This study addresses how the UK and the Swedish Iraqi diaspora mobilised towards state-building in Iraq following the 2003 US led intervention. It explores why some diaspora mobilised towards state-building processes through institution-building and governance while others through civil society. While the literature has explored diasporic development and peace-building, it has not systematically addressed diaspora mobilisation for state-building. Neither has it paid sufficient attention to the factors that shape diasporic political choices in intervention and conflict settings. My thesis contributes to this body of literature and argues that an overlooked dimension of state-building, is that of civil society. State-building involves top-down approaches of institution-building but also bottom-up approaches of participatory politics that encourage democratic practices. I thus develop a new two-category operationalization of state-building to capture the interventions and transnational fields of different diaspora groups and individuals. My findings show that during different time periods, three factors have shaped the mobilisation of the UK and Swedish Iraqi diaspora towards state-building; diaspora profiles, hostland foreign policies towards the homeland and links to homeland political parties in Iraq. Theoretically these findings demonstrate that diaspora's socio-economic profiles and networks are key to understanding the type of politics that diaspora can engage in. Meanwhile, hostland foreign policies can shape diasporic interventions by creating different relationships with homelands and thus different opportunities for engagement. Furthermore, in divided societies, diaspora connected to homeland political parties, or represented by them, are more likely to be involved in the apparatus of the state, where as those excluded are more likely to engage outside the structures of power through civil society. Finally, my study demonstrates that temporal vii dimensions are crucial for understanding, which factors mattered, when and why. Empirically, this thesis also contributes original knowledge about the UK and Swedish Iraqi diaspora. It sheds new light into the myriad ways that diaspora in these two countries have been attempting to rebuild the country after the 2003 intervention by illustrating their efforts and experiences, and how it has informed their current relationship to Iraq.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:725287 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Kadhum, Oula |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/93250/ |
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