Authority approved the system of sectarian power sharing proposed by Iraqi Shi'i exiles in the 1990s because the US envisioned future influence being channelled through these structures. The actual result has been the massive expansion of Iranian influence in Iraqi politics. For example, Iran controls several political parties and non-state armed groups to a considerable degree, using them to assault Tishreen protestors and as part of its ‘Axis of Resistance’ against American forces. Despite its often radical rhetoric, Iran should be understood as a counterrevolutionary actor, especially in Iraq where Tishreen reforms threatened its interests.^[44] Partially as a result of Iranian penetration of Muhasasa, respect for Iraqi sovereignty by external powers like the USA or Türkiye is lower than for most states in the world—hence the Trump administration’s decision to conduct a drone strike on an Iranian government official, Qasem Souleimani, and Iraqi citizen Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis on 3 January 2020 without any prior Iraqi authorisation. The effect of these attacks was to rally many Iraqis against America, taking some of the pressure off Iran.

Another direct result of the assassinations was the split between the Sadrists and the Tishreen movement.^[45] Muqtada al-Sadr leads a broad-based political movement in Iraq that emphasises Shi'i Islamism as well as social justice. From around 2015, Sadr became increasingly willing to ally himself with secularist protest movements and supported the Tishreen protests in autumn 2019. After Tishreen organisers refused to join Sadr’s 24 January anti-American protests, however, the powerful cleric withdrew his support for the movement and directed his ‘Blue Helmets’ to join the attacks on protestors. With the PMF leader Mahdi al-Muhandis assassinated, Sadr saw an opportunity to bolster his leadership credentials among the various anti-Tishreen Shi'i groups that compose the PMF.^[46] The Sadrist reversal had far-reaching effects—many of the millions of Sadrists who had protested as part of Thawrat Tishreen were now violently attacking its protesters—but it did not kill the revolution by itself. Instead, it must be recognised that the decision of one faction to change sides could only have been so pivotal in the context of, first, a political system as convoluted as Muhasasa and, second, a decentralised, non-hierarchical, negative coalition like the Tishreen movement.^[47] Foreign interference and political machinations played such a significant role primarily because of their interaction with the highly intractable Muhasasa system. By the time Iraq introduced COVID-19 response measures in March 2020, the durability of Muhasasa had broken down the bulk of Thawrat Tishreen’s support.^[48]

4. Conclusion

I would like to end by restating my two main contentions: (1) Thawrat Tishreen achieved certain important political successes but ought overall to be considered a failure; and (2) the movement failed primarily because of the intractability of the Muhasasa system. Although other factors, including the character of protest mobilisation, foreign intervention, the political machinations of the Sadrists, and the COVID-19 pandemic played a role, the decentralised and entrenched Muhasasa system endowed causal agency to these factors, which would otherwise have been less important. It must be noted that the full effects of Thawrat Tishreen remain to be seen. As Iraq’s post-Saddam Hussein, post-civil war political trajectory continues to unfold, time will tell whether the foundations laid down by Thawrat Tishreen prove central to future attempts at establishing a more just and robust system of government in Iraq.

---

Asa Breuss-Burgess

Asa Breuss-Burgess is a researcher, writer, and geopolitical risk analyst based in London. His work focuses on the intersection energy, climate change, and power politics in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula. He holds an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a BA in History and Politics from the University of Oxford. 

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Professor Killian Clarke for his guidance and support throughout my research. In addition, I am immensely grateful for the counsel and inspiration of Yehya Abuzaid, Haley Bobseine, Dr Aaron Faust, Mustafa Afif Abdulazeez al-Nuwab, Dr Angeline Turner, and Dr Joseph Yackley. Of course, all opinions expressed in this piece, and the mistakes therein, are entirely my own.

---

^[1] For successful cases that used similar methods to Iraq, see Erica Chenoweth and Maria J Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works : The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia University Press 2011).

^[2] Leonid Issaev and Andrey Korotaev (eds), New Wave of Revolutions in the MENA Region : A Comparative Perspective (Springer 2022).

^[3] The remaining 4% identify with various other minorities, including Christians, Yazidis, Assyrians, and Turkmen. Central Intelligence Agency, ‘Iraq’ in The World Factbook 2021 (Central Intelligence Agency 2021).

^[4] Toby Dodge, ’The Failure of Peacebuilding in Iraq: The Role of Consociationalism and Political Settlements’ (2020) 15(4) Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 460.

^[5] ibid 459-75.

^[6] The World Bank, ‘The World Bank in Iraq’ (The World Bank, 1 June 2022) <https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iraq/overview> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[7] Hafsa Halawa, Iraq’s Tishreen Movement: A Decade of Protests and Mobilisation, (Istituto Affari Internazionali 2022) 7.

^[8] Maria Fantappie, ‘Widespread Protests Point to Iraq’s Cycle of Social Crisis’ (International Crisis Group, 10 October 2019) <https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iraq/widespread-protests-point-iraqs-cycle-social-crisis> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[9] Turnout reached a low point of 10% in Basra at the 2018 election. Renad Mansour, ‘Why Iraq’s Elections Were an Indictment of the Elite’ (World Politics Review, 18 May 2018) <https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/why-iraq-s-elections-were-an-indictment-of-the-elite/> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[10] Halawa (n 7) 7. For the inherent unpredictability of a revolutionary episode, see Charles Kurzman, ‘Can Understanding Undermine Explanation? The Confused Experience of Revolution’ (2004) 34(3) Philosophy of the Social Sciences 328-51.

