Internationalization of Higher Education and Imported Universities in Post-Conflict Iraq Through

Internationalization of Higher Education and Imported Universities in Post-conflict Iraq through

a Policy Borrowing Lens

Hayfa Jafar

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education (LHAE) Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) University of Toronto

Internationalization of Higher Education and Imported Universities in Post-conflict Iraq through

a Policy Borrowing Lens

Hayfa Jafar

Doctor of Philosophy

Leadership, Higher and Adult Education University of Toronto

2021

Abstract

The U.S.-led invasion in 2003 has created opportunities for Iraq to reconnect with the international academic community, adopt some internationalization activities and establish American-style universities. Drawing on policy borrowing and educational transfer theory, this study examines how internationalization and the American-style university are rationalized, appropriated, or resisted, by various actors at national, sectoral, and institutional levels. I used a vertical case study research design with interviews as the primary method of data collection.

The findings suggest that various stakeholders in Iraqi higher education have rationalized internationalization activities, such as twinning programs and international university partnerships, differently. While the Iraqi government was motivated by an economic rationale to develop urgently needed manpower to participate in the economic and social development of the post-2003 democratic

Iraq, the Ministry of Higher Education and some of the universities’ administrators framed the rationales around rebuilding the reputation of higher education institutions. At the institutional level, the rationales centered around finding a better alternative to the local system that seems resistant to change, bringing in financial aid, and the potential for revenue generation. The findings suggest that the primary framing used by various external and internal actors to justify adopting internationalization activities is the

ii conceptualization of Iraq as a cradle of civilization that has collapsed, and desires help from the international community to reform its higher education institutions.

The founders’ rationales for establishing American-style universities in post-conflict Iraq include peace and social cohesion, reviving the history of excellence and greatness of Iraq, and revolutionizing public higher education. While the American-style university model promises an environment for cultural tolerance and unity and encourages positive social change, the findings show that the chaotic transition to democracy in Iraq has yet to provide a safe environment for the university to fully realize its social and political agendas. Lack of financial support could make these universities more isolated rather than fully engaged in shaping Iraq’s new society. In the conclusion, I critique internationalization that occurs without regard for Iraq's specific contextual factors and suggest the establishment of a policy sector that could guide educational change for Iraq.

iii

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to many people for their support to this dissertation.

I would like to acknowledge the considerable support from my supervisor, Dr. Ruth Hayhoe. Dr. Ruth: Thank you for your continued encouragement over the last few years and your belief in the value of the dissertation and seeing it as a hope to build a better future for Iraq and its higher education.

I owe a tremendous intellectual debt to my thesis committee members Dr. Linda Muzzin and Dr. Elizabeth Buckner for their much appreciated engagement in reviewing, constructively critiquing, and shaping the final version of the dissertation. Linda: thank you for all your comments on many interview transcripts and for guiding me to showing relationships, contradictions, and meaning-making in the data. Elizabeth: Thank you for all your “what does that mean” comments in the margins of the first drafts of my dissertation. Your critical feedback helped me to sharpen my analysis and be more critical.

I’d like also to express my appreciation to Dr. Roozbeh Shirazi, my external examiner, for his detailed feedback to enrich the analysis. Thank you Dr. Shirazi for encouraging me to be more courageous in analyzing the data and further engaging with my participants to bring their voices to the readers.

I owe a big thank you to my husband, family, and friends who showered me with their great support and prayer to finish this dissertation successfully. Their sense of pride after finishing and defending the thesis was tremendous. Also, a big thank you to my uncles and friends in Kufa, Baghdad, and Amman who welcomed me into their homes and helped me with the interviews. I am particularly indebted to Emma Sabzalieva for her support and encouragement.

I hope this study is the beginning of more collaborative studies that aim toward system improvement of higher education in societies crippled by conflicts.

Hayfa Faisal Jafar

Dedication

To Iraqi youth who took to the street for justice and a united homeland.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ...... iv

Table of Contents ...... vi

List of Tables...... ix

List of Figures ...... x

List of Appendices ...... xi

Acronyms and Abbreviations ...... xii

Chapter 1 : Introduction ...... 1

1.1 Background Context and Statement of the Problem ...... 4

1.2 Rationale for the Study ...... 10

1.3 Purpose of the Study ...... 13

1.4 The Research Problem...... 15

1.5 Significance of the Study...... 19

1.6 Organization of the Thesis ...... 20

Chapter 2 : Literature Review ...... 22

2.1 Internationalization of Higher Education ...... 23

2.2 Rationales ...... 27

2.3 The American Liberal Arts University through an Internationalization Lens ...... 32

2.4 Policy Borrowing and Educational Transfer–Theories and Analytical Frameworks ...... 35

2.5 Four Stages of Policy Borrowing and Educational Transfer Theory ...... 45

2.6 Applicability of the Model ...... 52

2.7 Summary ...... 53

Chapter 3 : Research Design and Methods ...... 55

3.1 Study Design ...... 55

3.2 Data Sources and Research Methods ...... 60

3.3 Analytical Strategies ...... 65

3.4 Research Sites ...... 68

3.5 Limitations of the Study ...... 75

3.6 Research Ethics ...... 76

3.7 Summary ...... 76

Chapter 4 : Reconnecting Iraq with the International Community ...... 78

4.1 Global and Cross-national Influences on Higher Education in Post-conflict Iraq ...... 82

4.2 The Legacy of Economic Sanctions-Destruction ...... 82

4.3 Post-colonial Influence - CPA Reconstruction Policies ...... 83

4.4 Cross-National Influences through International Community-Capacity Building and Modernization ...... 91

4.5 Internationalizing Iraqi Higher Education Rationales–Local Perspective ...... 96

4.6 Barriers to Implementing Internationalization ...... 121

4.7 Summary ...... 126

Chapter 5 : The Promise of an International University ...... 130

5.1 Attractions of an International University for Ministry Officials ...... 132

5.2 Attraction of an International University at the University Level...... 144

5.3 Summary ...... 161

Chapter 6 : Establishing American-style Universities in Iraq: Historical Comparisons and Current Rationales ...... 164

6.1 American Missionary Education in Iraq ...... 167

6.2 Comparing the Context of the Three American Universities ...... 173

6.3 The Rationales for Establishing AUIS and AUIB Compared to AUB ...... 176

6.4 American Universities of Iraq and American Influence ...... 191

6.5 Summary and Discussion ...... 195

Chapter 7 : Implementation and Localization of American-style University in Iraq ...... 200

7.1 Liberal Arts Curriculum and Pedagogy ...... 202

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7.2 Not-for-profit and Apolitical Autonomous Universities with External Funding ...... 221

7.3 A Democratic Campus ...... 227

7.4 Summary ...... 236

Chapter 8 : Discussion and Conclusion ...... 239

8.1 Summary of Findings and Answers to the Research Questions ...... 241

8.2 Contribution to the Literature on the Internationalization of Higher Education ...... 244

8.3 Internationalization and Imported Universities in Iraq: Challenges and Paradoxes ...... 247

8.4 Policy Borrowing Framework ...... 253

8.5 Implications and Future Research ...... 262

8.6 Prospects for Iraqi Higher Education ...... 274

REFERENCES ...... 277

Appendices ...... 312

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List of Tables

Table 1: Rationales and Approaches in Internationalization of Higher Education ...... 28

Table 2: List of Participants and Their Positions in the Research Sites ...... 62

Table 3: Profiles of Participating Public and Private Universities in Iraq and Lebanon Including the American University of Kurdistan ...... 72

Table 4: Capacity Building Programs Offered by International Organizations ...... 94

Table 5: The Rationales for Internationalizing Higher Education in Iraq ...... 98

Table 6: Attraction of an imported university in Iraq – Ministry level views ...... 133

Table 7: Attraction of an Imported University in Iraq – University-Level Views ...... 144

Table 8: Key Rationales for Establishing American Universities in Post-conflict Societies ...... 179

List of Figures

Figure 1: Policy Borrowing in Education: Composite Process ...... 47

Figure 2: Structural typology of cross-national attraction ...... 48

Figure 3: Levels of Analysis in the Internationalization of HE and Imported Universities ...... 57

Figure 4: Map of Iraq and Data Collection Sites ...... 70

Figure 5: Policy Borrowing (American-style University) in Iraqi Higher Education...... 257

List of Appendices

Appendix A: Profile of key informants – participants ...... 312

Appendix B: Interview Protocol–Ministry Level ...... 313

Appendix C: Interview Protocol–University Level ...... 314

Appendix D: Interview Protocol–Imported Universities ...... 315

Appendix E: AUB’s Institutional Review Board approval ...... 316

Appendix F: University of Toronto REB Approval ...... 317

Acronyms and Abbreviations

AUB American University of Beirut AUK American University of Kurdistan AUIB American University of Iraq-Baghdad AUIS American University of Iraq-Sulaimani CPA Coalition Provisional Authority DelPHE Department for International Development HEAD Higher Education and Development program IREX The International Research and Exchanges ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria MHESR Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research REB Research Ethics Board SSH Social Sciences and Humanities STEM Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics UB University of Baghdad UBA University of Babylon UK University of Kufa UNESCO United Nations Education, Social and Cultural Organization USAID United States Agency for International Development UT University of Technology

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Chapter 1 : Introduction

Universities are crucial to producing advanced skills, enhancing social mobility, and developing critical thinking. They also play a role in fostering national and civic identities (Davis, 2005).

