Can Iraq democratize?
How long will it take?
Bruce E. Moon
Dept. of International Relations
Lehigh University
Paper prepared for the Annual Meetings of the International Studies Association, March 1-5,
2005, Honolulu.
Abstract: The prospects for democracy in Iraq should be assessed in light of the historical
precedents of nations with comparable experiences. That analysis reveals:
(1) Since the end of the 19
th
century, only 30 nations have experienced an autocracy as
extreme as Iraq’s over as long a time.
(2) Only ten of those 30 have produced coherent democracies subsequently.
(3) Only two of those ten is now an established democracy; the remainder’s democratic
experiments are still in progress.
(4) The average time required for these ten prospects to transit the path from extreme
autocracy to coherent, albeit precarious, democracy has been about 50 years and only
one has managed it in less than 25 years.
Thus, even if Iraq faced conditions as favorable to democratization as these 30 - and it almost
certainly does not - the odds of Iraq achieving democracy in the foreseeable future are quite
close to zero, at best about 1 in 30.
The experience of the Soviet Union suggests that by the time democracy reaches Mesopotamia, it
will no longer be Iraq.
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Identifying democracy and autocracy
3. How autocratic was Iraq?
4. What nations compare with Iraq?
5. What happens after established extreme autocracies fall?
6. What about the post-Soviet states?
7. Conclusion: Democratic prospects in Iraq
CONFERENCE DRAFT. Before quoting or citing, please contact the author for an updated
version at bruce.## email not listed ##
Version 400
Page 1 of 17 
Convention