Four Models of Democracy:

Civic Republicanism and the Emerging Iraq

Michael A. Cole
2005
 Two lessons of recent democratization movements are that liberal democratic

regimes are value-charged and that failure to balance the competing demands of culture

and democracy lead to dysfunction and illegitimacy. As the number of nominal

democratic governments grows so too do descriptions of democracy divorced from

Western liberalism. Iraq’s longstanding religious, ethnic and tribal conflicts were

suppressed by decades of authoritarianism, and now manifest themselves in the debates

over what Iraq will be, how it will be governed, and by whom. Democracy’s emergence

as Iraq’s form of government begins a complex process of development. Four models of

democracy – liberal democracy, civic republicanism, deliberative democracy and radical

democracy – are presented. Each is distinctly Western, but they vary in their ability to

mould themselves to the contours of various political cultures. Civic republicanism holds

the greatest promise for Iraq for its ability to capitalize on the particular characters of

Iraq’s peoples and build unity around a core of malleable ideals.

LIBERAL DEMOCRACY

Late twentieth and early twenty-first century Western politics is characterized as a

hybrid of democratic forms, but liberalism has assumed such prominence in Western

democracies that its practitioners often do not distinguish it as one particular democratic

theory among several. If they do, then they often assert it is both superior to others and

universally applicable. This is particularly true in the United States, where the emphasis
 2

on individuals’ civil rights and civil liberties has dominated decades of debate and given

prominence to the language of liberalism.1 The briefest sketch shows that liberalism is

neither universally applicable nor satisfactory for the attainment of all conceivable,

legitimate objectives of a democracy.

The liberal tradition begins from an explication of the natural condition from

which people escape by joining in communities and constructing governments, thereby

mitigating the danger in nature and obeying its laws.

“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone: and

reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind … that being all equal and

independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty or possessions …

Every one … is bound [by nature and as functionaries of the Divine] to preserve

himself … so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not into

competition, ought he as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may

not, unless it be to do justice to an offender, take away, or impair the life, liberty, or

what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb or goods of

another.”2

The unit of liberal politics is the individual in a position of unalterable, natural freedom

and equality with others. Individuals are credited with capacities for rational thought,

choice, and freedom of conscience. They are granted freedom from coercion and are

presumed to use their liberty and intelligence to pursue their interests. Locke’s reference

to “‘life, liberty, and estate,’ concerns not only material property (‘estate’), but also …

the property each has ‘in his own Person.’”3 “Individuals create government in order to

protect the rights and liberties to which they are naturally entitled,”4 and the institution
 3

and defense of rights and liberties is the sole purpose of legitimate government.5

Legitimacy is a precondition for liberal governance; it is a function of the consent of the

governed; and the same failures and violations of government that undermine legitimacy

are acknowledged to be causes of complaint and even revolution by the governed.

Government’s limited ends imply its necessarily limited means. Liberalism accepts

constrained, divided government, and active citizens in competition with each other for

resources,6 as tools to maximize individuals’ liberty.

Although it suggests no particular political institutions or social movements,

liberalism lends itself to employment by many of each. The values contained in John

Locke’s Second Treatise direct the forms assumed by liberal movements and

governments as disparate as feminism, the American founding, and the Iraq’s political

development. For example, Martha Nussbaum somewhat controversially conceives of

liberalism as a salient feature of feminism for its “idea of the equal worth of human

beings as such, in virtue of their basic human capacities for choice and reasoning … The

crucial addition liberal feminism makes is to add sex to that list of morally irrelevant

characteristics [alongside rank, caste, and birth].”7 In this feminist model, liberalism

serves to right past wrongs and empower individuals.

“The liberal insists that the goal of politics should be the amelioration of lives taken

one by one and seen as separate ends, rather than the amelioration of the organic

whole or the totality. I argue that this is a very good position for women to

embrace, seeing that women have all too often been regarded not as ends but as

means to the ends of others.”8

 4

Writing for The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton addressed in distinctly liberal

language the hazards of inequality and conflict, and the capacity of citizens to guide

politics and as act as arbiters of legitimacy.

“It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and

example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really

capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or

whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on

accident and force … Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new

Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious

interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may

hazard a diminution of [their] power … and the perverted ambition of another class

of men, who will … hope to aggrandize themselves.”9

Madison’s response to the problem is an expression of liberal values.

