The Lights of Iraq: Electricity Usage and the Iraqi War-fare Regime

Cerami, Alfio (2018): The Lights of Iraq: Electricity Usage and the Iraqi War-fare Regime.

Abstract

This article explores the lights of Iraq, Iraq's variety of capitalism (VoC) and its system of public and fiscal governance. The first section examines Iraq's VoC, which I define oil-led state-captured capitalism with associated oil-led state-captured war-fare regime. In formerly ISIS-occupied territories, war developments turned the system into an Insurgent ISIS-captured capitalism with associated Insurgent ISIS-captured war-fare regime. The second section investigates electricity usage. The nighttime lights analysis is based on near real-time big data. It includes high-resolution remote-sensing and satellite imagery from the NASA Earth Observatory. I use the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor on the Suomi NPP satellite. Data on greenhouse gases are obtained through the AQUA and TERRA satellites derived from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors. I also use the AURA satellite with the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) sensor, as well as the TERRA satellite with the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) sensor. The third part examines the repercussions of electricity usage for good governance, for good regulatory and good fiscal practices, as well as for development and growth. The concluding part briefly discusses the “taxman approach” and the introduction of a new fiscal contract necessary to resolve negative incentives in oil-led war economies.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Iraq, political economy, ISIS, geo-spatial analysis, night lights, remote-sensing, satellite imagery, public governance, fiscal governance, oil-led state-captured capitalism, oil-led state-captured war-fare regime, state capture, policy capture.
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C1 - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O11 - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; P - Economic Systems > P1 - Capitalist Systems > P16 - Political Economy; P - Economic Systems > P4 - Other Economic Systems > P45 - International Trade, Finance, Investment, and Aid

References

Al-Jazeera (2014) ‘Infographic: Iraq’s electoral system’, 29 April 2014. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/04/infographic-iraq-electoral-system-201442983631669587.html (accessed 19 May 2018).

Al-Jazeera (2018a), Iraq elections final results: Sadr's bloc wins parliamentary poll, Al-Jazeera, 20 May 2018. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/iraq-election-final-results-sadr-bloc-wins-parliamentary-polls-180519071930804.html (accessed 20 May 2018).

Al-Jazeera (2018b), Why are Iraqis protesting? Al-Jazeera, 19 July 2018. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/iraqis-protesting-180718131316968.html (accessed 23 July 2018). Almukhtar, S. (2015) ‘ISIS Finances Are Strong’, The New York Times. 19 May 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/19/world/middleeast/isis-finances.html (accessed 20 May 2018).

Arab Barometer for Iraq (2012) Iraq Country Report, Michael Hoffman at Princeton University, Princeton NJ.

BBC (2017), Syria from Space. Three cities in darkness and light. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/syria_from_space_english (accessed 19 May 2018).

Benthall, J. and J. Bellion-Jourdan (2003), The Charitable Crescent. Politics of Aid in the Muslim World, London-New York, I.B. Tauris.

Burgess, A. and Amicelle, P. A., Bartels, E., Bellanova, R., Cerami, A., Eggum, E., Hoogensen, G., Kittelsen, S., Knibbe, K., de Koning, M., Koser, K., Krause, K. and Salemink, O. (2007). Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in Western Europe. Paris: UNESCO.

Callimachi, R. (2018), The ISIS Files. When Terrorists Run City Hall, New York Times, 4 April 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/04/world/middleeast/isis-documents-mosul-iraq.html (accessed 19 May 2018).

Carlowicz, M. (2016), Night Lights Change in the Middle East. NASA Earth Observatory. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=90100 (accessed 19 May 2018).

Center for the Analysis of Terrorism (CAT) (2016), ISIS Financing 2015, Center for the Analysis of Terrorism. http://www.cat-int.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ISIS-Financing-2015-Report.pdf Cerami, A. (2015), Social Protection and The Politics of Anger in the Middle East and North Africa, Social Policies (Politiche Sociali), 1, pp. 115-135.

Cerami, A. and Stubbs, P. (2013) ‘Post-Communist Welfare Capitalisms: Bringing Institutions and Political Agency Back In’ in Hill, M., ed. Comparative Public Policy. Four-Volume Set. Volume II, London: SAGE, 347-370.

