Elite Theory and the 2003 Iraq Occupation by the United States

This book locates US elites as members of corporate elite networks and drivers of corporate elite interests, arguing that studying the social sources of US power plays an important part in understanding the nature of their decisions in US foreign policy.

Exploring the decisions taken by American elites on the Iraq War, the author argues that the decisions and agendas US elites pursued in Iraq were driven by corporate elite interests – embedded in them as individuals and in groups through the corporate elite networks they were rooted in – which they prioritised, using democracy promotion as a cover up. Using elite theory, membership network analysis and content analysis, this book explains who these elites were, how their backgrounds and social influences impacted their world-views, and what this looked like in a detailed exploration of their decision-making on the ground in Iraq. Nouri examines the nature of US power, what drives it, what it looks like and its legacies.

This volume provides valuable understandings and lessons to scholars and students of International Relations studying democracy, US foreign policy, post-colonialism, elite theory, US imperialism, neoliberalism, orientalism, Iraqi politics, and the making of the Iraq constitution.

Bamo Nouri is a lecturer in International Relations at the University of West London, an Honorary Research Fellow at City, University of London, an independent investigative journalist and writer with interests in American foreign policy and the international and domestic politics of the Middle East.