“There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its

causes; the other by controlling its effects. There are again two methods of

removing the causes of faction: the one by destroying the liberty which is essential

to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same

passions, and the same interests. It could never be more truly said than of the first

remedy that it was worse than the disease … It could not be less folly to abolish

liberty, which is essential to political life … The second expedient is as

impracticable as the first would be unwise … The diversity in the faculties of men,

from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a
 5

uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of

government.”10

The Founders resolved that individual liberty and limited government are beneficial.

They adopted a framework of common procedures and mediated conflict to hamper

excesses of power and capitalize upon competition. The civic republican, deliberative,

and radical models of democracy would conceivably respond to feminism and the

dangers of faction quite differently.

Benjamin Barber’s critique of liberalism reveals much of what lies beneath the

democratic façade its practitioners have constructed over the centuries.

“Liberal democracy is based on premises … that are genuinely liberal but that are

not intrinsically democratic. Its conception of the individual and of individual

interest undermines the democratic practices upon which both individuals and their

interests depend. Liberal democracy is thus a ‘thin’ democracy, one whose

democratic values are prudential and thus provisional, optional and conditional …

From this precarious foundation, no firm theory of citizenship, participation, public

goods, or civic virtue can be expected to arise.”11

The liberal conceptions of human nature, knowledge and politics emerge directly from

liberal philosophy’s myth of the state of nature, yet the image of Man emerging alone and

brutish from prehistory – prior to civilization, political attachment, and the assertion of

“self-evident” rights – is rationally un-testable. The myth buttresses a system of rational

conclusions that Barber calls “grossly deficient as a model of political thinking.”12

In its most common forms, which Barber identifies as anarchism, realism, and

minimalism, liberalism employs ideas about human nature, knowledge and politics that
 6

are not conducive to participatory citizenship, dynamic communities, and advances in

human understanding. Liberalism maintains “a belief in the fundamental inability of the

human beast to live at close quarters with members of its own species. All three [models]

seek to structure human relations by keeping men apart rather than by bringing them

together.”13 In its approach to knowledge, liberal philosophy adopts the Cartesian

assumption that “there exists a knowable independent ground – an incorrigible first

premise or antecedent reality – from which the concepts, values, standards, and ends of

political life can be derived by simple deduction.”14 Liberal philosophy pursues political

knowledge as part of a quest for certainty, to “render intelligibility absolute and justice

incorrigible.”15 “Determined to develop a politics of applied truth … the liberal must

find impossible routes from nowhere (antecedent reality) to somewhere (concrete human

relations).”16 Barber suggests that liberalism is rendered intellectually vacuous and

unequal to the solution of real, human problems by this use of knowledge, and that

political theorists should instead endeavor to “render political life intelligible and

political practice just.”17 The same critique of liberal political theory carries to its

political activity. “The liberal democratic view of human nature … insists that the human

condition necessarily entails a certain form of political life … Liberal democratic politics

is thus the logic of a certain radical individualism … It is atomism wearing a social

mask.”18 Consistent emphases on individualism, competition, and concern for theoretical

salience in the liberal images of human nature, knowledge, and politics preclude rich

democratic traditions conceived by alternative democratic models.

 7

CIVIC REPUBLICANISM

Civic republicanism diverges from the liberal tradition by reorienting itself with

respect to the individual and the community and their relationship to each other, the

powers and purpose of government, and by emphasizing the role of the citizen as the

critical political actor. Like liberal philosophers before him, Jean-Jacques Rousseau

conceives of individuals in the state of nature as free and equal, unencumbered except by

one’s force upon another to attain the necessities for living. Significantly, Rousseau

mitigates liberals’ radical individualism by noting that man comes into the world as part

of a family, and are therefore born into a social order writ-small. Similarly, departure

from the state of nature exerts a socializing force on the individual.

“[The] passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces quite a

remarkable change in man, for it substitutes justice for instinct in his behaviour and

gives his actions a moral quality they previously lacked. Only then, when the voice

of duty replaces physical impulse and right replaces appetite, does man, who had

hitherto taken only himself into account, find himself forced to act upon other

principles and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations. His

faculties are exercised and developed, his ideas are broadened, his feelings are

ennobled, his entire soul is elevated…”19

Entrance into society is not merely functional, but transformative; it is the process by

which men become most distinctly human.