^[11] Chantal Berman, Killian Clarke, and Rima Majed, ‘Theorizing Revolution in Democracies: Evidence from the 2019 Uprisings in Lebanon and Iraq’ (2023) 15 <https://doi.org/10.35188/UNU-WIDER/2023/359-8> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[12] Arwa Ibrahim, ‘Muhasasa, the political system reviled by Iraqi protesters’ (Al Jazeera, 4 December 2019) <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/4/muhasasa-the-political-system-reviled-by-iraqi-protesters> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[13] Haitham Numan, ‘The Multimodal Framing Demands by Protesters’ Signs in Social Media: Meaning and Sources of Visual and Textual Messages: The Case of Iraq’ (2022) 15(3-4) Contemporary Arab Affairs 19.

^[14] Asef Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring (Stanford University Press 2017) 153.

^[15] Berman, Clarke, and Majed (n 11) 9.

^[16] Fanar Haddad, ‘Perpetual Protest and the Failure of the Post-2003 Iraqi State’ (MERIP, 22 March 2023) <https://merip.org/2023/03/perpetual-protest-and-the-failure-of-the-post-2003-iraqi-state/> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[17] Asef Bayat, Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Stanford University Press 2013) 129-150; Rima Majed, ‘“Sectarian Neoliberalism” and the 2019 Uprisings in Lebanon and Iraq’ in Jeffrey G Karam and Rima Majed (eds), The Lebanon Uprising of 2019: Voices from the Revolution (Bloomsbury 2022) 85.

^[18] UNAMI and OHCHR, ‘Human Rights Violations and Abuses in the Context of Demonstrations in Iraq October 2019 to April 2020’ (August 2020) <https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/human-rights-violations-and-abuses-context-demonstrations-iraq-october-2019-april-2020> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[19] Berman, Clarke, and Majed (n 11) 16.

^[20] Chenoweth and Stephan (n 1) 14.

^[21] Higel, for example, significantly downplays the achievements of the movement in Lahib Higel, ‘On Third Try, a New Government for Iraq’ (International Crisis Group, 8 May 2020) <https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iraq/third-try-new-government-iraq> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[22] Andrey Mardasov, ‘Revolutionary Protests in Iraq in the Context of Iranian-American Confrontation’ in Issaev and Korotaev (n 2) 95.

^[23] Haddad (n 16). 

^[24] Renad Mansour and Benedict Robin-D’Cruz, ‘The Basra Blueprint and the Future of Protest in Iraq’ (Chatham House Blog, 8 October 2019) 19 <https://www.chathamhouse.org/2019/10/basra-blueprint-and-future-protest-iraq> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[25] Raad Alkadiri, ‘Can Mustafa Kadhimi, the Latest Compromise Candidate, Repair Iraq’s Broken System?’ (LSE Blogs, 21 April 2020) <https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2020/04/21/can-mustafa-kadhimi-the-latest-compromise-candidate-repair-iraqs-broken-system/> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[26] Lahib Higel, ‘Iraq’s Surprise Election Results’ (International Crisis Group, 16 November 2021) <https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iraq/iraqs-surprise-election-results> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[27] Arab Barometer, ‘Arab Barometer VI: Iraq Country Support’ (2021) 6 <https://www.arabbarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/Iraq-Arab-Barometer-Public-Opinion-2021-ENG.pdf> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[28] ibid 10.

^[29] Arab Barometer. ‘Democracy in the Middle East & North Africa’ (2022) 4-9 <https://www.arabbarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/ABVII_Governance_Report-EN-1.pdf> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[30] Arab Barometer (n 27) 9.

^[31] Haddad (n 16). 

^[32] Berman, Clarke, and Majed (n 11) 6.

^[33] UNAMI & OHCHR (n 18) 27-36.

^[34] Haddad (n 16). 

^[35] Zahra Ali, ‘Theorising Uprisings: Iraq’s Thawrat Teshreen’ (2023) Third World Quarterly 1–16. 

^[36] Dodge (n 4) 469.

^[37] Toby Dodge, ’Iraq’s Informal Consociationalism and Its Problems’ (2020) 20 Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 148.

^[38] Majed (n 17) 76; Ali (n 35) 4.

^[39] Quoted in Fanar Haddad, ‘Iraq protests: There is no going back to the status quo ante’ (Middle East Eye, 6 November 2019) <https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/iraq-protests-there-no-going-back-status-quo-ante> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[40] Majed (n 17) 83-4.

^[41] Berman, Clarke, and Majed (n 11) 2.

^[42] Chenoweth and Stephan (n 1); Bayat (n 14).

^[43] Sharan Grewal, ‘Why Sudan Succeeded Where Algeria Failed’ (2021) 32(5) Journal of Democracy 102.

^[44] Danny Postel, ‘The Other Regional Counter-Revolution: Iran’s Role in the Shifting Political Landscape of the Middle East’ (New Politics, 7 July 2021) <https://newpol.org/the-other-regional-counter-revolution-irans-role-in-the-shifting-political-landscape-of-the-middle-east/> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[45] Mansour and Robin-D’Cruz (n 24) 6.

^[46] Benedict Robin-D’Cruz & Renad Mansour, ‘Making Sense of the Sadrists: Fragmentation and Unstable Politics’ (Foreign Policy Research Institute, March 2020) <https://www.fpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/iraq-chapter-1.pdf> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[47] Don Jacobson, ‘Millions rally in Iraq to demand removal of U.S. military forces’ (United Press International, 24 January 2020) <https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/01/24/Millions-rally-in-Iraq-to-demand-removal-of-US-military-forces/7411579868399/> accessed 16 June 2025.

^[48] Berman, Clarke, and Majed (n 11) 10.