Iraq: The contradictions of exogenous state-building in historical perspective
2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 27; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01436590500370061
ISSN1360-2241
Autores Tópico(s)Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East
ResumoAbstract Abstract This article compares Britain's failed attempt at building a stable, liberal state in Iraq from 1914 to 1932 with the USA's struggle to stabilise the country after regime change in April 2003. It sets out a template for endogenous state-building based on the evolution of the European state system. It then compares this to exogenous extra-European state-building after both World War I and the Cold War. It focuses on three key stages: the imposition of order, the move from coercive to administrative capacity and finally the evolution of a collective civic identity linked to the state. It is this process against which Iraqi state-building by the British in the 1920s and by the USA from 2003 onwards can be accurately judged to have failed. For both the British and American occupations, troop numbers were one of the central problems undermining the stability of Iraq. British colonial officials never had the resources to transform the despotic power deployed by the state into sustainable infrastructural capacity. Instead they relied on hakumat al tayarra (government by aircraft). The dependence upon air power led to the neglect of other state institutions, stunting the growth of infrastructural power and hence state legitimacy. The US occupation has never managed to impose despotic power, having failed to obtain a monopoly over the collective deployment of violence. Instead it has relied on 'indigenisation', the hurried creation of a new Iraqi army. The result has been the security vacuum that dominates the south and centre of the country. The article concludes by suggesting that unsuccessful military occupations usually end after a change of government in the intervening country. This was the case for the British in May 1929 and may well be the case for the USA after the next presidential election in 2008. Notes I would like to thank Mark Berger, Clare Day and Nick Hostettler for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. 1 For a longer discussion of this point, see T Dodge, 'Iraqi transitions: from regime change to state collapse', Third World Quarterly, 26(4), 2005, pp 699 – 715. 2 Quoted in M Gordon, 'Catastrophic success: the strategy to secure Iraq did not foresee a 2nd war', New York Times, 19 October 2004. 3 On the weakness of pre-invasion state institutions, see T Dodge, Iraq's Future: The Aftermath of Regime Change, London: Routledge, 2005, p 28. 4 On the cost of the destruction caused by the post-war looting, see N Feldman, What we Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation-Building, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004, p 52. 5 R Rotberg, 'The failure and collapse of nation-states: breakdown, prevention and repair', in Rotberg, When States Fail: Causes and Consequences, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004, p 2; and M Mann, 'The autonomous power of the state: its origins, mechanisms and results', in Mann, States, War and Capitalism: Studies in Political Sociology, Oxford: Blackwell, 1988, p 4. 6 M Weber, Economy and Society, Vol 1, Berkeley, CA: University of Californian Press, 1978, p 56. 7 Ibid, p 54. 8 J Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State – Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. 9 A Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1998, p 145: and C Buci-Glucksman, Gramsci and the State, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1980. On the lack of hegemony in the developing world, see N Ayubi, Over-stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East, London: IB Tauris, 1995, ch 1. 10 See A Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence: Volume Two of a Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985; C Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European states, AD 990 – 1992, Oxford: Blackwell, 1992; and P Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, London: Fontana Press, 1989. On the distinction between European state-building and the state in the developing world, see Ayubi, Over-stating the Arab State, p 34. 11 For a more detailed discussion of this point, see T Dodge, Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation-building and a History Denied, New York: Columbia University Press, 2003, pp x – xix. 12 This definition is A Talentino's. See Talentino, 'The two faces of nation-building: developing function and identity', Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 17(3), 2004, pp 558, 561. 13 See Talentino, 'The two faces of nation-building', p 558. For an attempt to argue for a distinction between the British intervention in Iraq and the current US role, and a plea for a less paternalistic approach to state-building, see Feldman, What we Owe Iraq. 14 Mann, 'The autonomous power of the state'. 15 Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States. 16 Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States. 17 Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, p 7. 18 J Gallagher, 'The decline, revival and fall of the British Empire', in Gallagher, The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire: The Ford Lectures and Other Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, p 94. See also K Jeffery, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire, 1918 – 1922, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. 