In Rousseau’s Social Contract, “the political question is a familial question writ

large.”20 By entering the social compact,

 8

“Each of us places his person and all his power in common under the supreme

direction of the general will; and as one receive each member as an indivisible part

of the whole … This act of association produces a moral and collective body

composed of as many members as there are voices in the assembly, which receives

from this same act its unity … its life and its will.”21

The relationship between man and state is accurately characterized as an interaction, and

not an exchange; each exerts a formative and empowering influence on the other, but the

state is never the master and is always the servant,22 as the citizen surrenders rights not to

the government but to the body politic composed of his equals. The resulting sovereign

power derives its legitimacy and solvency from the tacit, constant commitment of the

citizenry. The sovereign power is absolute and demands obedience of the citizens from

whom it receives authority. As the sovereign power is of the people, used to enforce the

decisions of the general will composed of the whole citizenry, it can by definition never

err.

The regime with which citizens engaged in politics thus construed should govern

themselves depends on the character of the state in question, provided conditions are met

to maintain the balance of power and the quality of active citizenship. As there is an

inverse relationship between the size of the state (by population) and the size of its

government, it follows that small states should be governed by councils of as many

citizens as is practicable, and large states will be governed by a few individuals. The

same scale exists between the size of a state and the liberty of its citizens. Yet the

sources of their power and legitimacy will remain the same. Representation, or

government by proxy, is anathema to the Rousseauean republic. The laziness, greed and
 9

cowardice Rousseau attributes to an inattentive citizenry are by definition the character of

the state, which makes it vulnerable to corruption from within and invasion from without.

As the best regime depends on the size of a people, the best government is defined by its

inclination. The goal of political association is “the preservation and prosperity of its

members,”23 and government is secondarily instituted to achieve objectives defined by

the general will. The government best able to meet these goals and still maintain civil

and political liberty can be said to be the most appropriate and successful government.

According to Aristotle, “‘The end and purpose of a polis is the good life, and the

institutions of social life are means to that end.’ It is only as participants in political

association that we can realize our nature and fulfill our highest ends.”24 As was true in

the Greek polis and in Rousseau’s republic, America’s republican tradition demands of

public life opportunities to substantively participate in self-governance and engage in

vibrant communities. Michael Sandel notes the presence of anxiety in American politics

despite the country’s apparent success and happiness, which he argues stems from the

feeling that people are losing control of the forces governing their lives and that the moral

fabric of community is unravelling,25 but that the prevailing procedural republic founded

on liberal political theory is ill-equipped to respond as needed. The challenges to

American republicanism are the same Rousseau attributes to large states, and extension

of government powers entailed therein is followed shortly by diminution of Americans’

liberty. The project of reopening public space for deliberation and participation is

undertaken against the flow of powerful political and market forces whose interests lie in

citizens’ privatism and acquiescence, and it follows the greater task (pursued throughout

American history) of developing citizens’ “capacities of character, judgment and concern

 10

for the whole”26 without resorting to coercion. The much broader project of defining and

promoting civic virtue, as Benjamin Rush said, “to save American republicanism from

the deadly effects of [the] private pursuits of happiness,”27 may occur only in the context

of rescinding the procedural republic, in which the right is promoted prior to the good.

Clearly, the challenges faced by civic republicanism are as imposing in practice as in

theory.

DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY

Central to each model of democracy is the idea that people, whether radically

individualistic or intimately tied to communities, possess the capacity for reason and the

inclination to pursue either personal or shared interests through political engagement.

Deliberation at all levels, between all participants in public life, about all issues of public

concern is among the most basic activities citizens can engage in to affect governance. It

is essential for legitimacy, and conducive to improved democratic functioning.

Roughly half of eligible American voters regularly choose not to vote; a growing

number of people express distrust for their representatives and dissatisfaction with

government’s activities; consecutive presidents appear not to place public engagement on

their agendas.28 The growing gap between citizens and their government suggests

negative consequences for the legitimacy of the American regime, which depends not on

acquiescence but on the consent of participating citizens expressing the public will.

Deliberation benefits the development of functional communities by bringing together

people from disparate corners of society to discuss issues and identify commonalities; it

acts as a conduit for new solutions to public problems to enter the discourse and receive
 11

action; and deliberation has been shown to lead to increased knowledge and participation,

all of which serve public interests. In Politics for People, David Matthews argues that

politics “is not purely instrumental. Politics is a creative activity in that it has to do with

building they kind of community and country we want … Politics is about

transformation, not just transactions.”29 This differs from Rousseau’s models of

decision-making because it peels away actors’ particularities to uncover a common good,

as opposed to a common will; but it agrees with the civic republican’s image of

participation as a transformative activity by which private actors become public

contributors.

