The 2003 United States (U.S.)-led invasion and occupation of Iraq caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and led to the displacement of millions of individuals in that country. Between March 20, 2003 and late 2017, more than 172,000 Iraqis left their country as refugees and resettled in the United States. This dissertation focuses on a small cohort of that population who resettled in various locations in the U.S. after 2003. This research contributes an empirical and theoretical exploration of the possibilities for political agency for resettled Iraqis in the United States. Grounded in literature suggesting those displaced commonly experience constrained agency framed as "silence/ing" and/or "voicelessness," I identify three requirements to democratic participation: sufficient time to exercise voice, adequate information and attenuating lingering suspicion of (authoritarian) government. Moreover, despite constraints, opportunities for engagement existed including discussion and dialogue; civil society volunteering; and activism. Drawing on 15 semi-structured qualitative interviews, this work first critically explores the American invasion of Iraq and the social and political breakdown that it triggered in that country. I argue that the conflict was an aggressive war and that, consequently, the United States should be held responsible for all of the harm it has caused to the people of Iraq. I describe the violence committed by the American military and I trace the connections between the erosion of interviewees' personal safety and their decisions to leave Iraq and resettle in the U.S. I contend that their various personal decisions to seek refuge were important agentic acts. I then delve into participants' post-resettlement opportunities for belonging in American society and analyze several ways that negative media and government discourses and policies concerning refugees, Arabs, and Muslims contributed to experiences of constraint, unease and precarity. I explore the importance of finding opportunities to engage in personal and cultural exchange with friends, neighbors and colleagues. Thereafter, I examine participants' experiences and understandings of democratic membership. Elaborating several critiques of American political institutions shared by the interviewees, I consider three requirements they identified to democratic participation: sufficient time, sufficient information to make informed decisions and the lingering effects of having lived under an authoritarian government in Iraq. Subsequently, I explore the multiple sites and modes of engagement and participation shared by participants, including dialogue, debate and discussion about the decisions that affect their lives as well as volunteering with community and nonprofit organizations focused on various types of activities, and activism in response to the Trump 2017 Travel Ban. I argue that broad social mobilization and public invocation of norms of welcoming and diversity by native-born Americans can be powerful tools to enlarge spaces for democratic agency for refugees otherwise targeted by discriminatory government actions. I then return to the question of "silence" in refuge that prompted this study and the importance of deliberate, daily interactions and exchange among newcomers and native-born Americans to expand spaces for resettled refugees to engage in American society. Thereafter, I examine the salience of local organizations and activities as sites of engagement and venues for expressions of agency for those I interviewed. I then outline possible directions for future research investigating the role(s) of refugee-led organizations in resettlement and community building. I close by describing the implications this work has for policy and activism. / Doctor of Philosophy / The 2003 United States (U.S.)-led invasion and occupation of Iraq caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and led to the displacement of millions of individuals in that country. Between March 20, 2003 and late 2017 more than 172,000 Iraqis left their country as refugees and resettled in the United States. This dissertation focuses on a small cohort of that population who resettled in various locations in the U.S. after 2003. This research contributes an exploration of the possibilities for political agency for resettled Iraqis in the United States. Grounded in literature suggesting those displaced commonly experience constrained agency framed as “silence/ing” and/or “voicelessness,” I identify three requirements to democratic participation: sufficient time, adequate information and attenuating lingering suspicion of (authoritarian) government. Moreover, despite constraints, opportunities for engagement existed including discussion and dialogue; civil society volunteering; and activism. Drawing on 15 qualitative interviews, this work first explores the American invasion of Iraq and the social and political breakdown in that country that it triggered. I argue that the conflict was an aggressive war and that, consequently, the United States should be held responsible for all of the harm it has caused to the people of Iraq. I describe the violence committed by the American military and I trace the connections between the erosion of interviewees’ personal safety and their decisions to leave Iraq and resettle in the U.S. I then delve into participants’ post-resettlement opportunities for belonging in American society and analyze several ways that negative media portrayals and government policies concerning refugees, Arabs, and Muslims shaped those resettled individuals’ life experiences. I explore the importance for interviewees of finding opportunities to engage in personal and cultural exchange with their friends, neighbors and colleagues. Thereafter, I examine participants’ experiences and understandings of democratic membership. I then consider three requirements interviewees identified to democratic participation: sufficient time, adequate information to make informed decisions and the lingering effects of having lived under an authoritarian government in Iraq. Subsequently, I describe the multiple sites and modes of engagement and participation shared by interviewees including dialogue, debate and discussion about the decisions that affect their lives, volunteering with community and nonprofit organizations and activism in response to the Trump 2017 Travel Ban. I argue that broad social mobilization and public invocation of norms of welcoming and diversity by native-born Americans can be powerful tools to enlarge participatory spaces for refugees. I then return to the question of silent refuge that prompted this study and the importance of deliberate, daily interactions and exchange among newcomers and native-born Americans to expand spaces for resettled refugees to engage in American society. Thereafter, I examine the importance of local organizations and activities for participants. I then outline possible directions for future research investigating the role(s) of refugee-led organizations in resettlement and community building. I close by describing the implications this work has for policy and activism.

