Compliance and Resistance in Iraq under Saddam Hussein: Evidence from the Files of the Ba‘th Party

What explains patterns of compliance with and resistance to autocratic rule? This paper provides a theoretical framework for understanding how individuals living under dictatorship calibrate their political behaviors. I argue that the types of non-compliance observed in autocratic contexts differ depending on the intensity of expected punishment and the extent to which sanctions are directed at individuals, families or larger communities. Using data from documents captured by US forces during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I use unanticipated political shocks to examine over-time discontinuities in citizen behavior in Iraq under Saddam Hussein during two distinct periods — before and after the First Gulf War and the associated Kurdish and Shi‘a anti-regime uprisings. Prior to 1991 and the establishment of a Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq, severe repression and widespread use of collective punishment created the conditions for Iraqi Kurds to engage in a widespread anti-regime rebellion. Before 1991, Shi‘a Iraqis were able to express limited forms of political discontent; after 1991, however, Shi‘a were forced to publicly signal compliance while shifting to more private forms of anti-regime activity. While Iraqis living in and around Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit almost universally self-identified as Ba‘thists and enjoyed privileges as a result of close ties to the regime, Sunnis living in areas distant from Tikrit became increasingly estranged from the regime as international sanctions closed off economic opportunities. ∗Many thanks to the staff at the Library and Archives of the Hoover Institution and the W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellows Program at the Hoover Institution.