RADICAL DEMOCRACY

Benjamin Barber’s strong democracy attempts to formulate a remedy to the

breakdown of community, citizenship, legitimacy, and government effectiveness the

preceding models identify as a growing danger to American democracy’s solvency.

Building from the Rousseauean belief that politics can be transformative, and the hopeful

Jeffersonian belief in human potential, Barber proposes a program of reforms and new

initiatives which have as their object the extension of democracy into most corners of the

lives of an increasingly competent citizenry. A central premise of his model is that

politics is autonomous of any preconceptual frame, which might otherwise color the

deliberative, participatory process of decision-making at the core of his prescriptions.

Perhaps most useful contribution of Strong Democracy is a reformulation of

politics and an alternative to liberalism’s preconceptual frame. The definition of that

which is political is too often missing from works of political theory. Very briefly,
 12

“Politics is what men do when metaphysics fails; it is not metaphysics reified as a

constitution.”30

“The political condition is engendered by history, circumstance, and context … The

citizen wishes in any case only to act rightly, not to know for certain; only to

choose reasonably, not to reason scientifically; only to overcome conflict and

secure transient peace, not to discover eternity; only to cooperate with others, not to

achieve moral one-ness; only to formulate common causes, not obliterate all

differences.”31

Barber’s radical democracy consists of the practical solutions determined by reasoning

persons to be best. By un-mediating government and institutionalizing substantive forms

of democratic talk, decision-making and action, Barber says, “Strong democracy looks to

wage a second war for suffrage, a second campaign to win the substance of citizenship

promised but never achieved by the winning of the vote”32

CIVIC REPUBLICANISM IN IRAQ

Iraq’s political troubles have reflected those of its neighbors for centuries as it has

changed from an unruly outpost of the Ottomon Empire to a center of Pan-Arabism, and

finally to the battlefield in a conflict between irredentist extremism and modernizing

forces of democracy. The dual image of Iraq’s conflict as both internal and external

carries important consequences for the kind of form its politics may assume in the near

future. Democracy offers Iraq an alternative to the autocratic rule of its past which need

not contradict its native political traditions, but the disjointed model applied first by the

occupation authority and then by Iraq’s National Assembly more readily facilitates
 13

elections than it can foster civic life. Liberalism is weighted with values that conflict

with Iraq’s prominent Islamic and tribal traditions. Civic republicanism holds promise

for its ability to capitalize on the native character of Iraq’s people, and channel their

differences into cooperation. The distinction is reflected in small ways by ongoing work

in Iraq’s political development.

As is often true, particularly in the non-Western world, history is essential to

understanding Iraq. Intellectual exchange between the West and the Near East was so

constant and of such importance through the fourteenth century that the distinction

between them was more artificial than real. It was not until the sixteenth century, as the

West pursued its Renaissance and the East entered the Ottomon age, that their paths

diverged.33 By the end of the eighteenth century, the Near East had changed little, as its

wealth and achievements were concentrated in Ottomon hands, and its imperial lands

remained much as they were for centuries. In the territory now known as Iraq, the period

was marked by consistent conflict as the people’s loyalties were divided between the

Shi’ite attachment to Persia and the Sunni orientation to the holy cities Mecca and

Medina. Catholic missionaries and British educators entered Iraq in the late seventeenth

century, specifically Basra and Baghdad, but exerted little influence until the resurgence

of East-West contacts across the region following Napoleon’s entrance into Egypt

(bearing Arabic-script printing presses) in the early nineteenth century.

Iraq’s relationship with the West from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth

century was characterized by hostility alongside adoption of Western political forms,

particularly nationalism and democracy. The 1920 rebellion against the British by the

tribes along the lower Euphrates River at the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf was
 14

followed by the imposition of the Empire’s indirect rule through King Faysal. In 1927,

the British recognized Iraq’s independence and pursued a series of treaties for trade and

development. In 1958, King Faysal II was assassinated and a socialist republic was

instituted. The rise of Pan-Islam and Pan-Arabism, or Ba’athism, was pursued as a

means to oppose Western intrusions, while, paradoxically, adopting Western political

models and ideologies. Samuel Huntington’s democracy paradox is a notable modern

observation of the phenomenon. It forms a significant piece of the puzzle represented by

Arab democracy. “Adoption by non-Western societies of Western democratic

institutions encourages and gives access to power to nativist and anti-Western political

movements.”34 The democracy paradox is everywhere at work in Iraq with important

consequences for the future character of Iraqi politics. As democracy does not

necessarily bring Western values, and as liberal democracy is likely to be rejected by

Iraq’s native political centers, the democracy paradox indicates something of Iraq’s likely

course.

