Iraq: The Contemporary State

by Tim Niblock

Introduction / Tim Niblock -- the fertile crescent dimension / H.G. Balfour-Paul -- State power and economic class determination and state formation in contemporary Iraq / Joe Stork -- Recent developments in the Kurdish issue / Saa̓d Jawal -- Saddam Husain's political the comparison with Nasser / Peter Mansfield -- The emancipation of Iraqi women / Amal al-Sharqi -- The eradication of illiteracy in Iraq / Alya Sousa -- United States-Iraq a spring that? / Barry Rubin -- Iraqi policies towards the Arab states of the Gulf, 1958-1981 / Tim Niblock -- Economic relations between Iraq and other Arab Gulf states / Naomi Sakr -- Iraqi oil 1961-1976 / Paul Stevens -- Problems of rural development in an oil-rich Iraq 1958-1975 / Robin Theobald and Saa̓d Jawal -- Western, Soviet and Egyptian influences on Iraq's development planning / Rodney Wilson -- The challenge of human resources development in Iraq / J.S. Birks and C. Sinclair -- Industrial development and the decision-making process / John Townsend.

283 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1982

About the author

Tim Niblock is Emeritus Professor of Middle East Politics, University of Exeter, United Kingdom. From 1999 to 2008, he was Professor of Arab Gulf Studies, University of Exeter. He also served as Director of the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at Exeter (1999-2005).

Reviews

[Naeem · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read: chapter 3 which is Joe Stork's "State Power and Economic Structure."

The claim here is that despite the Baath party's rhetoric about socialism, the Iraqi state (the book is published in 1982) performs all the functions of a capitalist state without having many of the structural supports of a 1st world state.


Stork also makes clear that upon independence Iraqis acquired a state apparatus that had been geared towards oil production for the large oil companies and oil consuming states.

Read: chapter 7: Amal Rasam's chapter on women's emancipation. Rasam ends with an excellent paradox for which he cites Memmi, fanon, and Bordieu, namely that so long as women represent a kind of depository for cultural resistance against colonialism or modernity, resisting states will find it difficult to fully commit to women's emancipation (in the liberal sense.)

Chapter 9, by Barry Rubin, is a history of US-Iraq relations.