Currently, modern universities emphasize global awareness, international collaboration, and intercultural relationships in their programs (Knight, 2004; Marginson, 2010). Studies also suggest that higher education (HE) is a catalyst for recovery in post-conflict societies and can contribute to reconstruction and nation building efforts (Johnson & Hoba, 2015; Milton, 2013;

Milton & Barakat, 2016). Historically seen as the pride of the country and the region, Iraq’s higher education institutions currently struggle to engage fully in these roles. During the 1970s,

Iraq had developed a solid infrastructure with well-performing education and health care systems. Iraq’s universities were deemed the best in the Middle East and renowned worldwide

(UNESCO, 2003). Over the past three decades, Iraq has lived under a dictator, wars, sanctions, and continuing conflict, and its higher education institutions have been impacted by all of these circumstances. Subsequently, Iraqi higher education existed in isolation and out of touch with the latest developments and trends in global higher education.

From 2003 to the present, Iraq went through three phases of conflict. The first began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a U.S.-led coalition that toppled the government of Saddam

Hussein. The conflict continued into its second phase as an insurgency emerged to oppose the occupying forces and the post-invasion Iraq government. Triggered by sectarian violence, the conflict increasingly became a civil war that escalated between 2006 and 2008, leading to the displacement of almost 1.6 million people during this short time alone (IDP Working Group,

2008). The state of relative stability in Iraq after 2008 was next interrupted by the emergence of

the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2014 that led to the enforced migration and displacement of millions of Iraqi citizens from north-western cities. Fighting ISIS produced another economic, social and political crisis, along with challenges for the higher education sector. ISIS occupied schools and university campuses and turned them into military camps and at least 10 universities were burned down completely1 (Global Coalition to Protect

Education from Attack, 2018).

The aftermath of conflict presents tremendous challenges for Iraqi HE institutions; yet, it also brings about an opportunity to build better institutions rather than simply restoring pre-conflict systems. The current moment offers a chance to adopt new modes of learning, invest in the latest educational technologies, and introduce more effective governance (Heleta, 2017a; Milton,

2018). Since 2003, major reform policies in Iraqi higher education have involved the reconstruction of the universities’ infrastructure, decentralization and autonomy, privatization, and internationalization (Government of Iraq, 2012; Milton, 2013; The Coalition Provisional

Authority2, 2004). Activities such as scholarship programs, university partnerships, imported curriculum, international universities, and other means have been considered by reformers as approaches to remedy the damage resulting from years of isolation and war (O’Malley, 2010).

Since 2003, internationalization has been a key interest of successive ministers of Iraqi HE sectors. The former Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research for the Iraqi Interim

1 Universities in the areas liberated from ISIS have different pressing needs and the analysis here might not reflect their status and reconstruction needs. Many international organizations have engaged mostly in the reconstruction and basic infrastructure of schools, technical institutes, and universities in these areas. 2 Under UN Security Council Resolution 1483, passed on May 22, 2003, the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) was made the legitimate governing and security authority of Iraq. 2

Government3 in 2005 stated “the shortest way to rehabilitate and develop Iraqi HE is through integrating the sector in the international arena of higher education through partnerships” (cited in Milton, 2013, p. 287). Immediately after the 2003 invasion, UNESCO and other international organizations have become involved to reconnect Iraq with the international community through various internationalization projects. Also, Iraq has invested in many initiatives to send hundreds of students to study abroad, develop international partnerships, and adopt imported curriculum through twinning (e.g. students to embark on a partition of their studies in a partner university) and franchising programs (e.g. Iraqi university hosts a partner’s university program) (The Higher

Committee of Education Development in Iraq, 2010). A few years after the 2003 US-led invasion, two American liberal arts universities were established in Kurdistan Iraq, and more recently another American-style university was established in Baghdad.

Under the premises briefly outlined above, the purpose of my research is to explore the rationales for adopting internationalization and importing foreign university models into Iraqi higher education from the perspective of local and external actors. Further, I aim to examine global and international influence – within the larger sociopolitical conditions-- on Iraq that gave rise to imported universities and internationalization to be adopted in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion and interpret these influences against models in the literature.

I begin this introductory chapter by presenting the background context to recent structural changes in Iraqi higher education and discuss the statement of the problem in this context. In the

3 The Iraqi Interim Government was created by the United States and its coalition allies as a caretaker government to govern Iraq until the drafting of a new constitution following the National Assembly election conducted on January 30, 2005. 3

following section, I will explain the rationale for conducting this study, followed by a brief statement of the study’s purpose. Then I will present the guiding research questions and sub- questions, and the significance of the study. I will conclude this chapter by providing an outline of the thesis.

1.1 Background Context and Statement of the Problem

Brief History of Iraqi Higher Education Before 2003

This section sketches a brief history of higher education in Iraq over a century, with particular attention given to its evolution during the long years of an authoritarian political system under the ruling of the Ba’ath party of Saddam Hussain.

Iraq is proud of its traditional role as a regional center of learning. The country has a long intellectual history dating back to the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. And it enjoyed a period of remarkable accomplishments during the early Arab-Islamic empires of the ninth century. Iraqis traditionally placed a high value on education as Herring observed, “Iraqis tend to see themselves proudly as coming from a society that was the cradle of civilization in its ancient contributions to the development of writing, legal systems, libraries, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, technology and so on” (Herring, 2011, p. 345).

Modern universities in Iraq were established in the second half of the last century with

Iraq’s first and largest university, Baghdad University. It was founded in 1957, uniting several colleges that had been established earlier, including the College of Law (1908), the Higher

Teachers’ Training College (1923), the College of Medicine (1927), the College of Pharmacy

(1936), and the College of Engineering (1942) (UNESCO, 2004). The Iraqi HE sector flourished in the 1960s and early 1970s; advances were made in both the arts and the sciences. The Iraqi universities and research centers became a nexus for research in language, history, and literature. 4

The University of Baghdad’s medicine and science faculties attracted students from throughout the Arab world. Fueled by oil wealth, the universities’ research helped support an active import- substitution drive that produced household items, construction materials, and agricultural machinery (Harb, 2008).

The HE sector was centralized in 1970 under the control of the Ministry of Higher

Education and Scientific Research (MHESR) and that diminished its academic independence.

Parts of the sector were governed under the control of Ministries of Defense, of Petroleum and

Metals, and of Industry and Military Industrialization, and the Nuclear Energy Organization to serve the regime’s aspirations to strengthen the military sector. The HE sector found itself obliged to dedicate its research and talent to the political agenda of the Baath party (Harb, 2008).

One of the most damaging consequences of the Ba’ath control was brain drain, with thousands of university academics emigrating to work in neighboring countries or overseas. This situation became more acute after the first Gulf War (1990-1991) that led to the establishment of economic sanctions that devastated Iraq. The strict sanctions affected all fields of life, health, social and economic prosperity. In the field of higher education, research was most affected. The grants to study abroad were suspended; universities and their staff were prohibited from traveling abroad or importing any materials, books, or scientific journals. Also, Iraqi subscriptions to scientific journals were suspended by the countries that published them. All universities had to operate with poorly maintained facilities and buildings, old and depreciated equipment, a lack of technology, outdated journals and books, and low faculty salaries. Corruption and isolation affected the confidence of academics and further damaged the performance at all levels of education (UNESCO, 2004; Zangana, 2008).

Despite the regime’s manipulation and its repressive policies, HE continued to expand.

Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq had 24 public universities, which housed more than 200 colleges with about 800 departments, and 21 specialized institutes and research centers (MHESR, n.d).

All universities are under the authority of the MHESR with two different administrative and political systems in the Northern Kurdistan Region and the rest of Iraq. The administrative structure in both regions is highly centralized with very limited academic independence. The private sector has flourished recently in Iraq with 75 private colleges compared to only 10 before

2003, most of them in the capital Baghdad (MHESR, n.d.). During the last 20 years, the official policy of establishing a public university in each governorate has led to a considerable quantitative expansion that has led to adding 11 more public universities since 2003.

Iraqi Higher Education after 2003

Although the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 ended an authoritarian regime that diminished the freedom of the HE sector, the U.S. intervention has failed to create a peaceful environment for the sector’s renewal. Authoritarian government control has been replaced by the terrors of sectarian violence. It seems that the situation is in many ways worse today than before the invasion, with pre-existing structural problems aggravated by the violence, corruption, and financial shortages of the post-invasion years. The unchecked looting of state institutions, including universities, research centers, museums, and libraries, that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, severely affected the HE sector that was already in poor condition. The conflict and subsequent looting led to many institutions being deprived of basic teaching- learning equipment and materials required for a proper learning environment. Likewise, the earlier years of under-funding of the sector due to economic sanctions have left their impact.

Historically, Iraqi universities were very well known for their diversity. Neither appointments nor admission were sectarian, religious, or ethnic. But since 2003 all these practices have changed. Unfortunately, colleges and universities have become sharply divided, and most institutions have come to look like religious centers rather than scientific establishments

(Zangana, 2008). The interference of ruling political parties--especially the religious-sectarian ones that dominate the government-- resulted in all Iraqi higher education being deprived of the independence they should enjoy. This dire situation has only resulted in producing weak graduates and disrespected academic staff. Thus, one cannot expect the devastated Iraqi higher education system to develop or progress, nor could one expect this system to be effective for nation-building.

After 2003, Iraq went through a broad reconstruction of its economic, legal, political, and social institutions (Barakat, 2005; King, 2003; Yousif, 2007). Higher education was part of this reconstruction and was impacted by it. The reconstruction in Iraq had begun with the 100 orders enacted by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). For example, Order 1 declared the “de-

Ba’athification of Iraqi Society”, Order 2 disbanded the Iraqi army and intelligence service

(Allawi, 2006; The Coalition Provisional Authority, 2004), and Order 8 addressed traveling abroad for academic purposes. With respect to the HE sector, The Coalition Provisional

Authority (2004) listed its reform accomplishments as: (1) decentralization of the authority in the

Ministry; (2) re-entering universities into the international academic community through study abroad and scholarships; (3) increasing faculty salaries with a goal to reverse a “brain drain”; (4) building partnerships with international universities for curriculum development and training; (5) democratizing the selection of deans and presidents; and (6) passing an official statement supporting academic freedom. I will argue that the CPA-led reform of Iraqi HE during this

crucial first post-invasion period has influenced the post-2003 trajectory of the sector. It is important to mention that the radical Ministry reform toward a decentralized governance giving university presidents control of admissions and complete autonomy from the Ministry was reversed at a later date (Milton, 2013). Similarly, the experiment of electing presidents and deans was influenced by the rise of a sectarian divide (Harb, 2008), and the experiment stopped immediately after the dissolution of the CPA when sovereignty was returned to Iraqi leaders in

2005.

