This year marks two decades since the United States and allied coalition forces toppled the Ba’athist dictatorship in Iraq through foreign-imposed regime change. While Iraq has experienced democratic ruptures, consistent electoral cycles, modest economic gains, and lower levels of violence, laggard socio-economic and political development embedded in pervasive and institutionalized corruption have stifled its democratic potential. Please join us for this webinar which brings together experts on Iraq to reflect on the state of the country since 2003 and introduces the launch of a collection of essays in a forthcoming issue with the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) titled “State of Iraq 20 Years After Invasion

Join us online on Tuesday, April 4th 2023

Speaker 1: Lisa Hajjar

Lisa Hajjar is a professor and chair of sociology at the University of California – Santa Barbara. Her work focuses mainly on issues relating to law and conflict, including military courts and occupations, torture, targeted killing, war crimes, and human rights. Her new book is The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture (University of California Press, 2022).  She is also the founding co-editor of Jadaliyya and co-chair of the editorial committee of Middle East Report.

Speaker 2: Nabil Al-Tikriti

o   Nabil Al-Tikriti is Professor of Middle East History at the University of Mary Washington. A member of the MSF/Doctors Without Borders USA Board of Directors from 2011 to 2017, he has also served as a consultant, election monitor, and relief worker at a number of field locations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. His scholarly interests include Ottoman History, Iraq, Turkey, and the modern Middle East, as well as Humanitarian Affairs. 

Speaker 3: Professor Haider Ala Hamoudi 

Professor Haider Ala Hamoudi serves as the Interim Dean at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and his scholarship focuses on Middle Eastern and Islamic Law. Professor Hamoudi spent most of 2009 in Baghdad advising the Constitutional Review Committee of the Iraqi legislature, responsible for developing critical amendments to the Iraq Constitution deemed necessary for Iraqi national reconciliation, on behalf of the United States Embassy in Baghdad.

Speaker 4: Shamiran Mako

Shamiran Mako is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Her research and teaching focus on the international relations of the Middle East with a substantive emphasis on foreign intervention, ethnic politics, political violence in divided societies, and institutions and statebuilding. She is the author of After the Arab Uprisings: Progress and Stagnation in the Middle East and North Africa, with Valentine Moghadam (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and is currently completing a book project on institutions and ethnic conflict in Iraq. 

Speaker 5: Marsin Alshamary

Marsin Alshamary is a research fellow at the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School. She holds a PhD in Political Science from MIT, where she was also part of the Security studies Program, and works on religion, protest, and civil society in Iraq. She is incoming assistant professor of religion and politics at the political science department at Boston College, Fall 2023. 

The webinar will be conducted using the online Zoom webinar platform. Access information and additional instructions on using the Zoom platform will be provided via email upon successful registration. This webinar is open to all members of the BU community including alumni, students, faculty, and staff.