De Freitas, El Mekkaoui and Johnson, H. (2012) Formal and Informal Social Protection in Iraq, The Economic Research Forum (ERF), Dokki, Giza, Egypt.

Devereux, S. (2017), “Social Protection and Safety Nets in the Middle East and North Africa”. Policy in Focus, 14(3), 19-22.

Diamond, L. (2008) The Spirit of Democracy, New York: Times Books.

Do, Q., Shapiro, J. N., Elvidge, C, D., Abdel-Jelil, M., Ahn, D. P., Baugh, K., Hansen-Lewis, J., Zhizhin, M. (2017). How Much Oil is the Islamic State Group Producing?: Evidence from Remote Sensing. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 8231. Washington, DC.: World Bank.

Donaldson, D. and Storeygard, A. (2016), The View from Above: Applications of Satellite Data in Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30(4), 171–198.

Eaton, T. (2018), Libya’s War Economy Predation, Profiteering and State Weakness, Chatham House Research Paper April 2018. Middle East and North Africa Programme. London: Chatham House.

Enough Project (2017), Enough Project Report: Weapons of Mass Corruption: How Corruption in South Sudan’s Military Undermines the World’s Newest Country.

FAO (2017), IRAQ Agriculture Damage and Loss Needs Assessment. Rome: FAO.

Feher, C., Mansour, M., Aslam, A., Hegazy, A., Basile, G., and De Mets, P. (2017), Iraq: Selected Issues, IMF Country Report No. 17/252. Washington DC: IMF.

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) (2015) Financing of the Terrorist Organisation Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Financing of the terrorist organisation Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), FATF. http://www.fatf-gafi.org/topics/methodsandtrends/documents/financing-of-terrorist-organisation-isil.html (accessed 19 May 2018).

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) (2017) Remarks at the Interpol Unity for Security Forum, FATF, http://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/fatfgeneral/documents/interpol-speech-mar2017.html. (accessed 19 May 2018).

Gellner, E. (1981), Muslim Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Genschel, P., Lierse, H. and Seelkopf, L. (2016), 'Dictators don't compete: Autocracy, democracy and tax competition', Review of International Political Economy 23(2), 290-315.

Gough, I. (2013) ‘Welfare States and Environmental States. A Framework for Comparative Analysis’, in Paper presented at the ConferenceECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops 2013, Mainz.

Gough, I. (2016) Welfare states and environmental states: a comparative analysis. Environmental Politics, 25(1), 1-24.

Gough, I., Wood, G., Barrientos, A., Bevan, P., Davis, P. and Room, G., eds. (2004) Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Cambirdge: Cambridge University Press.

Haggard, S. and Long, J. (2007) On Benchmarks: Institutions and Violence in Iraq, San Diego: University of California San Diego.  https://gps.ucsd.edu/_files/faculty/haggard/haggard_publications_benchmarks.pdf (accessed 19 May 2018).

Haggard, S. and Kaufman (2016) Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites, and Regime Change, Princeton: NJ . Hall, P. A. and Soskice, D., eds. (2001) Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hedström, P. (2008) 'Studying Mechanisms to Strengthen Causal Inferences in Quantitative Research' in Box-Steffensmeier, J. M., Brady, H. E. and Collier, D., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 319-38.

Henderson, J. V., Storeygard, A. and Weil, D. N. (2012), Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space, American Economic Review 102 (2), 994-1028.

Hirschman, A. O. (1970) Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hirschman, A. O. (1978) 'Exit, Voice, and the State', World Politics, 31(1), 90-107.

Ibrahim, A. 2018a, Iraq elections: All you need to know, al-Jazeera, 12 May 2018. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/iraq-parliamentary-elections-2018-180503164932964.html (accessed 19 May 2018).

Ibrahim, A. 2018b, Iraq election: Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr alliance set to win, al-Jazeera, 12 May 2018. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/iraq-election-shia-leader-muqtada-al-sadr-alliance-set-win-180515050447621.html (accessed 19 May 2018).

IMF (2017), If Not Now, When? Energy Price Reform in Arab Countries, Annual Meeting of Arab Ministers of Finance April 2017 Rabat, Morocco. Washington DC: IMF. Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS) (2018), Iraq Votes 2018. Election Mobilization Strategies. Sulaymaniyya: IRIS.