Formulating an investment plan requires choosing among alternative projects with different time-streams of costs and benefits. Planners have to define a decision criterion that reduces the stream of cost and benefit flows at different points in time to an index. This index can then be used to determine a project's admissibility and to select among admissible projects. Net present value, or cost-benefit analysis, is regarded as the most rational one for that purpose. However, application of cost-benefit analysis in a developing country involves many difficulties. A major one is estimation of the social rate of discount. This study is intended to develop a practical approach for measuring the social rate of discount under conditions in Iraq in order to improve the selection process for development projects. The study holds that any applicable methodology to determine this variable should be sensitive to the principal characteristics of the particular economy and to the underlying meanings of available data. Accordingly, it was shown that the supply of savings is not appropriate for that purpose, since neither the individual nor the social time preferences are adequately reflected in its information. Likewise, the alternative of calculating the social rate of discount by observing the pre-tax rates of return on investment will yield misleading results due to serious distortions in different markets. Based on the fact that more than 98 percent of investment funding is provided by revenues from crude oil exports, the study recommends the need for solvable models of optimal path with exhaustible resources. These models should maximize the social welfare of both current and future generations. Meanwhile, optimal growth calculations would yield the required rate of discount as a by-product of the maximization process. In the absence of such calculations, two methods were recommended to estimate the discount rate within the second best context. The first is to derive it from consumption information. The other way is to estimate the opportunity cost of investable funds by observing the long-term rate of interest prevailing in international capital markets.

No description available.

No description available.

During the last four decades, Iraq, like most other developing countries, faced very rapid urban growth. Due to thr absence of definite urbanisation policies, the major part of the urban growth went to the main cities, in particular , the capital Baghdad. Such a pattern of growth created many socio-economic problems at the national, as well as the urban level. This study represents an attempt toward developing a methodology of dealing with urban growth problems on a regional level in Iraq. It aims at finding what is thought to be, under the prevailing socio-economic and physical constraints, the most efficient urban growth pattern in the Upper Euphrates Region (U.E.R.) up to 1985. To achieve this aim the study first reviews and critically examines a wide range of urban growth theories and models. Despite the lessons that were learned from this review and the adoptation of many of their principles in developing this study, they did not provide a ready made answer to the problem of urban growth in the region Secondly, for the better understanding of urbanisation on and spatial development policies in Iraq and the U.E.R. a thorough examination of these and other aspects has been dealt with in part two. Thirdly, after examining the basic techniques that could be used in analysing the urban growth problem, such as the cost-benefit analysis and its refinement the planning balance sheet, threshold analysis and the goals-achievement analysis, it is found that the latter, at this stage of development in Iraq could be applied in studying such a problem. Finally, three alternative urban growth patterns were considered, i.e., the expansion of the largest urban centre in each urban node, the expansion of the proposed smaller urban centres and the establishment of a new town in each urban node and a set of socio-economic, physical, environmental and structural, factors that were thought to affect strongly the proposed urban growth patterns were incorporated in the analysis. From these it was found that the expansion of the largest urban centre in each urban nod e is the most suitable solution at this stage of the socio-economic development of the region. The vitality of this conclusion was tested by applying sensitivity analysis which supported it.