The 2003 invasion brought the UN sanctions to an end and created an opportunity for

Iraqi academia to reconnect through study abroad and other internationalization activities. The

CPA attempted to re-establish academic linkages between Iraq and foreign universities to emphasize the HE role in reconstruction and state building, and make the point that “the free exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence is necessary to the establishment of self-government in Iraq” (The Coalition Provisional Authority, 2004). Many funded programs were developed by the international community to support the reform of the Iraqi higher education sector. One project for rebuilding Iraqi HE was USAID’s Higher Education and

Development (HEAD) program, scheduled to run from September 2003 until the end of 2005.

The $20 million program funded university partnerships between individual departments in US and Iraqi universities. A main objective was allegedly to modernize teaching methodologies, research and curricula (USAID, 2004). Agresto (2007), CPA advisor on HE at that time, argued that this USAID strategy was disconnected from Iraqi HE needs and prioritized the HEAD

Program when there “were far more pressing needs” (p.144) at a critical early recovery phase.

Some Iraqi academics also critiqued HEAD for primarily benefiting U.S. universities rather than

Iraqi universities that were the intended program beneficiaries (Milton, 2013). Through these

university linkage and partnerships programs, American and western style universities were used as an external reference for measures that were argued to be suitable for transfer to Iraqi higher education.

Within the larger global context, Iraq looks similar to other countries in its adoption of internationalization strategies that reflect much of contemporary change in the international landscape of higher education as a consequence of globalization This adoption includes increasing competition in the recruitment of international students and staff, the growth of cross- border education programs, and attention to recent world rankings. But, it also indicates postcolonial influences, a political agenda for Iraq and the entire Middle East region, and cross- national influence under the pretext of modernization and capacity building of the collapsed Iraqi

HE.

Despite international efforts to reconnect Iraq and to support its national efforts to modernize and enhance the quality of Iraqi higher education institutions, the outcomes have turned out to be remarkably modest. This raises larger questions about who defines the needs of post-2003 Iraq, what are the global influences and rationales for adopting internationalization and importing a foreign university in a society torn apart by continuous conflict and political and economic instability, who benefits from these internationalization activities, and how reconnecting Iraq with the international community fits with the broader U.S interest in Iraq and the Middle East?

Almost three decades after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, universities in Iraq are still struggling to recover. Iraqi universities still require a comprehensive reform program to reclaim their earlier vigour and capacity and enable them to play a leading role in the economic

reconstruction of the nation. Hence, against the backdrop of all these changes, my study sets out to explore the rationales for adopting internationalization in Iraqi higher education and importing an American-style university. The study also aims to explore the impact of the pre-conflict legacy, the conflict itself, and the post-conflict realities on the internationalization agenda in Iraq since 2003.

1.2 Rationale for the Study

There are three major gaps in the literature that have inspired my interest in undertaking this study: (1) the scant literature on the topic of internationalization of higher education and imported universities in conflict settings in general, and in Iraq specifically; (2) the fact that most studies of imported universities focus on international branch campuses and joint universities with little attention being paid to the American liberal arts university model as one of the models for internationalization in higher education; and (3) the circumstances that many American universities have been established in war-ridden societies or in the middle of dramatic organizational change such as in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Hungary, and more recently in

Iraq where conflict seems to pave the way for the establishment of these universities (Long et al.,

2015). However, not many studies have explored this trend in terms of the rationale and understanding of this university model from the local perspective of leaders in the education ministries of the countries in turmoil and their university faculty and administrators.

First, there has been little scholarly work on Iraqi higher education, let alone on its internationalization. Studies from Iraqi scholars such as Ahmad (2014), Al-Behadili (2018), Al-

Janabi and Anderson (2011) and Mohamed (2012) have used mostly descriptive approaches and focused on recommending internationalization as a reform agenda to improve Iraqi universities and to recover from the impact of years of isolation and conflict. Other studies by Milton (2013; 10

2018) and Milton & Barakat (2016) have focused on the destruction of Iraqi higher education after the 2003 invasion and the role of higher education in the recovery of post-conflict societies.

However, I found no studies specifically looking at the rationales for internationalization in Iraqi higher education, how different actors perceived it, and the process of implementation and localization of internationalization and imported universities within the Iraqi context. As the

Iraqi government has developed two national strategies to reform higher education with internationalization (Government of Iraq, 2012; MHESR, 2010) as a key strategy and many scholarship initiatives and international partnerships have been developed at the national and institutional level, these deserve attention and in-depth research. Also, other studies have paid no analytical attention to the legacy of conflict and the post-conflict contexts that could influence

Iraqi decision makers’ and academics' understanding and perceptions about internationalization.

My interest in this topic has been stimulated by examining the American liberal arts university as one form of imported university from the perspective of internationalization. Not many studies have considered the American liberal arts university through an internationalization lens (Godwin, 2017; Long, 2018) and, to my knowledge neither has a policy-borrowing lens been used. (I will explain policy borrowing below). However, many studies have examined the history of the American liberal arts university model, including AUB, the American University of Beirut (Anderson, 2012; VanDeMark, 2012) and AUC, the American University in Cairo

(Murphy, 2005). The literature has covered a policy relevance aspect (Albright & Hardley, 2016;

Bertelsen, 2012; 2014), as well as challenges and opportunities (Ghabra & Arnold, 2007;

Purinton & Skaggs, 2017), and the political dimensions of these universities (Noori, 2016; Noori

& Anderson, 2013). A thesis and a book recently appeared that also discussed all of this as an emerging organizational field (Long, 2018, 2020). The American liberal arts university model is

a main focus in this thesis and I am interested in addressing the motivations that drive individuals to establish an imported university on this model within the context of Iraq. Further, I hope to shed light on how this university model is implemented and adapted to the problematic context of Iraq.

These independent American universities abroad are promoting a particular style of higher education based on a pedagogical or curricular approach employed in other countries that reflects the historically transnational character of this university model. While international branch campuses or foreign backed universities are getting more attention due to their affiliations and commitments to other home countries, independent American universities are “likely to go unnoticed as they blend in more with their host countries” (Purinton & Skaggs, 2017, p. 2).

Nevertheless, they share common transnational dimensions with other institutions that have been classified as part of the transnational education providers. This distinction legitimates examining

American universities abroad as part of international and transnational higher education, because the primary affiliation this university model has with the U.S. is accreditation (Godwin, 2015).

Many American universities abroad have not actually attained accreditation–as an indicator of affiliation yet all of them are certified by or affiliated with the Association of American

International College and Universities (AAICU). Most have or are working toward US accreditation, which gives them their international and transnational status. Thus, a focus on this university model can add another perspective to the existing transnational higher education literature.

The third reason for my interest in studying imported universities more generally, is that it presents an opportunity to explore them within the context of post-conflict societies. In

particular, in the case of Iraq multiple ideological, political, and economic forces have motivated the 2003 invasion and opened the opportunities for these universities to be implanted. Only a few former and current presidents of independent American universities abroad have reflected on the challenges these universities face during war times and their unique role in the reconstruction of war-ridden societies (Purinton & Skaggs, 2017). Besides exploring these challenges within the context of Iraq, I am also interested in understanding how the conflict and its legacy are used by founders or the government in their rationalizations for establishing an imported university.

For the above reasons, my study aims to explore and understand internationalization of higher education and imported universities, including those with a liberal arts focus, within the context of Iraq. More specifically, I wish to centre attention on the voices of academic leaders and faculty in comparison with Ministry of Higher Education administrators, imported university founders and administrators, to demonstrate how and why internationalization is implemented in

Iraq. I use the approach of policy borrowing, which places a strong emphasis on the politics, actors’ agency (support and resistance), and the rationales for internationalization in HE. These lenses will serve as conceptual and theoretical frameworks for my study.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

My study has two main goals. First, it aims to identify and analyze different rationales driving the internationalization of higher education in post-2003 Iraq. While Iraq has developed national strategies to reform its higher education through a variety of internationalization activities, the rationales underpinning these activities are not analyzed in the literature. The international dimensions of higher education, which include partnerships, cooperation, support and research collaboration, are typically promoted as assisting in the process of rebuilding higher education systems and institutions in the aftermath of violent conflict (Heleta, 2017a). Thus, 13

gradual internationalization of higher education could be considered a priority by local and international actors. However, the complex context of Iraqi higher education after 2003 that is dominated by a fragile state, corrupt government, conflicting agendas of political parties, and constant instability raises questions about how other actors, such as academic leaders and staff, conceptualize internationalization as they reflect on their lived experience with conflict and its legacy. The study aims to explore the expressed motives of individuals about investing in imported universities and if and how they contextualize the consequences of conflict. By using a policy borrowing framework, I can explore the rationales for adopting internationalization within the context of the new environment of the borrowed policy (internationalization and imported university) and examine how different actors support or resist this educational transfer.

More specifically, I use the rationales for internationalization (Knight, 2004) as an analytical lens to explore how recent internationalization activities are framed, perceived, and implemented as embedded in the worldviews of Iraqi academic leaders and staff.