19 Note prepared by the Middle East Department, Colonial Office, on the instruction of the Committee to implement the skeleton statement; circulated as I.R.Q.2, Secret I.R.Q.3, Cabinet Committee on Iraq, December 1922, Public Records Office (pro), CO 730/34, CO 61243, 11 December 1922, p 778. 20 S Chesterman, You, the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administrations, and State-building, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp 100, 112. 21 J Dobbins, J McGinn, K Crane, S Jones, R Lal, A Rathmell, R Swanger & A Timilsina, America's Role in Nation-building; From Germany to Iraq, Santa Monica, CA: rand, 2003. 22 F Jabar, Post-Conflict Iraq: A Race for Stability, Reconstruction and Legitimacy, US Institute of Peace Special Report No 120, May 2004, p 6. 23 B Woodward, Plan of Attack, New York: Simon and Shuster, 2004, pp 8, 36, 406. 24 M O'Hanlon & A Lins de Albuquerque, The Iraq Index, at http://www.brookings.org/iraqindex. 25 J Glubb, Arabian Adventures: Ten Years of Joyful Service, London: Cassell, 1978, pp 28 – 29. 26 D Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force 1919 – 1939, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990, pp 22, 123. 27 For a more detailed analysis of the evolution and membership of the insurgency, see Dodge, Iraq's Future, pp 11 – 19. 28 See, for example, US military spokesman Lt-Col George Krivo, quoted in P Tyler & I Fisher, 'Occupiers, villagers and an ambush's rubble', International Herald Tribune, 1 October 2003. 29 R McCarthy, 'Death toll for week tops 250 as suicide car bomber kills 13', Guardian, 18 September 2004; and E Wong, 'Car bombs kill 26 in Baghdad and Mosul', International Herald Tribune, 5 October 2004. 30 Sir Percy Cox, the British High Commissioner to Iraq in 1920, quoted in P Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 1914 – 1932, London: Ithaca Press, 1976, p 42. 31 See 'Situation in Iraq', Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies dealing with his visit to Iraq, pro, CO 730/82, Iraq 1925, Vol II, p 12. 32 Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control, p 37. 33 Iraq in Transition: Post-Conflict Challenges and Opportunities, Open Society Institute and the United Nations Foundation at http://www.unfoundation.org/files/pdf/2004/Iraq_transition.pdf, 2004, p 31. 34 R Wright & J White, 'US plans new take after Iraq elections', Washington Post, 23 January 2005. 35 On the distinction between domestic and international legal sovereignty, see S Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999, pp 11 – 20. 36 R Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 37 K Sengupta, 'Onslaught on Samarra escalates in "dress rehearsal" for major assault on rebels', Independent on Sunday, 12 October 2004; E Schmitt & T Shanker, 'US says resistance in Iraq up to 20 000', New York Times, 9 October 2004; and K Sengupta, 'Eight US marines killed in Fallujah province while air strikes intensify', Independent on Sunday, 31 October 2004. 38 B Hoffman, Insurgency and Counter Insurgency in Iraq, Santa Monica, CA: rand, June 2004, p 16. 39 For 2003, see GW Bush, 'The president discusses the future of Iraq at the American Enterprise Institute', 26 February 2003, Washington Hilton Hotel, Washington, DC; and the speech by Prime Minister Tony Blair given to Labour's local government, women's and youth conferences, in Glasgow, 15 February 2003. For an example of British rhetoric during World War I, see 'Proclamation to the People of the Vilayat of Baghdad', issued by Lieutenant-General Stanley Maude, Baghdad, 8 March 1917. 40 Hubert Young, Baghdad, to Shuckburgh, London, 23 October 1921, 'Discussions with His Excellency, Advisers, etc,' pro, CO 55863 9, Affairs in Iraq, CO 730/18, p 502. 41 International Crisis Group (icg), Governing Iraq, Middle East Report No 17, Baghdad/Washington/Brussels: icg, August 2003, p 11. 42 These issues dominated the thinking of senior UN civil servants whom the author interviewed in New York in May 2003. See J Steele, 'De Mello knew sovereignty, not security, is the issue', Guardian, 21 August 2003; and E Mortimer, 'Iraq's future lies beyond conquest', Financial Times, 22 August 2003. 43 R Wright & R Chandrasekaban, 'US ponders alternatives to Iraq Governing Council', Washington Post, 9 November 2003; and D Williams, 'Iraqi warns of delay on constitution vote', Washington Post, 10 November 2003. 44 For more detail on this point and the role of UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, see T Dodge, 'A sovereign Iraq?', Survival, 46(3), 2004, pp 41 – 45. 45 Quoted in Wright & Chandrasekaban, 'US ponders alternatives to Iraq Governing Council'. See also Williams, 'Iraqi warns of delay on constitution vote'. 46 B Jentleson, A Levite & L Berman, 'Foreign military intervention in perspective', in A Levite, B Jentleson & L Berman (eds), Foreign Military Intervention: The Dynamics of Protracted Conflict, New York: Columbia University Press, 1992, p 304. 47 F Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the Twenty-First Century, London: Profile, 2004, p 135; and A Etzioni, 'A self-restrained approach to nation-building by foreign powers', International Affairs, 80(1), 2004, pp 1, 11. 48 C Kupchan, 'Getting in: the initial stage of military intervention', in Levite et al, Foreign Military Intervention, p 243. 49 G Downs, 'The lessons of disengagement', in Levite et al, Foreign Military Intervention, p 294. 50 Dodge, Inventing Iraq, pp 23 – 41. 51 Downs, 'The lessons of disengagement', p 287. 52 J Gaddis, 'A grand strategy of transformation', Foreign Policy, November/December, 2002, at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_novdec_2002/gaddis.html.
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