Native values and power centers are a force to be contended with in Iraq.

Throughout the late twentieth century, “political democracy contended with native

feudalism. Liberty had internal and well as external opponents.”35

“Throughout the Arab East feudalism continued to be a dominant social feature

with political complications. The system centered on chiefs who held power by

virtue of descent and the accumulation of extensive land properties … The

institution and functioning of a democratic form of government was not an easy

task. The search for a new political structure has not yet ended. Politically, no less
 15

than socially and economically, the entire Arab East is still in a state of

transition.”36

On 15 December, Iraqis will go to the polls to vote for the first time under the new

Iraqi constitution for a democratic, civilian government. They are expected to vote in

greater numbers than ever before. Hundreds of campaigns have been waged for national,

provincial and local positions. Some candidacies are independent, and many others have

been supported by sophisticated networks of staff and volunteers organized and funded

by national party organizations. Campaign advertisements were released using television

and print; campaign Web-sites were maintained, complete with election-day countdowns

and attention-grabbing photos of Ms. Egypt 2005; and text-messages were sent to Iraqna-

network cellular phones until rules brought campaigning to a close two days prior to the

election. A professor at Baghdad University is attempting the first nation-wide poll by an

Iraqi since the U.S.-Coalition invasion in 2003. Although Iraq’s election looks like

democracy in action, it is not properly comprehended as democracy by any of the four

models. Iraq’s present occupation and constant unrest is not conducive to any rich form

of democracy. Its troubles reach deeper, to the inclination it is given by history and

tradition to adopt democracy only of a particular form not yet delineated.

To borrow Benjamin Barber’s metaphor, Iraq is less a linked chain of identities,

traditions and interests, than a woven cable. Tribes and ethnic groups are multi-

denominational; regions are multi-ethnic; ethnicities are multi-tribal; Iraqis of every

tribal, denominational, and ethnic identity live side by side, and now espouse a wide

array of partisan loyalties. Iraq’s politics will ideally reflect this complexity by

permitting participants in its politics to flourish both independently and together, seeking
 16

some form of genuine cooperation, instead of through liberalism’s formula for balance

through regulated conflict. Liberalism asserts values that are antithetical to Iraq’s Arab,

Muslim, national, tribal and ethnic identities. The liberal materialist’s picture of radical,

individualist Man competing for physical and psychic space and property is foreign to a

tribal mindset. Islam, which is remarkable among faiths for its claim to universalism and

its creation of a unifying identity among Muslims, conflicts with liberalism’s universalist

claims. Liberalism will serve most effectively to channel Iraq’s ever-present conflict into

a tenuous politics. However, it will fail to satisfy Iraq’s real need for healing, unity, and

accommodation of its potentially beneficial orientation toward non-Western forms of

community and identity.

Civic republicanism holds limited promise for Iraq that has not been explored by

the scholarly literature and is too quickly discounted by Iraq’s foreign advisors. Viewed

as a familial image writ large, Rousseau’s republic is wholly consistent with Iraqis’ many

native sources of identity and repositories of power. The character of the political

association described in the Social Contract conforms to the collective decision-making

processes pursued by tribal and religious leaders, the group action pursued by ethnic and

religious blocs, as well as the completeness with which most Iraqis embrace some or all

traditional sources of identity inherited at birth. Just as political association in the

republic of the Social Contract is nominally voluntary and permanent once chosen, so too

are Iraqis’ associations with traditional groups. Whereas the Hussein regime used

violence and coercion to manipulate and break religious, tribal and ethnic hierarchies –

including mass killings and arbitrary appointments to hereditary sheikdoms – civic

republicanism should respect and protect them as sources of legitimacy, national unity,
 17

and improved government functioning. Individual sheiks, imams and other leaders have

been consulted for support in constructing a democratic political system, but they should

be inducted as a part of the country’s unified civic fiber.