Internationalization is interpreted differently by different actors in different cultures and political settings (Knight, 2007). Thus, it is important to address the following questions. How do Iraqis perceive internationalization within their context? What values do they attach to it as a policy to reform their higher education institutions? And what changes, risks and challenges are they expecting these recent activities will bring to Iraq? Although I will begin with Ministry of Higher

Education and Scientific Research views, I will go on to explore the perspectives of Iraqi academics and administrators. As noted, to interpret their rationales, I will draw on multiple comparisons and examine the conflicting realities that are present when the decision is made to internationalize higher education within an unstable society in transition that is impacted by the devastating consequences of wars. To examine internationalization and imported universities

within the context of Iraq, I will start by documenting the effects of Ba’ath institutional and cultural legacies, the legacy of the 2003 invasion, and continuous instability in Iraq.

1.4 The Research Problem

As I emphasized so far, few studies examine the internationalization of higher education and imported universities in the context of conflict and its consequences and even fewer studies have examined rationales from policy borrowing perspectives. Since the 2003 invasion, studies have analyzed and tried to identify political, economic and cultural changes in Iraq, but not much is published on higher education, and specifically Iraqi HE internationalization activities.

Therefore, my study will contribute a missing dimension to the literature on higher education reform in conflict-affected countries as well as the literature of internationalization.

Although it is argued in the literature that capacity building and modernization rationales are significant drivers of internationalization of higher education in many developing countries, I start with the assumption that they fail to capture the impulses behind internationalization and imported universities fully, particularly in conflict-impacted societies. As internationalization becomes a strategic activity in many countries worldwide, more in-depth analyses are necessary to examine the situation of late adopters such as Iraq, and the impact of problematic contexts of conflict-ridden societies.

I also start with the assumption that it is important to recognize the agency of policymakers, academic administrators and staff. With continued conflict and instability, my concern is that implementing internationalization and the transfer of imported universities could be superficial or incomplete, since real reform should involve modernization of the war-impacted infrastructure and academic and political culture. To capture this dimension, my empirical study

focuses on the people responsible for steering the implementation of internationalization in the context of a conflict-impacted society. Further, despite the importance of examining the local contextual factors and the agency and self-interest of local actors in developing and implementing policies to reform higher education, it is also crucial to examine the ‘unstated’ in their narrative. For instance, what does it mean to internationalize higher education in the context of occupation and conflict and their aftermath; where the value of internationalization is ignored in the local and international efforts to adopt these internationalization activities; and what are the longer-term sociopolitical impacts of internationalization of higher education that is carried out under the condition of war? I framed and developed my key research questions around two major contrasting views of policy borrowing and educational transfer: adoption versus localization. I take a cultural perspective to unpack and explain internationalization policies in higher education by putting decision makers’, academic leaders’ and staff's perspectives into the picture as their institutions and government actively design them while they engage in the implementation and internalization processes in Iraq. Also, I place these perspectives in an Iraq- specific context that I have recognized as ‘in transition’ and still in ‘conflict’. The first view – adoption - is derived from the theory of world culture (Meyer & Ramirez, 2000) which states that ‘global templates’ are disseminated as best practices or international standards and adopted by nation states influenced by the idea of modernization and the pressure of globalization. From this theoretical perspective, changes are motivated by a desire for legitimacy and do not necessarily lead to a real educational reform (Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012). The opposite view - localization - argues that these adopted educational ideas are appropriated, resisted and adapted to fit the local culture and needs (Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012). This dissertation thus addresses two related, overarching research questions:

1) What rationales do Iraqi higher education institutions use to embrace internationalization

and imported universities?

2) What cross-national forces influence the transfer of internationalization and imported

universities to Iraqi higher education?

Thus, my study focuses on macro-level influencers and decision makers as well as meso- and micro-level university leaders and academic staff. I explore the two main research questions through three sub-research questions around which I build four analytical chapters. The first is:

a) What explanations do external actors, government personnel, academic leaders and staff

give for adopting principles and practices of internationalization?

Since imported universities as one distinct internationalization activity are central to my inquiry within the policy borrowing framework, the second and the third sub-research questions are:

b) What are the key features of an imported university that government personnel, academic

leaders and staff perceive as borrowable?

c) What are the rationales driving the establishment of an imported university and how does

the context of chronic conflict affect it?

To address the above research questions that involve complex cultural views, a qualitative research methodology is most appropriate. Thus, data were collected mainly through face-to-face interviews at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq, four public universities in Central Iraq, two American liberal arts universities in Iraq (in Central Iraq and the

Kurdistan Region), and one American liberal arts university in Lebanon. In addition to the interviews, the data gathering included a consideration of national and institutional strategies and examination of public documents related to each institution. Data such as interviews or

statements by Ministry and university leaders available on public social media are also incorporated to contextualize how internationalization is framed by politicians and decision makers in Iraq.

In summary, despite the significance of internationalization in contemporary global higher education, it has rarely been studied in the context of conflict settings. A few previous studies have advanced our understanding of how higher education is affected by conflict; the potential contribution of higher education in reconstruction, state-building and peace-building in such conflict-ridden societies (Johnson & Hoba, 2015; Millican, 2017; Milton & Barakat,

2016a); and how to rebuild higher education in societies affected by conflict (Babyesiza, 2012;

Johnson & Hoba, 2015). However, less attention has been given to the role of internationalization in reforming higher education systems in conflict and post-conflict settings and to the lived experiences of key individuals⎯ academic leaders and staff⎯ in a changing higher education context. According to Marginson and Rhoades (2002), there is a need for more research at various levels, but, specifically, at local institutional and group levels. They call for studies that focus directly on the professionals who enact and formulate policies at the local level. As they put it, “[w]e need work that attends to local response and reality, explores local institutions, and considers local practices” (p. 286). Teichler et al. (2013) have also called for more attention to be paid to core workers in the academy in order to understand their perceptions and define their role in the dynamics of change. This study will thus engage at macro-, meso-, and micro-levels within the context of conflict and its legacy.

1.5 Significance of the Study

As noted, this study will contribute to the limited literature on Iraqi higher education. Iraq is of special interest as a country that has experienced intense conflict and occupation. After years of isolation, Iraq and its education systems are increasingly affected by globalization and internationalization.

In beginning the study, my expectation was that the internationalization agenda at the

Ministry and university levels would be similar to the global trend. However, there are institutional rationales and rationales across different levels of staff within the institution, and my hope was that comparing rationales and perceptions within and among institutions would add a richness to the picture of Iraqi internationalization, and help to explain and anticipate the internationalization trajectory at national and institutional levels.

My hope in undertaking the study is that the findings would work towards informing

Iraqi higher education leaders as they determine the kinds of international activities that will benefit Iraq the most, including related policies, structures and the infrastructure needed to

‘adopt and adapt’ international educational ideas while preserving Iraqi culture and independence and maximizing the outcomes for the sake of reforming the system, ensuring that it is more attentive to the social, economic, and educational needs of the country in terms of greater stabilization and a smooth transition to democracy. Other states impacted by conflict and emerging economies might also learn from the Iraq experience.

Using the policy borrowing and internationalization rationales, this study explores the ideas of adaptation and localization of internationalization activities, including internationalization in general and imported universities in particular, outside the mainstream

theoretical orientation of dependency and postcolonial approaches. In other words, it joins scholarly work which places an emphasis on the importance of the process (policy borrowing), the time, the agency, and the impact of context on borrowing an educational idea. It looks at the entire process of policy borrowing as a learning opportunity where Iraq and other countries in similar contexts draw lessons from the experience of other educational systems. The significance of this study comes also from looking at early stages of adopting internationalization by late adopters in a context of conflict.

1.6 Organization of the Thesis

This dissertation consists of eight chapters: Chapter 1 has briefly introduced the background and context surrounding Iraqi HE before and after the 2003 invasion. It has also presented the purpose of the study, the statement of the problem, the research questions, the significance of the study, and indicated the research sites and the organization of the thesis. Chapter 2 explores the literature of internationalization and the rationales and contextual factors that drive countries to follow global trends and embrace internationalization activities. Specific attention will be paid to the rationales for establishing an American liberal arts university model regionally and globally.

In this chapter, I try to position this study within the literature to identify gaps in areas that are worth exploring with respect to internationalization and imported universities. The chapter also presents the analytical framework of this study that is built on the rationales for internationalization and the theory of policy borrowing in education. Chapter 3 presents the research design including the research purpose and questions, discusses the levels of comparison and other aspects of the research methods. This study follows a vertical case study method using a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews, document analysis and use of other relevant data sources.

The data chapters begin with Chapter 4, which examines global and international influences on Iraqi higher education through an analysis of how Iraqi academic leaders and staff rationalized the recent internationalization activities implemented by the Ministry and universities. It discusses also what value they attach to these activities and how they might or might not be useful in reforming Iraqi public HE. The impact of pre-conflict, conflict and post conflict realities on these internationalization attempts is also discussed. Chapter 5 explores the idea of imported universities through the worldview of Iraqi academic leaders and staff in terms of rationales, potential impact, anticipated risks and expectations. Chapter 6 documents and compares the rationales for establishing an American-style university in three post-conflict regions: Lebanon, the Kurdistan Region in Northern Iraq, and Central Iraq. Chapter 7, the last findings chapter, critically analyzes the implementation and localization of American-style universities in post-2003 Iraq against their transferable ideals. It answers questions such as how the legacy of conflict and the political and economic uncertainty can affect realizations of the impact of this university model.

Chapter 8 consists of a critical discussion and conclusion that summarizes the findings, identifies the contribution of this research to the literature on internationalization of higher education and policy borrowing, and reflects on implementing internationalization and transferring imported universities in Iraq in terms of challenges and conflicts. One objective of this study was to examine some aspects of practice and try to draw inferences about the likely outcome of a future transfer of an international university in the context of Iraq. My concluding discussion addresses the limits of the policy borrowing framework in capturing what is transpiring on the ground in a conflicted society, and offers a more contextual interpretation of my findings.

Chapter 2 : Literature Review

In this thesis, I use rationales and cultural lenses to examine internationalization of higher education as a reform agenda in Iraq. I draw upon key insights from the study of internationalization rationales in HE (de Wit, 2002; Knight, 2004) and policy borrowing conceptual and theoretical frameworks (Phillips & Ochs, 2004). The rationales perspective helps me explore the motives and the perceptions of recently adopted internationalization activities in

Iraq at both national and institutional levels. Furthermore, the cultural approach to policy borrowing helps me examine how organizations, institutions and individuals ‘frame’ internationalization as a tool for reform. Using these two perspectives, I provide a framework for studying the internationalization of higher education and imported universities in Iraq. The pre- conflict legacy and the post-conflict fragile state of Iraq (Milton & Barakat, 2016) form the underlying context that I will take into account in order to understand participants’ explanation about internationalization in their institutions.

The first section of this chapter covers the literature on internationalization of higher

education and its definition, and in the second section its rationales and approaches. The third section covers the American liberal arts university and the fourth and fifth section cover the policy borrowing literature and present the four stages of policy borrowing and educational transfer (Phillips & Ochs, 2004). I then examine the notion of transferring and localizing an educational idea that originated in a different culture. The chapter ends with a brief summary.

2.1 Internationalization of Higher Education

In recent decades, globalization has become an inescapable trend that shapes higher education.

Today almost all institutions around the world are engaging to some degree in activities aimed at developing global connections and building global competencies among students and staff.

These activities are part of the phenomenon of the internationalization of higher education, which has become an important aspect in the development of higher education at institutional, national, regional and international levels. Teichler (1999) described it as “one of the most important trends of the last decade” (p.6). The results of globalization include the global integration of research, the use of English as the lingua franca for scientific communication, the growing international labor market for scholars and scientists, the growth of communications firms and multinational and technology publishing, and the use of information technology

(Altbach & Knight, 2007). In this connected world, there is greater competition for prestige, funding and student recruitment among universities. Many scholars (Altbach, 1998; de Wit,

1999; van der Wende, 2007) have distinguished globalization from internationalization and see the latter as a response to the challenges produced by the former.

Many governments worldwide have promoted internationalization as an important policy for higher education reform. Similarly, in societies impacted by conflict, universities are

increasingly engaging in internationalization activities, aiming to reconnect and reintegrate into global society through research, curriculum and partnerships (Heleta, 2017a; Milton, 2018).

At the national level, van der Wende defines internationalization as “any systemic efforts aimed at making higher education responsive to the requirements and challenges related to the globalization of society, economy and labor markets” (1997, p. 18), which at the same time,

“respect the individuality of the nation” (p. 20). The concept of internationalization refers to a relationship between nation states which promotes recognition of and respect for their own differences and traditions. But de Wit and his colleagues emphasize that the notion of internationalization is not just a question of the relations between nations but more accurately the relations between cultures, and between the global and the local (de Wit et al., 2017). By contrast, globalization ignores social and cultural differences among nations and aims at greater homogenization. Hence, Yang proposes that internationalization allows for a resistance to the denationalization effect of globalization and “has the potential to create equitable relations” as opposed to the ‘historical imbalance’ linked to Western colonization and dominance” (Yang,

2002a, p. 82). Similarly, Schoorman (1999) perceives internationalization of higher education as

“an educational process, continuous and ongoing, comprehensive and counterhegemonic” (p. 39) and as a means by which universities can respond and adapt to their environment. In this context, internationalization means the awareness and interaction between cultures through curriculum and research with the crucial aim of achieving mutual understanding among nation states.

Jones (1998) refers to “internationalism” to represent the ideology of internationalization as

“the promotion of global peace and well-being through the development and application of international structures” (p. 143). Thus, internationalization practices also could advocate for

cultural understanding, peace, democratic values and human well-being, values that are particularly important for societies that have been impacted by conflict. Van Damme (2001) finds that there is a common understanding of internationalization among higher education institutions as different types or categories of activities that are often supported or framed by multilateral agreements or programs. Through these, institutions wish to expand their reach over national borders by student and faculty exchange, technological assistance, intercultural training, education of international students, curricular change, joint research initiatives, and twinning programs.

At the institutional and sectoral levels, Rudzki (1995) defines internationalization as a defined feature of universities that “encompasses organizational change, curriculum innovation, staff development and student mobility, for the purposes of achieving excellence in teaching and research” (p.421). Internationalization is mostly defined by scholars as a process. For example,

Knight (2003) defines internationalization as “the process of integrating an international, cultural, or global dimension into the purpose, function or delivery of postsecondary education”

(p. 3); this is a more general definition that considers the national, sectoral and institutional levels.

While internationalization is not a new phenomenon, de Wit (2002) suggests that it has recently become a central and strategic activity of educational institutions and governments. The

IAU 5th global survey shows that more than 90 percent of institutions mention internationalization in their mission and strategic plans (Marinoni, 2019). The experience of many countries and institutions indicates that internationalization is a means adopted to achieve larger goals such as quality improvement, capacity building, enhancing students’ competencies,

and creating a culture that promotes and supports international/intercultural understanding (de

Wit, 2002; Knight, 2004; Yang, 2002a). However, over time, purposes such as achieving higher global rankings, profit and soft power, and along with them competitiveness and commercialization, are now linked to internationalization (Knight, 2012, p. 22). Knight (2014) has expressed concern that “internationalisation has become a catch-all phrase used to describe anything and everything remotely linked to the global, intercultural or international dimensions of higher education and is thus losing its way” (p. 76). In response, she proposed reconsideration of “the fundamental values underpinning” internationalization (p. 76). In order to reflect the potential contribution of internationalization to higher education, de Wit and his colleagues have revised Knight’s commonly accepted working definition for internationalization as follows:

The intentional process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions and delivery of post-secondary education, in order to enhance the quality of education and research for all students and staff, and to make a meaningful contribution to society. (de Wit et al., 2015, p. 29)

This revised definition does not articulate the traditional values associated with internationalization such as partnerships, collaboration, mutual benefit and exchange, as these are assumed to be part of the “meaningful contribution to society”. Further, the new definition focuses on outcomes and presents internationalization as a process that promotes change and reflects the potential of internationalization to make a meaningful contribution to higher education and as a means to enhance the quality of education and research, rather than as a goal in itself. In this context, internationalization is a value creation process that is proposed to enhance the experiences of students, staff and other university stakeholders in a more connected, globalized world.

In considering different cultural contexts, internationalization activities or policies as

originally proposed can be reshaped, redefined and reinterpreted. For instance, in Arabic language literature, Khater (2015) defines internationalization as a strategy— a “long term strategy for establishing external relationships and links, for students’ mobility, professional development of faculty members, curriculum innovation and modernization, and support for research projects” (p. 230). Khater’s definition focuses on the notion of modernization and building international partnerships and links.

The debate about re-defining and re-thinking what is meant by internationalization continues.

Many scholars call for alternative definitions from the Global South of internationalization that pay more attention to global and local issues and go beyond the commercialization and competitive rationale of internationalization (Majee & Ress, 2018). For example, in post-colonial societies, it is argued that the internationalization of higher education was imposed through colonial languages, curriculum and epistemology (Sehoole, 2006). However, in post-conflict societies, internationalization is more often seen as financial aid for peace building and reconstruction (Milton, 2018). The experiences of these societies arguably reflect a different kind of internationalization than those observed in developed nations in the West.

In summary, there are different views of internationalization from scholars in different cultures and contexts. In my research, participants in post-conflict Iraqi higher education may reflect this variety in their own perceptions of the rationales, purposes, and the implementation of internationalization in the institutions in which they work.

2.2 Rationales

Rationales are the driving forces encouraging a country or an institution to invest in internationalization and normally are reflected in various policies and programs developed and

implemented by them. As shown in Table 1, higher education internationalization is traditionally driven by five categories of rationales: political, economic, academic, socio-cultural, and branding (de Wit, 2002; Knight, 2004). These five rationales have different meanings when applied to different contexts, depending on how higher education institutions or the government design them. For instance, international students may be viewed as a source of revenue, as a potential labour force, or as contributors to the local economy.

Table 1: Rationales and Approaches in Internationalization of Higher Education

Rationales Approaches Peace & mutual understanding

Political Colonization & soft power

Nation building

Revenue Economic Human resources development

International standards Capacity building Academic Knowledge creation and exchange Networking by faculty Cooperation Cultural diversity Development of the individual Intercultural skills Socio-cultural National identity Global identity Social responsibility Branding Reputation & prestige Source: Compiled by the author

Many studies have also explored changes in these rationales (de Wit, 2002; van Vught et al., 2002). Knight suggests that, nevertheless, these generic categories remain a useful way to analyze the rationales of internationalization (2004).

From the political perspective, historically international education was seen by states as a beneficial tool for foreign policy, especially with respect to national security and peace among nations (de Wit, 2002). While this is still a consideration today, it does not have the importance it once did (Taskoh, 2014). However, de Wit and his colleagues note that after September 11,

2001, a renewed focus emerged on political rationales related to the war on terrorism, and advocating the need to better understand Islamic culture and languages (de Wit et al., 2015).

Another political version of the rationale for internationalization is associated with the idea of colonial expansion that came to the fore with the policy of replicating European models of higher education in their colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The European nations were looking for political, cultural, economic, and academic dominance – a dominance that continues to be an issue today (de Wit, 1999). Finally, generation of new knowledge through the production and application of research has introduced the notion of international education and research as a form of soft power as yet another political rationale for internationalization (Knight

& de Wit, 2018).

The economic rationale is considered to be a direct response to the market forces through which institutions aim to generate and diversify their revenues. At the national level, the economic rationale includes human resource development needed for nations to stay internationally competitive. Scholars have observed that internationalization has become increasingly economically-motivated and based on the ethos of competition, rather than the cooperation that is manifested through the political, cultural, and academic rationales (Altbach &

Knight, 2007).

