Challenges of New Iraq in Political Culture Realm

Subsequent to the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003, a new legal-political system based on democracy and federalism was prevailed over which turned Shiites, the majority group, into the main actor in Iraq as well as fulfilling Kurd demand for the federal administration of the Kurd regions. Since the change of political structure in Iraq was not endogenous and was made through war and foreign intervention, so the structure did not change as a revolutionary one, changes took place mainly agents and official rank. Therefor after 2003, based on the mismatching among legal-political system, agents and official structure and other sectors in social system of Iraq it could be said that the social system imbalanced. Employing a descriptive method and using data obtained through interviews and library studies, this article reviews disproportion of development in political culture and developments of system-building (democracy and federalism) in Iraq. Results asserts that disruption to acceptance of politics by society and culture, lack of prerequisites for democratic system, absence of rule of law, clan-based political culture, the tendency towards authoritarian leaders, different political orientations and authorities, violence and political intolerance, totalitarianism, tribal and nomadic political culture, prejudice to Arabic ethnic (Pan-Arabism) and lack of political experience, are some challenges of the new Iraq in realm of political culture.