The impact of domestic actors on Iraq's foreign policy formulation: Structural autonomy, foreign policy coalition, and domestic balance of political power

This thesis provides a theoretical explanation for Iraqi foreign policy from the 1950s to the late Cold War by analyzing the successive regimes' attitudes to the selected cases in this period. The research examines the dynamics and patterns of Iraqi foreign policy through the systemic factors from the great and regional powers and the unit-level factors of the Iraqi foreign policy executive (FPE) and societal elites. The study focuses on four dimensions of Foreign Policy Decision-Making in Iraq – the international, regional, and domestic threat environment, the FPE's structural autonomy, the foreign policy coalition between the FPE and domestic actors, and the domestic balance of political power. Employing these concepts, the study attempts to unearth how the interplay between the FPE and domestic societal elites produces Iraqi foreign policy behavior. The thesis relies on a methodological framework that includes process tracing, case study analysis, and analytical narrative. The research examines secondary source materials, encompassing empirical and theoretical literature, media sources, and think-tank reports. This study presents five arguments. Firstly, in states whose domestic decision-making environments afford strong structural autonomy to FPEs, decision-makers can construct foreign security policies and neglect domestic opposition when the international environment poses a threat to their survival. Secondly, in high-threat international environments and domestic ambiguity, whose risks to the state and its survival are paramount to the FPE, decision-makers utilize foreign policy to reverse societal groups' challenge to their rule. The rivalry between Iraq and Egypt destroyed Qasim's credibility, and opposition from societal groups pushed him to invade Kuwait to secure his regime. Thirdly, societal elites urge the FPE to identify shifts in the global or regional balance of power to strengthen their positions in the domestic balance of political power. Fourthly, the FPE makes concessions to societal elites in an environment where international threats and domestic ambiguity are low. Nasserism, Arab nationalism, and anti-Israel sentiments caused President Arif with weak structural autonomy to participate in the 1967 Arab Israeli War. Finally, when identifying specific components of the rising state's power as a threat to the national interest in the high-threat environment, the FPE with strong structural autonomy in domestic certainty neglects and intimidates societal elites who have a different "evoked set" of concerns related to the ascending foreign power.