Iraq.

Iraq. Oil revenues fund 90 percent of Iraq’s government budget. Since 2003, the political system has apportioned oil-funded political positions in a quota system based on sectarian affiliation. The choicest positions (in oil and public works ministries, for example) let office holders use state funds to maintain patronage networks that are linked in complex ways to violent sectarian politics and militia groups. In 2020, the collapse of oil revenues punched a $43 billion hole in the state budget and starved the patronage system of funds. The militias lost funding from the state and political parties, slightly shifting a balance of power in favor of nonviolent civic actors. A public protest movement emerged to demand reforms, yet any real window of opportunity appears to have been brief. When violence erupted, it was not among the armed elites, but targeted at civilian leaders of the reform movement. The civic movement’s relative success led to an implicit consolidation of shared interests among violent forces that have the most to lose from a dismantling of the current system of monetized governance.