Benjamin Isakhan is Associate Professor of Politics and Policy Studies and Founding Director of POLIS, a research network for Political Science and International Relations at Deakin University, Australia. He is also Adjunct Senior Research Associate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is the author of Democracy in Iraq: History, Politics, Discourse (2012) and the editor of six books including, most recently, The Legacy of Iraq: From the 2003 War to the 'Islamic State' (2016). Ben's current research includes a three-year funded project entitled 'Measuring Heritage Destruction in Iraq and Syria'.Shamiran Mako is a lecturer at the International Affairs Program at Northeastern University. She received her PhD from the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. Herpublications include 'Iraq: who's to blame?' in the World Affairs Journal, 'International response to Bahrain's Arab Spring' in e-International Relations and 'Cultural genocide and key international instruments: framing the indigenous experience' in the International Journal of Minority and Group Rights.Fadi Dawood is a senior research fellow at the NATO Association of Canada and Sessional Lecturer at Lakehead University, Orillia Campus. He is a historian of the Modern Middle East with special focus on minoritypopulations in Iraq. His PhD dissertation at SOAS, University of London, examines the Assyrian population in modern Iraq. He has taught Middle East, History and Political Science courses at SOAS, University of London and Lakehead University in Canada.

Explores past and contemporary issues affecting state-society relations in Iraq

Explores past and contemporary issues affecting state-society relations in Iraq

Introduction: State Society Relations in Iraq: Negotiating a Contested HistoriographyBenjamin Isakhan and Fadi DawoodPart I: Colonial Rule and the Making of Modern IraqChapter 1: The Ba'qubah Refugee Camp, 1919-22: State-Society Relations in Occupied IraqFadi DawoodChapter 2: State-Society Relations in the Iraqi Urban Sphere of Baghdad and Kirkuk, 1920-58Arbella Bet-ShlimonChapter 3: The Government is the Servant of the People': State and Society in the Short Stories of Shakir Khu?bak and Gha'ib ?u'ma FarmanHilla Peled-ShapiraChapter 4: Education Policy in Iraq, 1921-58: Competing Visions of the StateHilary Falb KalismanChapter 5: Military-Society Relations in Iraq, 1920-58: Competing Roles of the ArmyIbrahim Al-MarashiPart II: Republican Iraq: State-Society Relations Under Authoritarian RuleDangerous liaisons': Abd al-Karim Qasim and the Student Movements of the First Iraqi Republic, 1958-63Jordi TejelChapter 6: Rural Violence versus Urban Intellectualism: A Paradox of Integration and EmancipationAlda Benjamen and Sargon George Donabed Chapter 7: Ba`thi Iraq in the 1970s: Historiography of Medieval Islam and Contemporary PoliticsAmatzia BaramChapter 8: Ba'thist Penetration of Shi'i Religious InstitutionsSamuel HelfontPart III: Communal Strife and Re-emergent Authoritarianism in Post-2003 IraqChapter 9: The Consolidation of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the Integrity of the Iraqi State Gareth StansfieldChapter 10: Political Parties, Elections and the Transformation of Iraqi Politics Since 2003Marc Lemieux and Shamiran MakoChapter 11: The Road to the 'Islamic State': State-Society Relations after the US Withdrawal from IraqBenjamin IsakhanConclusion: Lessons from the Past for a Future IraqBenjamin Isakhan and Shamiran Mako

The activities of ISIS since 2014 have brought back to centre stage a series of very old and very troubling questions about the integrity and viability of the Iraqi state. However, most analysts have framed recent events in terms of their immediate past and without the contextual background to explain their evolution. State and Society in Iraq moves beyond a short-sighted analysis to place the complex and contested nature of Iraqi politics within a broader and deeper historical examination. In doing so, the chapters demonstrate that beyond the overwhelming emphasis on failed occupations, cruel tyrants, ethnic separatists and violent religious fanatics, is an Iraqi people who have routinely agitated against the state, advocated for legitimate and accountable government, and called for inter-communal harmony.When, the authors maintain, the Iraqi people are given agency in the complex process of consent, negotiation and resistance that underpin successful state-society relations, the nation can move beyond patterns of oppression and cruelty, of dangerous rhetoric and divisive politics, and towards a cohesive, peaceful and prosperous future - despite the many difficulties and the steep challenges that lie ahead.