Demokratie für den Irak?

The situation in Iraq remains unstable. This is, among other factors, due to the lack of a realistic, long-term and integrative model for democratization. The current occupying powers neither dispose of a long-term plan, appropriate to the local circumstances, which could be able to include systematically local culture and social forms. Nor do they obviously have a clear step-by-step plan within the framework of an integral model which could take into account the experience of the past decades regarding sustainable democratization of Islamic core areas. This essay presents the three currently most promising and most realistic models of how Iraq can be democratized by means of a long-term, comprehensive, holistic and systematically differentiated strategy. The focus of attention is on the methodical inclusion of cultural, socio-psychological and sociological aspects. The three democratization models for Iraq are: 1) the Tatarstan model, 2) the Turkey model, 3) the model of stratified democracy. These three models are critically discussed and evaluated; in conclusion a short outlook will be drafted.