Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/45069 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Research Paper No. 2008/35
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
This paper studies state failure and governance in two conflict-states in the Middle East: Iraq and Somalia. Iraq is currently undergoing a social experiment under which a new form of government is being constructed after the passage of autocratic rule. The government envisaged is a consociational democratic state designed a priori as a political mechanism for the redistribution of resources, mainly oil. Somalia represents a stateless society or anarchy. The paper argues that in resource-rich countries such as Iraq, the consociational project leads to an Olson-type rent-seeking confessional behaviour that hampers economic growth and development. The rent-seeking behaviour in Iraq is fuelling the insurgency that perceives the consociational system as a grabbing.
Subjects: 
fragile states
political economy
resources
JEL: 
D72
D74
N45
N55
ISBN: 
978-92-9230-081-4
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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