Researcher Shatha Khalil
The relationship between economy and politics is closely related to each other, each one moves the other, noting that the ambitions and competition for survival and power are at the heart of conflicts that occur in the universe. When you look at the direct or indirect causes of most wars and conflicts, you find them economic ones.
If we go back to the recent history, the first and second world wars and the cold war and the thousands of small wars that have erupted and continue to erupt here and there, the first reason of it is the economy.
The United States, the world’s most powerful economy, politically is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, the most important member of the United Nations and its main decision maker. It is the most important founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and uses it to impose its maritime control over a number of key conflict areas in the Middle East and South East Asia, but the most important aspect of its incursion is not its ability to create alliances and political understandings by encouraging or lobbying, but by penetrating into the budgets of countries involved in interlinked economic relations, government aid or civil organizations.
This form of tripartite influence gives it great flexibility in the movement and pressure states to act according to its vital interest or to use state papers to pressure other countries ,of course, it is not that superstitious force, it faces difficulties in its foreign policy and Chinese, Russian and Latin challenges at times. But these challenges can be controlled with the least amount of damage that is inversely proportional to this type of hegemony and is conveniently reduced to any US conservative administration or right-wing.
As It has the highest domestic product of $ 19 trillion and is the world’s largest consumer market, this advanced location gave the US president ample room for maneuver and the ability to launch trade wars with China and Europe, and impose economic sanctions on Russia, Turkey and Iran, not only this but forced the entire world to submit to his decisions, nevertheless , these decisions are not acceptable.
The relationship between economics and politics can not be separated. The relationship is strong between them and a cornerstone of the work and principles of any country with specific goals. Any wrong behavior is disastrous. Countries set the economic goal as the primary objective of making politics for its service. European and Asian countries have pursued this approach to serve the economy and politics at the same time.
Despite progress in political thought and its development, some countries of the world have paid enormous costs both materially and humanly and made them reconsider their misguided policies, which caused losses and led to financial and economic collapse. At the same time, a state has the right to defend its interests and build distinctive economic relations. As a means of success, politics does not overcome the economy or vice versa, because the economy can not be liberated or developed without economic growth under a confused policy.
Economic thought is part of the economic science, which examines the developments in the economy, especially the economic theory in both its partial and overall parts, as well as the ideas presented by economic scientists over time such as Adam Smith, Ibn Khaldun, Marx, Ricardo, Webkinz and others,, And the economic thought deals with thinkers and theories of economics, which is known as political economy since ancient times, which includes many schools of economic thought.
The philosopher Adam Smith is the father of modern economics, known for his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, which appeared at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in conjunction with many changes in the economy. We will explain the details of Adam Smith’s theory in a subsequent article and its impact on the world’s economies.
The relationship between politics and the economy depends on the political system. There are systems in which the economy can not be liberated and reaches the economic development of the country. Economic growth requires clear, stable and studied policies from which the economy can draw its growth components both internally and externally. The policies require flexible handling and political wisdom which avoid the country crises that are indispensable “irrational”, which can be remedied by wise political perception.
Undoubtedly, the economy is a reflection of politics or of the system. Every economic development in any country must be reflected in its political system. Thus, economic development requires a flexible democratic system that can be flexible and deal with crises, that is, political flexibility.
In capitalist systems, economics manages politics, where the relationship is intertwined and interesting. When a country is exposed to political problems, it will have the largest and most obvious impact on its economic performance. The political economy is more difficult than any other, and there is a difference of views among economists on this definition, and this contradiction is shown when important decisions are made, and because of the implications, for example, the political deficit in Greece was exacerbating the economic problems and in Italy, Italian PM in 2012 was able to remove the specter of financial turmoil by his political talent.
A country that is politically stable has helped to increase economic growth. The security and safe factor of any country is the cornerstone of activating the economic situation and attracting investments, if we take the tourism sector, for example to any country, tourism is an essential source of national income and hard currency. If the country is unstable as a result of certain political events, the tourism sector will be directly affected by the lack of security for tourists and security will decline.
We sometimes note how analysts are confused when they assess the economic situation for a period to come based on unclear political data.
USA after the election of Donald Trump as president, no one knows what it will be, and what changes and political papers he will play that will inevitably be synonymous with the economic situation of the United States noting that the remarks of President Trump, the businessman, are mostly on the next stadium, the economy.
South Korea is currently under economic sanctions from China, which has brought its economy to considerable damage because of its hostility to North Korea’s ally China, and the deployment of a US missile system to counter any attacks by North Korea. China has closed branches of major Korean commercial companies; this is an economic damage due to certain political attitudes.
In developing countries
The matter is different noting the policy that does not have money left behind , it will not play its role; here the political money has a negative role where the policy holders who control the economy will buy conscience , which led to deviate politics and economy together , here a corruption gap is shown that weaken the policy and the economy is declined , for example, as it was happened in Syria in the form of a variety of competing military formations and political ideas of the various organizations ,in which each political party to move in accordance with the relationship with the funding body materially to become in one entity many strange bodies working for the benefit of the financier (ie, the provider of money).
Those “third world” countries are trapped in external debt and their size is critical, which will, of course, affect the political situation, as well as the social situation, and some of their causes are due to mismanagement and rampant corruption.
“Iraq” Corruption weakens politics and economic structures
Iraq suffers from the absence of economic figures in the political decision, and if they were found , they would be resisted and its movement restricted , they are limited to academic education, the economist had no room to make the appropriate economic decision in the treatment of economic crises including inflation, unemployment and stagnation.. etc and other crises . The politicians are the ones who make the decision, and the economists go to promote the government’s decisions and try to market them economically, regardless of those decisions, which led to the loss of the community’s confidence in the economic discourse, its independence and objectivity.
The economy was not present in the culture of each one who ruled the country, and even after the financial and economic crisis that dominated Iraq, so it is noted that their management of the crisis are as dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) , and in fact is not an economic or financial crisis hit the Iraqi economic and financial sectors, but it is a natural phenomenon of the oil market ( vacillation, high and low), as the price of oil rose from $ 25 in 2004 to 148 in 2007, the price of oil after that year began to decline and continued to reach $ 25 at the beginning of 2016. This is normal in the market, but to link a state’s budget fully to market changes , it is a certain failure and this is what happened in Iraq.
The question remains when will politics and politicians have a role in supporting the Iraqi economy and how will the great change and modernization be occurred in the mentality of Iraqi politicians to make the economy a target for them and their policies? And how the economy can enter into making their decisions, and that the economy is part of their culture not in the form of corruption and the transfer of public money to private, but the development of public money and its growth and achieve prosperity and welfare for all.
Economic Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies