Sovereignty as a function of the internationalized political power of the bourgeoisie: Restructuring of the state after the 2003 occupation of Iraq

This thesis aims to analyze the transformation of the concept of sovereignty through three dimensions, the state, the international division of labor, and international law with help of a case study on the 2003 Occupation of Iraq by the Coalition Forces led by the USA and the aftermath of the military intervention. The three sections of the thesis correspond to the dimensions crucial to explaining and interpreting the transformation of sovereignty. Each section divides into three chapters devoted to various levels of abstraction: theory, conjuncture, and moment. The first chapters of all sections focus on the theoretical debates and arguments that define the main conceptual framework of the approach of the thesis. The second chapters offer explanations of the historical transformation regarding the aforementioned dimensions related to sovereignty and scrutinize the conjuncture, i.e. the structure that determines the concrete conditions of the form and content of sovereignty and the facts and events that occur in that context. The third chapters introduce a historical analysis of the Iraqi social formation that concentrates on the state, the international division of labor, and international law under separate sections to reach an overall understanding of the moment that the invasion took place. A historical materialist (in particular, a structural Marxist) scientific approach is explicit in the analysis of the thesis which suggests the transformation of sovereignty as a function of the political power of the bourgeoisie. This, according to the study, can be explained by the internationalization of the state form (first section); the emergence of a new international division of labor and collective imperialism (second section); and the alterations in international law that allowed the invasion of Iraq and the constitution-making process as a crystallization moment of the transformation of sovereignty (third section).