From a socio-cultural perspective, internationalization is viewed by institutions as a way to respect and promote cultural diversity. The preparation of graduates who have strong knowledge and skills that are based on intercultural relations, communications, awareness of and engagement with global issues is considered by institutions as one of the strongest rationales for internationalizing the curriculum (Leask, 2013). The cultural and social rationale underlines the development of the individual, instead of the nation or educational institution. The cultural/social rationale is based on the view that the “homogenizing effects of globalization” (Knight, 1997, p.11) need to be resisted and the culture as well as language of nations must be respected. This view places particular emphasis on understanding foreign languages and cultures, the preservation of national culture, and respect for diversity.

Finally, institutions adopting academic rationales are motivated by the achievement of international academic standards for teaching and research, usually undertaken by the institutions to ensure high-quality global standards (van der Wende, 2007). By enhancing the international dimension of teaching, research and service and conforming to the international level of quality, institutions assumed value is added to higher education systems. As well as increasing an

institution’s reputation, internationalization facilitates the development of joint programs (van der Wende, 2007). Knight (2004) found that institutions adopting internationalization are motivated to strengthen their research and knowledge production capacity and to benchmark their position in relation to international practices and performance. They consequently improve through comparison with their competitors and peers. Internationalization is beneficial to institutional cooperation, which is essential to strengthening the activities of universities beyond the constraints of local resources (de Wit, 1999). Internationalization may foster researchers’ networks beyond national borders.

Given the increasing emphasis on competition at the international level, Knight (2004) introduced a new category of rationale that recognizes the importance that institutions are giving to branding or developing a strong international reputation. This interest in branding encourages institutions to seek accreditation or quality assurance services by national and international accrediting bodies and puts more importance on ranking. Thus, it is argued, internationalization can be a valid strategy to increase the HEI’s prestige in the eyes of national and international peers and stakeholders, and legitimate themselves in the local environment (de Wit, 2002;

Knight, 2004). Studies have found that scientifically reputed universities are quite often highly internationalized, which suggests that highly internationalized HEIs tend to be perceived as being high quality (Horn et al., 2016; Seeber et al., 2016).

De Wit et al. (2017) brought the concept of ‘emerging voices’ into the literature on internationalization of higher education to reflect the existence of a different approach to internationalization from the internationalization activities that are motivated by economic rationales and dominated by western countries that are mostly English speaking. These

approaches emphasize an important dimension of higher education internationalization that has been rather ignored and that emphasized the social role and responsibilities of higher education.

Social responsibility and global citizenship development are increasingly present in the discourse on internationalization of higher education and, in particular for developing countries, as a theme that affects them directly. De Wit et al. (2017) argue that higher education in the developing world acknowledges the social mission of universities more than do universities in the developed world, where the notion of “society” has become more market-focused, and concepts such as workforce development and employability dominate the agenda of higher education and its internationalization. Themes related to the social responsibility aspect of internationalization are:

(1) how internationalization can contribute to the role of higher education in the refugee crisis facing the Middle East and Europe, as well as provide lessons for similar crises elsewhere; (2) how it can contribute to rebuilding post-conflict countries; and (3) how it can enhance social inclusion (de Wit et al., 2017). Based on the above compiled literature, Table 1 summarizes the approaches for internationalization in various contexts at both national and institutional levels and maps them to the five generic rationales of internationalization.

2.3 The American Liberal Arts University through an Internationalization Lens

As discussed in Chapter 1, American liberal arts universities and other foreign universities or international branch campuses share common transnational dimensions such as foreign curriculum, foreign teaching faculty, and a shared governance system. These transnational dimensions legitimate examining the American liberal arts universities as part of international and transnational higher education. This section builds on the internationalization rationales explained in the previous section to examine what rationales have been used to establish an imported university, taking the American liberal arts university model as an example.

As noted earlier, the American liberal arts university model has been diffused worldwide, emphasizing characteristic American features: English as the medium of instruction, a liberal arts curriculum, American faculty, student-centered teaching methods, and a not-for-profit financial model. American universities outside the US are part of an organizational field called

Independent American Universities Abroad (Purinton & Skaggs, 2017). These universities represent independent universities outside the United States that explicitly utilize the American model of higher education, and in particular, the liberal arts approach to curriculum. The first two and best known are the American Universities in Beirut, established in 1866, and in Cairo, established in 1919. Independent American universities abroad emerged in an environment in their respective regions that supported them to become distinguished universities. Similar to many international branch campuses (IBCs) and international joint universities, the recent expansion of this university model occurred in the context of the worldwide diffusion of liberalism (Long, 2018). In the Middle East, privatization and internationalization of higher education and peace (Anderson, 2012; Dorman, 2017; Long, 2018) were the enabling conditions for the establishment of many independent American universities in the region such as the

American University of Beirut (Dorman, 2017) and the American University of Iraq in

Sulaimani.

American liberal arts universities are seen by various actors to offer unique postsecondary opportunities where there is demand and where founders hope the philosophy will impact economic and social development in their host countries (Godwin, 2015). Thus, many of these universities were established using academic, economic and social rationales. Nevertheless, these rationales vary by region. In Western Europe, the primary reason given for establishing liberal arts universities was the need for a more differentiated higher education system in two

dimensions: development of a broader, less specialized, curriculum, and increased variation in institutional types (van der Wende, 2011). In Eastern Europe and Russia, this university model, particularly its liberal arts education components, was uniquely tied to the era of post-communist political and social liberalization and the parallel higher education reforms that many scholars saw as critical to the cultural evolution of their society. According to Gillespie (2001), emerging liberal education programs were a signal that there was desire in Russia for a reformed education philosophy that could encourage a more democratic and civil society. Liberal arts education, usually offered through ‘a core program’ or ‘general education’, promotes inter- and multidisciplinary education and supports a focus on student learning objectives related to broad written and oral communication, numeracy, and critical analysis skills. This curriculum component of the American universities abroad also attracted Asian countries, and supporters argued that it would improve graduates’ creativity and critical thinking skills, provide opportunities for innovative leadership in developing economies and improve a large research university’s reputation and stature compared to its international competitors and peer institutions

(Yang, 2016).

Generally, American universities abroad and their host countries would argue that they have been in the process of modernizing their host countries for decades (Purinton & Skaggs,

2017). In the Middle East and Arab countries, American-style education tends to emerge because of institutional, individual, and sometimes local aspirations at the municipal level, many of which relate to a public demand for and institutional desire to emulate education in the United

States (Godwin, 2015, p. 2).

In his dissertation, Long (2018) examines how multiple rationales have been used by supporters and founders to push American universities to expand their donors and mobilize financial and political support in America. He showed that these rationales change with the political environment. During the interwar period (1919-1945), these universities were presented as an instrument for American influence via cultivation of internationally minded leaders who would advance peace (Long, 2018, p. 96). To leverage changes in the post-war period, these institutions were presented as “part and parcel of America’s new global leadership role” (Long,

2018, p. 103) which signals them as soft power assets of America. In summary, during the post- cold war period, these universities have been promoted by American politicians as a tool to disseminate democracy. This rationale specifically reflects the neoconservative ideological effort of the George W. Bush administration to disseminate American democratic values (Long, 2018) and arguably has yielded to more economic and branding rationales in recent years.

2.4 Policy Borrowing and Educational Transfer–Theories and Analytical Frameworks

I have argued up to this point that internationalization policies and educational ideas have been increasingly exported to many nations and adopted by others. Governments and international organizations represent their exports as investments rationalized as ‘best practices’ and

‘international standards’ promoting compliance and harmonization. Many of these adopted practices and innovative ideas have become increasingly a significant means to internationalize higher education institutions. The recent implementation of various internationalization activities in Iraqi higher education such as twinning programs, study abroad, and establishing American liberal arts university models suggests the need for inquiry into policy borrowing. In the globalized world, national education systems are influenced to learn and adopt policies from elsewhere. Thus, policy studies are increasingly taking a comparative approach, focusing on

“understanding the local policy contexts against the backdrop of larger transnational or global developments” (Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012, p. 4). The theoretical framework of this study draws from this field of policy borrowing and educational transfer. With respect to importing a foreign university, I designed my research specifically around three questions: why imported universities seem to be a relevant university model for transfer to post-2003 Iraq; which specific aspects of the university model are promoted by the founders or the government and considered as borrowable; and how does Iraq’s complex context affect this educational transfer?

Debates about educational borrowing and lending within the context of globalization are presented from two opposite views in the literature: world culture and world system theories

(Miller‐Idriss & Hanauer, 2011; Silova, 2012; Spring, 2008). World culture theory is a macro- social or systemic approach with an underlying assumption that larger global forces shape educational practices within a given national context. Theories from this perspective have suggested that educational borrowing has contributed to the commonalities of educational systems approaching a single global model through the dissemination of ‘global templates’

(Meyer & Ramirez, 2000). Meyer and Ramirez, for example, have argued that education has become standardized around the globe through actors such as the World Bank, UNESCO, the

OECD, and international and national NGOs. Under these influences that are consistent with ideas of ‘modernization’ and the pressure of globalization, education has experienced two main processes: massification and isomorphism (Meyer & Ramirez, 2000). Meyer and his colleagues argue that these pressures have made countries see education as “the root source of human, social, cultural and economic capital” and thus, its expansion “acquired the highest legitimacy in terms of both individual and collective good” (Meyer et al., 2006, p. 23). Under this pressure, a near-universal set of educational processes emerged, being adopted by educational systems

across the globe such as decentralization, privatization, accountability, testing, and assessment.

In terms of policy implications, world culture ideas have the potential of becoming a tool for policy manipulation for politicians to justify certain borrowed or new domestic policies. It has become a frequent reference in policy discourse. As Meyer et al. put it, “we will see greater awareness of whether the right goals were articulated and less knowledge of whether these are realized” (2006, p. 37).

