Reconstructing Iraq's Budgetary Institutions Coalition State Building after Saddam

Consistent with the literature on state building, failed states, peacekeeping and foreign assistance, this book argues that budgeting is a core state activity necessary for the operation of a functional government. Employing a historical institutionalist approach, this book first explores the Ottoman, British and Ba'athist origins of Iraq's budgetary institutions. The book next examines American pre-war planning, the Coalition Provisional Authority's rule-making and budgeting following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the mixed success of the Coalition's capacity-building programs initiated throughout the occupation. This book sheds light on the problem of 'outsiders' building states, contributes to a more comprehensive evaluation of the Coalition in Iraq, addresses the question of why Iraqis took ownership of some Coalition-generated institutions, and helps explain the nature of institutional change.

1. State building and the reconstruction of Iraq's budgetary institutions; 2. The evolution of Iraqi budgetary institutions from the Ottomans and the British mandate through Saddam; 3. Pre-war planning for Iraq's economic and budgetary reconstruction; 4. Boots on the ground: the CPA and the new Iraqi budgetary process; 5. Building Iraqi ministerial capacity: the case of FMIS; 6. The 17th benchmark and the challenge of Iraqi budget execution; 7. Building Iraqi budgetary capacity; 8. Iraqi budgeting; 9. Successful state building in Iraq? Lessons from the reconstruction of Iraq's budgetary institutions.

James D. Savage is Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. He received a PhD in Political Science, an MPP in Public Policy and an MA in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Savage is the author of Funding Science in America: Congress, Universities, and the Politics of the Academic Pork Barrel (Cambridge University Press, 2000), Making the EMU: The Politics of Budgetary Surveillance and the Enforcement of Maastricht, and Balanced Budgets and American Politics. His articles have appeared in publications such as the Journal of Politics, the Review of International Political Economy, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, and the Public Administration Review. He is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the American Political Science Association's Harold D. Lasswell dissertation prize, an Olin-Bradley postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs fellowship, a Fulbright-European Union Affairs fellowship, and a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellowship at the United States Institute of Peace.