Project

Performing a State: State-building in Iraq (2003-2006)

Acronym
PS-IRAQ
Code
41J01216
Duration
01 April 2016 → 31 March 2020
Funding
European funding: framework programme
Research disciplines
  • Social sciences
    • Other political science not elsewhere classified
Keywords
Iraq Nation-building
 
Project description

PS-IRAQ's objectives: 1) study the relationship between knowledge production and political engineering in state and nation-building of occupied Iraq (2003-6); and 2) analyze how scientific knowledge of the state acted as a constituent element of political agency. This project also seeks to 3) develop detailed analysis of 2 sites of state and nation-building in Iraq (2003-6). The cases are the occupation's and US efforts in: 1) restoring electrical supply and rebuilding the national electrical grid; and 2) the introduction of new Iraqi representative bodies. This project is interdisciplinary, drawing on comparative politics, the anthropology of state and economy, political geography, and social studies of science and technology. It examines how scholars from history, political science, political economy, anthropology and social theory have understood Iraq prior to and after the invasion, and how they engaged in the making and the transfer of ideas about the state.