A competing view of educational borrowing, which draws on perspectives from anthropology, views global models while interpreting them as “primarily discursive or even imagined” (Silova, 2012, p. 239) and instead emphasized the importance of local variation. The tension between the effects of conforming to world cultural norms vs. preserving national or local characteristics in education has been the subject of much discussion. Anthropologists and scholars in comparative education who emphasize national variation focus on how borrowed educational policies are interpreted and implemented differently to respect the local cultures, values (Anderson-Levitt, 2003) and aspirations of the local elites (Noori & Anderson, 2013).

Anderson-Levitt emphasizes that attention must be paid to “what happens on the ground in particular ministries of education, provincial centers, and local classrooms” (2003, p. 17). These scholars study the local practices and interactions among policy makers, educational leaders, administrators, and teachers. By focusing on local motivations, they can explain how models are selected. From the cultural perspective, policies and context are neither static nor singular; “they are the product of agency and resistance, negations, bargaining, and accommodation, constantly evolving over time” (Spreen, 2004, p. 102).

Within the cultural studies literature, there is concern at the local level, including “fear of

cultural destruction by a highly entrepreneurial university system that is all about organizational rationality and efficiency” (Meyer et al., 2006, p. 24). However, it is acknowledged that locals have more freedom to choose the path they want to take in developing a system that suits their needs. While Ramirez (2003) agrees that “the world culture is Western in origin,” he argues that

“both its universalistic aspirations and its rationalizing force paradoxically facilitate de- westernization efforts” (p.252). Silova (2012) critiques ‘world culture’ theorists, ‘culturists’ and even globalization studies of policy borrowing for assuming the ‘starting point’ of neoliberal and global policies and failing to recognize the incomplete, open-ended and unpredictable character of reform in countries in transition, such as post-socialist countries. In Silova’s argument, the

‘starting point’ should not always be a Westernized context of globalization and neoliberalism.

Rather, it could start with local culture and its propensity to adopt, implement and indigenize a borrowed educational idea.

The world culture view puts emphasis on the local and its relationship and interaction with the global educational trends assuming that the country-specific cultural and historical context is no longer dominant in the borrowing process. Hayhoe (2007) also argued that the research found in many comparative studies of higher education in developing countries tends to pay more attention to the external context of education rather than the local cultural and historical context. Perhaps, despite the expected isomorphism in education worldwide

(DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), education policy and implementation remain a country’s explicit area that requires a case study approach to understand, at the micro-level, the mechanisms of local politics and those who are influenced by the borrowed policies.

Another critique comes from Miller‐Idriss and Hanauer (2011), who argue that the classic

debate between global and local explanations for educational reforms does not do justice to the regional nature of the transnational educational phenomena in the Middle East. Focusing on the

Gulf region, Miller-Idriss and Hanauer suggest that the reason for the spread of the transnational educational model across the Arab Gulf region is partly explained first by the region's historic cultural, political and tribal interconnections. Second, the economic and demographic transformations that emphasize human capital at the regional level to counter instability issues in the region are important. Third, a major regional trend that partially explains the phenomenon of transnational “offshore” education institutions is rooted in the systems of HE throughout the

Arab world, and in the Arab Gulf in particular. They have been dogged by issues of poor quality, centralization, lack of incentives for improvements and few mechanisms for reform or for evaluating reforms. There are also significant problems with brain drain, as there is limited local capacity for training in some fields, which exacerbates this issue. Fourth is the political liberalization taking place throughout the region over the past 15 years in which educational reforms have been seen as a necessary step in ensuring an educated public who can participate in economic and political reforms more generally (2011).

As discussed so far, the two theoretical frameworks around ‘global’ and ‘local’ tend to be weighted greatly by their theoretical assumptions. In trying to analyze the national and institutional implementation of internationalization and the national attraction to establish an imported university, I hypothesized that these assumptions might fail to capture the ambiguity and the complexity of Iraq’s post-2003 context. Instead, I found more relevance in the work of

Phillips and Ochs (2004) about policy borrowing and educational transfer. Using Phillips and

Ochs’s policy borrowing framework, I decided to focus on the policy borrowing process.

Steiner-Khamsi, a major theorist who made a significant contribution that advanced international education policy studies, has embraced the concept of ‘externalization’ coined by

Schriewer (1990). She argues that policy borrowing is motivated by economic, political and social rationales influenced by external intervention to pressure nation states to compare or learn from an existing model in which the local and national contexts are often neglected (Steiner-

Khamsi, 2004). Therefore, it is important to examine the political discourse associated with adopting some internationalization activities and importing foreign or American-style university into Iraqi HE. Such discourse could involve urging institutions to meet ‘broadly defined’ international standards (Steiner-Khamsi, 2016). However, international standards can be used by global players to impose their best practices on national governments, as well as to monitor developments at the national level (Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012). For the case of Iraq, it is crucial to examine these new internationalization policies within the CPA influence as a cross- national actor and its destruction-reconstruction measures discussed in the introductory chapter.

Steiner-Khamsi argues that national governments may comply out of fear of falling behind

(2016). This means that the practice of externalization is used only as a reference (or a discourse to justify policy decisions), in which no actual policy is borrowed; rather, the proposed foreign idea is used to influence and inspire local reforms and solutions (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000; Ochs,

2006). As such, the issue is no longer about adopting best practices with the aim of producing similar success at home because “the very act of borrowing has a salutary effect on domestic policy conflict" (Silova et al., 2006, p. 218). Furthermore, Steiner-Khamsi (2004) argues that while globalization is real, a singular international model of education is not. The “model” is merely a construction of communities, of the “absent other” that is used as a general reference point for individual countries to reflect upon their own performance. As she theorizes it, this

behaviour “challenges the concept that education is a culturally bounded system” as was advocated by earlier scholars in comparative studies. Steiner-Khamsi argues its de- contextualization “enhances exportability” of a transferred educational reform (2004, p. 214) rather than fostering local development and innovation.

By integrating Steiner-Khamis's critical approach to Phillips and Ochs's policy borrowing framework, I aim to understand the reasons, rationales, and relationships that led Iraqi higher education institutions to embrace internationalization activities and to adopt a foreign university model. Also, I aim to explore this reform agenda within the broader CPA destruction- deconstruction policies, the U.S. foreign policies in Iraq and the Middle East, and other international actors' motivations.

Phillips and Ochs (2004) framework conceptualizes a temporal model of policy transfer integrated by a series of keywords that allows a wide range of theoretical perspectives and approaches to interact on common ground. For this reason, I have reviewed their Four Stages

Model to think critically about how all the reasons, rationales, and relationships fit together from initial attraction, through decision to implementation and finally internalization in the process of adopting internationalization and importing a foreign university model in post-2003 Iraq.

The following section consists of three parts: the first part introduces the concept of educational borrowing, followed by discussing the four stages of policy borrowing in education.

The last section discusses the relevance of this interpretive framework by examining its comparative strengths and weaknesses. Policy borrowing is defined as a “conscious adoption in one context of policy observed in another” (Phillips, 2005). ‘Conscious’ reflects a deliberate, purposive and voluntaristic decision to import a policy that is identified as having potential value

in the home country. Policy in this context is seen as a broader statement of intention which generally denotes “the direction policy-makers wish to take” (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000, p.

12).For the case of Iraq, while the implementation of internationalization of higher education and importing American-style universities might look a voluntary and purposive decision to reform post 2003-Iraqi higher education, I would argue that Iraq was also influenced, as discussed in the introduction chapter, by the imposed CPA’s policies and other hidden political and economic rationales that are appropriated by various actors without considering the country contextual factors.

Dolowitz and Marsh state that while the terminology and focus often vary, “all of policy studies are concerned with a similar process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political setting (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political setting” (2000, p. 5). A few other terms are used synonymously with “policy borrowing” such as copying, lesson-drawing (Rose, 1991), appropriation (Halpin & Troyna, 1995), policy diffusion

(Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000), emulation and harmonization (Bennett, 1991) as well as importation, reception and transfer (Phillips & Ochs, 2004). Massey (2009) used the term ‘policy mimesis’ in preference to policy borrowing, because an external policy is not simply transferred but mimicked in a specific context. Noori and Anderson (2013) used the term ‘diffusion’ to explain the trend of adoption of American-style universities in the Middle East. Some of these terms allude to an ‘agency’ that conveys a sense of borrowing or a transfer being a voluntary activity as decision-makers in one country import innovative ideas developed elsewhere in the belief that they will be similarly successful in a different context. By contrast, other terms give an impression that transfer occurs as a consequence of ‘structural forces’ where political actors

or international organizations have an impact (Stone, 1999). As noted by Steiner-Khamsi and

Waldow (2012), no single term can adequately capture the different meanings and processes embedded in the phenomenon. Nevertheless, policy borrowing seems to be the most appropriate term and it is widely used in comparative education (Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow 2012). I use the term ‘policy borrowing’ synonymously in this dissertation with terms such as ‘transfer’, ‘cross- national attraction’, ‘copying’, ‘learning’, appropriation’, and ‘importing’ as they have been used in the mainstream literature and as they fit in the context of the discussion.

In my discussion, ‘policy’ refers to two main educational ideas that have been adopted recently in Iraq. These are ‘internationalization’ in general and ‘imported or foreign university’ in particular as seen in the recent establishment of the American universities of Iraq in Sulaimani and Baghdad.