No description available.

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building. / The purpose of this research is to examine the initial post-arrival process of recently arrived humanitarian entrants into Sydney, Australia from three non-traditional source countries, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Resettlement was examined from social, economic and health perspectives, with the determinants influencing the settlement process being identified as a precursor to understanding the long-term adjustment process. A literature review on settlement adjustment from a multidisciplinary approach confirmed the dearth of research on early refugee settlement experience in Australia and overseas for groups other than the Indochinese. Such research has tended to concentrate on one of the specific aspects of settlement rather than attempting a holistic approach to understanding adjustment patterns. Subsequently, 44 key informants, representing over 25 different organisations providing services (both government and non-government) to humanitarian entrants, were individually surveyed to gather information on their clients' needs, perceptions and problems. Issues emerging from both the literature review and key informants' survey formed the basis of a survey of 172 recently arrived Bosnian, Iraqi and Afghan humanitarian entrants. Among the statistical tools used to analyse the entrants' surveys were Pearson's correlation coefficient, analysis of variance, Kendall's tau correlation, Spearman's rho correlation and Cronbach's alpha. Results indicated that during the initial settlement stage, the former socio-economic background of the entrants has little impact on their economic, social or health adjustment. Instead, the conditions of departure, such as the loss of property, long-term incarceration, torture and trauma, were found to have a far reaching influence on the entrants' social and health experiences in their new country; however, despite the variety of traumatic pre-departure experiences, the resilience of the entrants reinforced their determination to participate in the workforce. Although commonalities were found among the three groups in settlement outcomes, there were also distinct differences. The groups shared difficulties such as post-arrival unemployment, lack of suitable accommodation and family reunion concerns. However, the Bosnians, for example, experienced the greatest degree of health-related problems, the Iraqis expressed the greatest interest in sponsoring family members and the Afghans were the most well-adjusted of the three groups. Detailed policy implications are also presented; these emphasise that humanitarian entrants may experience adjustment difficulties qualitatively different from those of traditional migrants and argue for improved support services.

<p>Under the United Nations Charter, the Security Council may decide what measures, not involving the use of armed force, are to be employed to give effect to its decisions and may call upon member States to apply such measures in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.2 One of the measures that can be decided on is sanctions. Sanctions have, to a large extent, been imposed to defend human rights. Economic sanctions were commonly believed to be a mechanism that was a humane alternative to war. During the last decade, the Security Council has applied economic sanctions in several cases that, in turn, have drawn the attention of different United Nations human rights bodies and mechanisms to their possible impact on the enjoyment of human rights.3 Fundamentally, any economic sanctions programme&rsquo / s main objective is to induce dysfunction in the trade and financial systems of the target State.</p>

This study attempts to analyze the &lsquo / subordination&rsquo / of the Arab regional system by giving special reference to Egypt and Iraq, as the two most prominent Arab countries that challenged the established Westphalian state system in the Middle East. Through introducing the concept of &lsquo / subordination&rsquo / , the research seeks to answer the questions of &lsquo / what makes the Middle East different than other regions?&rsquo / and &lsquo / how the Middle East subordinated to the international system?&rsquo / The conduct of the thesis is based upon three interrelated discussions / systemic origins of the subordination and its main characteristics, subordination of the Middle East as sub-international regional system, and finally the case studies which testify and approve the validity and implications of the theoretical arguments that presented in the former parts of the thesis. Through the exercise of independent, original, and critical thought, this thesis aims to build on existing knowledge by using already known materials but with a new conceptualizations, design and interpretation.

Thesis (M.S. in Leadership and Human Resource Development)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Alice Crawford, Gail Fann Thomas. Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-170). Also available online.