Iraq, consociationalism and the incoherence of the state

This paper uses Iraq as a case study to answer the research question, how do consociational settlements impact the state? Firstly, the paper argues that consociationalism, at best, has an under-theorized conception of the state, implicitly defaulting to an unexamined neo-Weberian model. The paper then surveys state theory and finds that key works on the state in the Middle East are vulnerable to the postcolonial critique of Eurocentrism. To overcome this, the paper deploys the works of Mann, Jessop, and Bourdieu to develop a universal model of the state, disaggregating the state, conceiving of it as a series of competitive fields, bureaucratic, political, coercive, and economic. The paper then uses this model to assess how a consociational political settlement impacts upon the state. Deploying a disaggregated model of the state, the paper argues that Iraq’s consociational settlement shifted the balance of power in the bureaucratic field away from any autonomous power or centralized coherence that the institutions and the civil service possessed toward the political parties empowered by the consociational system. After being empowered by the informal consociational settlement, it is the political parties who now dominate the system for their own ends.