The ability of native cultural groupings to promote national unity is conditioned on

Iraq’s adoption of the community-building qualities found in the civic republican

tradition. Beyond the Sunni-Shiite and Arab-Kurd divides featured on the news, Iraq is

composed of many smaller groups that maintain distinctive traditions, often reflecting the

country’s varied landscape. For example, the Marsh tribes near Nassiriya are well-known

across the region for their fishing techniques and music; the Jibouri and Doulaemi tribes

have spread across the country, but maintain ancestral homelands near Sulemaniya; Iraq

is also home to very small cults of fire and devil worshippers the Islamic Empire never

managed to convert. Diversity distinguishes Iraq from the country’s more homogenous

and modernized neighbors. The shared experience by cultural groups not only of ancient

history, but of colonialism and recent traumas, can be seen as contributors to a common

national character. In his letter on the Government of Poland, Rousseau says, “the love

of fatherland and of freedom animated by the virtues inseparable from that love”37 is

enough to galvanize Poland against subjugation.

As Iraq’s tribal and ethnic groups are loosely grouped in specific geographical

locations, confederation may be a practicable means to steel group identities against the

modernizing and homogenizing effects likely to impact the country, and to provide visual

evidence of Iraq’s cultural wealth. Rousseau writes, “If Poland were what I wish it to be,

a confederation of thirty-three small states, it would contain the force of great Monarchies

with the freedom of small Republics.”38

 18

Small republics offer practical benefits for efficient, responsive government and

maintenance of public morals. Iraq’s diverse needs will not be easily satisfied by the

centralized ministries in Baghdad, as has already been seen in nearly three years of

reconstruction, but local governments in a confederation of small republics will easily

assess their own needs and gauge public preferences. In nearly one hundred years, Iraq

has had two kings, two military leaders and a dictator, each of whom has embarked on

public projects for his own glorification. Rousseau suggests that small republics are

potentially more responsible.

“Preserve, restore among you simple morals, wholesome tastes, a warlike spirit free

of ambition; form courageous and disinterested souls involve your peoples in

agriculture and the arts necessary for life, make money contemptible and, if

possible, useless, seek, find more powerful and more reliable springs to achieve

great things.”39

Iraq’s local government has shown that it is inclined to do just this. In the spring of 2004,

as the national-level Governing Council debated the color of handwriting on the new

Iraqi flag, Baghdad’s City Council appropriated funds to clean up from a long period of

looting.

As Iraq’s new constitution and the political world developing around it are

considered by many to be foreign and illegitimate, candidates for office often succeed by

associating their names with traditionally respected power-sources, such as clergy,

influential families, and large tribes. These groups become campaign engines, reliable

voting blocs, and legitimating constituencies identified by other partisans as desirable

allies, much as American partisans align by ideology. Compared to the private interests
 19

addressed in the Federalist Papers as dangerous factions, native power centers contribute

the legitimacy that is perceived to be in such short supply.

Although civic republicanism more readily allows the assertion of native values,

the development of active citizenship, and the provision of effective governance than

liberal democracy, it is remains uncertain that the democratic form appropriate for Iraq

has been conceived by theory. J.J. Rousseau’s caution to Poland’s Count Wielhorski still

applies: “A foreigner can contribute scarcely any but general views, which might

enlighten the institutor, not guide him.”40 It remains for Iraq to decide what it most wants

to be.
 20

Notes:
1 Snyder, R. Claire - The Logic of Liberalism 2
2
Locke, John – The Second Treatise 9
3
Snyder 2
4
Snyder 4
5
Snyder 8
6
Barber – Strong Democracy 5
7
Nussbaum – Sex and Social Justice 9
8
Nussbaum 10
9
The Federalist Papers 33
10
The Federalist Papers 78
11
Barber 4
12
Barber 31
13
Barber 21
14
Barber 46
15
Barber 49
16
Barber 65
17
Barber 49
18
Barber 68
19
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques - The Social Contract 151
20
Rousseau xv
21
Rousseau 148
22
Rousseau xvi
23
Rousseau 190
24
Sandel, Michael – Democracy’s Discontent 7
25
Sandel 3
26
Sandel 318
27
Sandel 129
28
Snyder, R. Claire – Democratic Theory and the Case for Public Deliberation, 1-6
29
Matthews, David – Politics for People 208
30
Barber 131
31
Barber 131
32
Barber 266
33
Hitti, Philip – A History of the Arabs 749
34
Huntington – Clash of Civilizations 94
35
Hitti, Philip 756
36
Hitti, Philip 756
37
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques - Government of Poland 238
38
Rousseau 231
39
Rousseau 224
40
Rousseau 177