Reconstructing Iraq's Budgetary Institutions: Coalition State Building after Saddam - Softcover

Savage, James D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107678765 ISBN 13: 9781107678767

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2013

Synopsis

The invasion of Iraq led to a costly nine-year state-building and reconstruction effort. Reconstructing Iraq's budgetary institutions proved to be a vital element of the state-building project, as allocating Iraq's growing oil revenues to pay salaries and pensions, build infrastructure, and provide essential public services played a key role in the Coalition's counterinsurgency strategy. Consistent with the literature on state building, failed states, peacekeeping, and foreign assistance, this book argues that budgeting is a core state activity necessary for the operation of a functional government. Employing a historical institutionalist approach, this book first explores the Ottoman, British, and Ba'athist origins of Iraq's budgetary institutions. The book next examines American pre-war planning, the Coalition Provisional Authority's rule making and budgeting following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the mixed success of the Coalition's capacity-building programs initiated throughout the occupation. The budgetary process introduced by the Coalition offered a source of institutional stability in the midst of insurgency, sectarian division, economic uncertainty, and occupation. This book sheds light on the problem of "outsiders" building states, contributes to a more comprehensive evaluation of the Coalition in Iraq, addresses the question of why Iraqis took ownership of some Coalition-generated institutions, and helps explain the nature of institutional change.

About this title

Book Description:

This is the first book to examine the efforts to reconstruct Iraq's vital budgetary system after the 2003 invasion as a key element of the American-led Coalition's state-building and counterinsurgency strategy. From pre-invasion planning through the invasion and entire occupation, this book analyzes how the Coalition attempted to help the Iraqis budget their massive oil revenues to serve the broader counterinsurgency strategy of providing essential services to the Iraqi people.

About the Author:

James D. Savage is Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. He received a PhD in Political Science, an MPP in Public Policy and an MA in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Savage is the author of Funding Science in America: Congress, Universities, and the Politics of the Academic Pork Barrel (Cambridge University Press, 2000), Making the EMU: The Politics of Budgetary Surveillance and the Enforcement of Maastricht, and Balanced Budgets and American Politics. His articles have appeared in publications such as the Journal of Politics, the Review of International Political Economy, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, and the Public Administration Review. He is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the American Political Science Association's Harold D. Lasswell dissertation prize, an Olin-Bradley postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs fellowship, a Fulbright-European Union Affairs fellowship, a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellowship at the United States Institute of Peace, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1107678765
• ISBN 13: 9781107678767
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 299