Webinar: Iraq: Occupation, Governance, Protests

Start: Thursday, July 02, 2020 7:00 PM

End: Thursday, July 02, 2020 8:30 PM

The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq by U.S. and British forces was a momentous event for Iraq, the region, and the world. Iraq has experienced political instability, corruption, deteriorating public services, economic decline, ISIS terrorism, and several protest waves. A new government was formed in May 2020 but protests continued, and the country now faces health challenges on top of economic, environmental, and security threats. This webinar will examine the structural and institutional defects that have generated citizen frustration as well as civil society initiatives.

Shamiran Mako is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies. The co-editor of a book on Iraq, she is also working on another book tracing the institutional legacies of ethnic conflict in Iraq, with a focus on how patterns of ethnic dominance and modes of inclusion and exclusion from state power shape mobilizing strategies of communal groups. She is also the co-author, with Valentine M. Moghadam of Northeastern University, of a forthcoming book explaining the divergent outcomes of the Arab Uprisings in seven countries of the region.

She will speak about:

  • Iraq’s political and institutional set-up since 2003
  • Challenges of the complex power-sharing arrangement
  • Iraq’s regional and international relations


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