The Innovative Approach for Accounting and Accountability of Government Revenues in Iraq

This study indicates that accountability of government revenue procedures are sufficient, adequate,  and well developed and illustrates new control bodies that parliament has created (such as the Commission of Integrity) in addition to the Board of Supreme Audit (BSA)  to fight financial and managerial corruption.  It covers both theoretical and empirical aspects. The theoretical side includes literature review, defining the accountability, audit of revenues, performance audit, taxation policy, and the sources of governmental income. While the empirical side includes studying the economic influence of government revenues in Iraq, different sources of government income, governmental control bodies, and the auditing procedures used by the BSA.This research considers how the contribution of oil revenue and tax revenues can be measured. It shows that the Iraqi Government depends almost totally on oil revenues (about 93% in 2012). The situation has deteriorated since 2003, when Iraq was first occupied, in spite of increased revenue from taxation.The Study highlights that the State should increase its role from different organizations to control all expenditures and develop revenue streams in other sectors. Although there is an emphasis on financial and budgetary measures for financial accountability, the use of non-financial measures in determining outcome accountability is increasing. Keywords: Government, Revenues, Accountability, Audit, Control Bodies, Innovation

Global Interconnectedness and the Financial Crisis

To some degree, nation-states still operate autonomously while dictated by demands of their local particularities. The interconnectedness of the global economic dynamics, however, requires nation-states to morph beyond their traditional capacities and adapt into the new environment that was created by globalization. As a consequence, the economic spheres of nation-states that manifest themselves in government-regulated private financial systems must also morph to adapt to these new realities. The financial systems that adapt to these new realities are better able to remain competitive and contributing to the fiscal health of not only the involved nation-state, but also to the health of the global network associated with it. On the other hand, the financial systems that remain outdated and continue operating within the pre-globalization of older structures will exhibit crisis that not only impact the financial health of that particular nation-state, but also the global financial network connected with it. Bailing out these outdated structures by governmental initiatives will only buy-out some time to artificially prolong the lives of these outdated structures and delay their ultimate collapse. This paper will examine the U.S. financial crisis that was illustrated in the 2008 failed mortgage investments, and the Bush/Obama bail-out remedies to sustain the U.S. financial system as a whole in order to prevent it from collapse. Based on lessons learned from chaos theory, this paper will address the fallacy of such approach in creating a catastrophe through artificial engineering, and it recommends the imperative of collapse in order for new financial system to emerge that is better capable in dealing with changes in the new global environment. The paper will structure scenarios during which government can play as a "kick" in generating de-equilibrium in the outdated financial system, and allow for the system to restructure itself with random, uncontrolled, and autopoietic phase-shift. From this phase, a new equilibrium will emerge that, although unpredictable, yet determined and capable of dealing with changes in the interconnected global environment.Complexity, Systems, Collapse, Financial Crisis, Interconnectedness

Teaching Public Budgeting and Finance as Complex Adaptive System

Complexity studies were nonexistent until the work of Poincare during the period between 1881 and 1886. Poincare‟s work illustrated the first indication of chaotic behavior in a dynamic system. Today, complexity studies extend to vast areas in the fields of natural and social sciences. These studies uncover information of complex nature through paradigms such as interconnectedness, network, process, self-organization, mutual causality, bifurcation, scattered matrix, emergence, collapse dynamics, and phase shift. In public policy and budgeting, complexity studies are also making their way to observe various complex phenomena, providing information that the traditional Newtonian sciences are not capable of providing. Yet, teaching public budgeting through complexity models still is not widely accepted in most institutions of higher education despite the in-depth and vast information that these models uncover. This is because most institutions of higher learning still are constrained by top-down hierarchal systems that promote control and linear observations. Studying public budgeting falls under such limitation, preventing students from appreciating the complex nature of the discipline. This article addresses the problems and limitations of the current linear methods in teaching public budgeting in most institutions of higher learning. It then offers a complexity model in teaching public budgeting and the benefits gained through the application of such model in studying the subject.Linear Methodology, Self-organization, Public Budgeting, Complexity-based model in Teaching

GOVERNANCE AND THE SHIITE POLITICAL MOVEMENT IN IRAQ

Shortly after the death of prophet Muhammad in 632, the Shiite movement in Islam began and found an encouraging political climate to promote its growth and continuation as an opposition force to the successive political entities in the region of the Middle East. In Iraq, the Shiite political movement gained significance shortly after the creation of the modern state of Iraq in 1920 by the British colonial power. Although it was effective in its impact on the populace, the movement failed to gain a significant role in the making of the Iraqi political dynamics. The importance of the Shiite political movement in Iraq, however, changed after the collapse of the Iraqi Baath Party regime in 2003. This movement has emerged as a viable force in the construction of post-war Iraq and in the contribution to the progress of U.S. policy toward Iraq. This paper presents the historical development of Shiism in Islam as a whole and the trajectory of Shiism in contemporary Iraq as an opposition political movement in particular. In doing so, the paper uncovers several myths surrounding this movement that enabled it to