Jones S. G., Dobbins, J., Byman, D., Chivvis, C. S., Connable, B., Martini, J., Robinson, E., Chandler, N.  (2017), Rolling Back the Islamic State, RAND Corporation: Santa Monica, CA. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1912.html (accessed 19 May 2018).

Karshenas, M. and Moghadam, V.M. (eds.) (2006), Social Policy in the Middle East, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Khatib, L. (2015), ‘The Islamic State’s Strategy: Lasting and Expanding’, Working Paper June, Beirut: Carnegie Middle East Center. http://carnegieendowment.org/files/islamic_state_strategy.pdf (accessed 19 May 2018).

Krause, W. (2009), Gender and Participation in the Arab Gulf, London: London School of Economics, available on-line at: http://www.lse.ac.uk/LSEKP/ Leitzell, K. (2012), Prosperity Shining. Money lights up the sky at night. NASA Earth Observatory. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/user-resources/sensing-our-planet/prosperity-shining (accessed 19 May 2018). Lewis, O. A. and Steinmo, S. (2012) "How Institutions Evolve: Evolutionary Theory and Institutional Change," Polity 44(3), 314-339.

Lijphart, A. (1999) Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Mansour, R. (2017), Iraq After the Fall of ISIS: The Struggle for the State, Research Paper July 2017. Middle East and North Africa Programme. London: Chatham House.

Martinez, L.R. (2018), How Much Should We Trust the Dictator’s GDP Estimates?. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3093296 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3093296

May, C. (2017), Transnational Crime and the Developing World, Global Financial Integrity report, Global Financial Integrity, Washington DC.

Mayntz, R. (2003) Mechanisms in the Analysis of Macro-Social Phenomena, MPIfG Working Paper 03/3, Cologne: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

Medina, L. and Schneider, F. (2018), Shadow Economies Around the World: What Did We Learn Over the Last 20 Years?, IMF Working Paper No. 18/17, IMF: Washington DC. Merkel, W. and Gerschewski, J. (2011) Autokratien am Scheideweg. Ein Modell zur Erforschung diktatorischer Regime, WZB-Mitteilungen 133, Berlin: WZB.

NASA Earth Observatory (2017), Observing Changes in Nighttime Lights, NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Miguel Román, NASA GSFC. Story by Adam Voiland. https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=91431 (accessed 19 May 2018).

NASA Earth Observatory (2018), Pollutant Emissions Leveling Off a Bit in the U.S., NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using data from Jiang, Zhe, et al. (2018). Story by Kasha Patel. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=92215&eocn=home&eoci=iotd_image (accessed: 31 May 2018).

NOAA (2017). Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Sensor Data Record (SDR) User’s Guide Version 1.3. NOAA Technical Report NESDIS 142. Washington DC: NOAA. https://ncc.nesdis.noaa.gov/documents/documentation/viirs-users-guide-tech-report-142a-v1.3.pdf (accessed 19 May 2018).

OECD (2016a) Promoting Investment in a Fragile Context The OECD Iraq Project, Paris: OECD.

OECD (2016b), Financing Democracy. Funding of Political Parties and Election Campaigns and the Risk of Policy Capture. OECD Public Governance Reviews. Paris: OECD.

OECD (2017a) Preventing Policy Capture. Integrity in Public Decision Making. Paris: OECD.

OECD (2017b), OECD Reccomendation of the Council on Public Integrity, Paris: OECD. www.oecd.org/gov/ethics/OECD-Recommendation-Public-Integrity.pdf (accessed 19 May 2018).

Parsons, Talcott, and Edward A. Shils (Eds.). 1951. Toward a General Theory of Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Robinson, E., Egel, D., Johnston, P. B., Mann, S., Rothenberg, A. D., Stebbins, D. (2017), When the Islamic State Comes to Town. The Economic Impact of Islamic State Governance in Iraq and Syria, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA.

Román, M. O., and E. C. Stokes. 2015. "Holidays in lights: Tracking cultural patterns in demand for energy services." Earth's Future, 3 (6): 182-205.

Román, M. O, Z. Wang, Q. Sun, et al. 2018. "NASA's Black Marble nighttime lights product suite." Remote Sensing of Environment, 210: 113-143.

Ross, M. L. (2012) The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton.

Rothstein, B. and Broms, R. (2010), Why No Democracy in the Arab-Muslim World? The Importance of Temple Financing and Tax Farming, Göteborg, The Quality of Government Institute.

Saltman, E. M. and Smith, M. (2015) ‘Till Martyrdom Do Us Part’ Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon, London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

Sanger, D. and Hirschfeld, J. (2014), Struggling to Starve ISIS of Oil Revenue, U.S. Seeks Assistance From Turkey, New York Times, Sept. 13.

Sartori, G. (1994) Comparative Constitutional Engineering, London: Macmillan.

Shatz, H. J. (2015) ‘Iraq Is Bankrolling ISIL’, Politico Magazine.  http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/iraq-bankrolling-isil-118227.html#.VXQEuM-qqko (accessed 19 May 2018).

Social Security Association (SSA) (2016), Social Security Programs Throughout the World: Iraq, Baltimore, MD: Social Security Association.

Squarcini, B. (2015), Bernard Squarcini : «Daech veut déstabiliser l’Europe»,  Le Parisien, November. 17, 2015 https://atelier.leparisien.fr/sites/attentats-novembre-2015-paris/2015/11/17/bernard-squarcini-daech-veut-destabiliser-leurope/ (accessed 24 May 2018).

Stevens, P., Lahn, G. and Kooroshy, J. (2015), The Resource Curse Revisited, Chatham House Research Paper August 2015. Energy, Environment and Resources. London: Chatham House.

Stubbs, Paul, Mihail Arandarenko, Elira Jorgoni and with the assistance of Mimoza Agolli. 2009. "The Social Impacts of the Global Economic Crisis in the Western Balkans." In A White Paper for the UNDP. Bratislava: UNDP.

Swanson, A. (2015), How the Islamic State Makes its Money, Washington Post, 18 November 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/18/how-isis-makes-its-money/?utm_term=.3dc371e3cf5d (accessed 20 May 2018).

Thaler, R. H., Sunstein, C. R. and Balz, J. P. (eds) (2014) “Choice Architecture” The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy, Eldar Shafir.

The Baghdad Post (2018a), Moqtada al-Sadr bloc wins Iraq election, The Baghdad Post, 20 May 2018. http://www.thebaghdadpost.com/en/story/27516/Moqtada-al-Sadr-bloc-wins-Iraq-election (accessed 20 May 2018).

The Baghdad Post (2018b), Spreading unity, tolerance, peace is our sublime target: Sadr, The Baghdad Post, 26 May 2018. http://www.thebaghdadpost.com/en/story/27746/Spreading-unity-tolerance-peace-is-our-sublime-target-Sadr (accessed 26 May 2018).

The Baghdad Post (2018c), Distribution of the south reveal the reason for the collapse of the electricity system in Basrah, The Baghdad Post, 31 May 2018. http://s.thebaghdadpost.com/ar/104912 (accessed 31 May 2018).

Thies, C. G. (2015), ‘State Fiscal Capacity and State Failure’, European Political Science Review, 7 (2), 167-187.

Tilly, C. (1985) ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’ in Evans, P. B., Rueschemeyer, D. and Skocpol, T., eds., Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 169-191.

UNOCHA (2015) Iraq Human Repsonse Plan 2015, New York: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

UNPO (2013) IRAQ: The Situation of Ethnic and Religious Minorities, Briefing paper D-IQ Meeting, European Parliament 20 June 2013, Brussels: Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.

Waterbury, J. (2015), ‘BOOKS REVIEW: The Islamic State: A Brief Introduction by Charles R. Lister; The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution by Patrick Cockburn’, Foreign Affairs,94(5),195-196. Wikipedia (2015) ‘Elections in Iraq’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Iraq (accessed 19 May 2018).

World Bank (2000). Anticorruption in Transition: Contribution to the Policy Debate. Washington DC: World Bank.

World Bank (2014) Republic of Iraq Public Expenditure Review. Toward More Efficient Spending for Better Service Delivery, Washington DC: World Bank.

World Bank (2018), Iraq Reconstruction and Inverstment. PART 2 Damage and Needs Assessment of Affected Governorates, Washington DC.: World Bank.