Dolowitz and Marsh identified eight categories of policies that can be borrowed: policy goals, policy content, policy instruments, policy programs, institutions, ideologies, ideas and attitudes, and negative lessons (2000, p. 12). The authors contrasted “soft transfer” which conveys the idea that educational transfer captures a variety of processes and interactions such as the dissemination of ideas, concepts and discourse implicitly, and “hard transfer” which details the transfer of concrete models, institutions, structures or practices. Ball (1994) classified borrowed policies into text and discourse (cited in Ochs, 2006, p. 601), which constitute implicitly hard and soft transfers respectively. Exploring a policy from both dimensions– discourse and text—is important for understanding why educational institutions or countries look to ideas from elsewhere. Using foreign examples does not necessarily lead to transfer or to learning lessons from abroad. For instance, Silova (2012) examined discursive policy

borrowing, whereby policy makers and decision makers borrowed only the rhetoric from elsewhere without the intention of implementing the practices that accompany the particular policy talk. By contrast, borrowing text leads to the domestication of the foreign example (Ochs,

2006).

Phillips and Ochs make a distinction between an imposed policy and a borrowed policy.

They define the latter as “one country initiates interest in, or cross-national attraction to, foreign educational practices and policies” (Phillips & Ochs, 2004, p. 8). The authors state that influence is not by itself borrowing; policy borrowing, however, implies influence, and so a ‘borrowed’ policy may in fact demonstrate that the borrowing country has been influenced by ideas from elsewhere (Phillips & Ochs, 2004). Examples that demonstrate influence in policy borrowing are the conditions imposed by the World Bank and other aid agencies, the efforts of missionaries, the role of occupying forces, and advice by specialists in post-conflict situations (Phillips & Ochs,

2004). In the context of developing countries, ‘borrowing’ becomes a loose term. Through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the growing international community in the education sector, reform through educational transfer has been a market activity in which countries choose and pay for certain policy implantations. For instance, in the United Arab Emirates, the adoption of western educational models to reform the local education and higher education systems is widely seen as a voluntary implementation of the World Bank’s advice (Burden-Leahy, 2009).

Similarly, following the advice of RAND, a not-for-profit organization based in the US, and the availability of state revenues and vision have allowed Qatar to easily import ‘best practices’ from all around the world (Khodr, 2011).

2.5 Four Stages of Policy Borrowing and Educational Transfer Theory

Research by Phillips and Ochs (2004) focuses on theoretical models and tools that can be used to understand policy borrowing in education. They built a conceptual framework that explains the process of policy borrowing and education transfer and its stages. The framework shows

‘borrowing’ as a sequence of four main stages (see Figure 1). The authors highlight that the model describes an essentially sequential process, with arrows suggesting not causation but temporal linkage (Phillips & Ochs, 2004). As shown in Figure 1, this first stage is of particular importance because it initiates the entire policy-borrowing cycle. This first stage is composed of two parts: Impulses and Externalizing potential. Impulses are “some kind of stimulus or catalyst that sparks” interest elsewhere (Phillips, 2004, p. 54) that could be triggered by internal or external factors. These include internal dissatisfaction, negative external evaluation, or political motivations. Externalizing potential refers to elements of the foreign system that are theoretically

“borrowable” (Phillips, 2004, p. 57) and contextually relevant in the new culture. Externalizing

Potential is classified under ‘six foci’ of attraction.

Figure 2 shows the six foci which I will use as a means of classifying the attraction of some internationalization activities and of an American liberal arts institution in the literature; these externalization potentials are used to refer to ‘sparks’ (Rappleye et al., 2011, p. 415) or the reasons underpinning attraction and introduction of the foreign model. Ochs provides further direction by classifying the work of other scholars into four motivations or tactics for using the foreign example: to caution against education reform (Ochs, 2006), to ‘glorify’ practices in the local system (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004), to ‘legitimate’ the adoption of reform of educational policy at home (Halpin & Troyna, 1995; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004); or to ‘scandalize’ policy and practice at home to validate the call for reform (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). It is important to mention that

there may be more than one ‘spark’ that drives borrowing a policy from elsewhere and a reform could be glorified by supporters and scandalized by opponents concurrently at the same or different times. Even when the stakeholders share the same motivation for a particular policy, they do not necessarily interpret it similarly.

Figure 1: Policy Borrowing in Education: Composite Process Source: Phillips & Ochs (2004)

Figure 2: Structural typology of cross-national attraction Source: (Ochs, & Phillips, 2002)

As Goodman (2003) pointed out, cross-country attraction may permit different groups to agree while actually holding different understandings and pursuing different agendas (cited in

Rappleye, 2006, p. 234).Therefore, as Steiner-Khamsi stressed, the terrain under investigation should be the ‘local policy context’ as it enables investigating the agency, process, impact and timing of policy borrowing. This local context can provide answers to “why a borrowed reform resonates, what policy issue it pretends to resolve, and which policy actors it manages to mobilize in support of reform.” (2012, p. 5). As reform actors make their case for change by drawing evidence from structural impulses, examining reform impulses on two levels— structural and human—is very important as it helps to deconstruct how reforms actors’ ‘package’

'their case for reform (Rappleye, 2006). As Schriewer and Martine put it, “externalizations

‘filter’ the reception and description of an international environment according to the changing problem configurations” (2004, p. 32).

Schriewer and Martinez (2004, p. 33) put forward the concept of the ‘socio-logic’ of cross-national policy attraction (or externalization) that needs to be examined when explaining why policy borrowing occurs and under what circumstances, how stakeholders make use of references to international standards to reform their system, and what key features of the reform are borrowable. Willis and Rappleye (2011) complement the concept of externalization with the idea of advocacy comparison which is “a vision of education that continues to imagine the other as simply a tool of legitimation, leverage and authority for domestic reform debates” (p. 21).

This concept is deemed crucial for getting a deeper understanding of attraction.

The decision or second stage indicates when an educational system decides to change and discusses the ways in which governments introduce these new ideas, policies, and models to the

local context to begin the process of change. Phillips and Ochs (2004) noted that the decision to introduce the new policy to the local context could be based upon considerations that are theoretical (based on an abstract idea), realistic/practical (ideas that have proven successful elsewhere), quick fix (made to solve an urgent problem without enough regard for the contextual or intrastromal factors), or politically-motivated (promoting ideas that appeal to the electorate, possibly with no intention of implementation). The third stage or implementation stage of

Phillips and Ochs’ policy borrowing model considers the contextual conditions of the host environment that can affect implementation. With implementation, the focus is on the adaptation of the borrowed policy and the suitability of the context that will determine the speed of change.

The attitudes, whether support or resistance, of the significant actors, both people and institutions, determine the speed of change. Hayhoe (2007) discussed the importance of “cultural agency” (p.189) in comparative studies as a way to understand the influence of the local culture on the implementation and indigenization of borrowed policy. Cultural agency could enhance the anticipation of the future development of a borrowed policy. Resistance takes the form of either indecision or complete rejection of the borrowed policy. The fourth stage of policy borrowing is internalization and also has been called ‘indigenization’ or ‘domestication’ of policy. The policy is contextualized and becomes part of the system of education of the host country, and it is possible to assess its effects on the pre-existing structure and operations in the education system.

The cyclical process of policy borrowing in the Phillips and Ochs (2004) framework indicates that policy borrowing is a continuous process which can lead to another borrowing process. Phillips and Ochs’ four stages of policy borrowing in education were based on their analysis of British interest in the provision of education in Germany. Pointing out that their

model was ‘preliminary’, Phillips and Ochs (2004) expressed their interest in the model being applied to other cases of policy transfer that could improve it. They stated:

We need now to extend the range and investigate the attention paid in Britain to other countries and we hope that others will report on the usefulness of the model in other contexts of policy borrowing around the world. To that extent we hope that the model will serve as a helpful analytical tool which can undergo further development as it is tested by means of many examples. (Phillips & Ochs, 2004, pp. 782-783)

While many scholars examine the policy borrowing process under the premise that structural changes do not always necessitate education reform and looking elsewhere (Halpin & Troyna,

1995; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004), the case of Iraq might be built on the opposite assumption. In policy studies, John Kingdon coined the term “policy window” to identify favourable conditions for policy change (Kingdon, 1995, p. 19). He theorized that the convergence of three streams is likely to produce change: the problem stream (recognition of a problem), the policy stream

(availability of solutions), and the political stream (new developments in the political realm such as, for example, recent changes in government). In the case of Iraq, these three streams are aligned and opened up by the structural and organizational change following the 2003 conflict. It may be that the policy stream is available to politicians and decision makers in Iraq to adopt internationalization activities such as adopting foreign curriculum through twinning and franchising partnerships and establishing a foreign-style university. My research will explore the borrowing of educational ideas by making the complex context of Iraq a focal point in the analysis.

Most scholars have emphasized the importance of context in investigating policy borrowing, because it sets the conditions for education borrowing and gives the analysis a clearer lens through which to assess the complexity and suitability of a decision to borrow. Taking the context as a focal point helps explain the totality of the ‘structural’ and ‘human’ actors in

catalyzing and resisting educational import (Rappleye et al., 2011). The question of ‘human’ actors implicitly suggests that we must account for multiple actors in transfer processes that need, as Beech stated, “a wider concept of space” (Beech, 2006, p. 10) that can be extended from the local to regional and international actors. In the context of Iraqi higher education, the

2003 conflict has brought in many new actors and stakeholders. In such a context, the state as the main player is challenged. Thus, it is important to ask who were the agents of transfer and how the transfer was implemented (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). In this way even an agreed-upon policy may signify different things to different actors, forming conflicting interpretations that only later become apparent when the implementation and internalization stages force actors to become explicit about their perceptions and interpretations that present a barrier to ‘successful’ transfer

(Rappleye et al., 2011).

2.6 Applicability of the Model

Before explaining the applicability of the four stages of policy borrowing framework, it is important to acknowledge some of the limitations and dangers involved in any attempt at using educational concepts. As Phillips and Ochs explain:

Models seek to provide a concrete representation of processes described in the abstract. They serve as structures to facilitate analysis and discussion and to elucidate temporal and other relationships. They can, however, appear immutable, they can mislead (through the injudicious use of arrows, for example), and they can impede the investigation of complex issues by trapping the analysis within what appears to be a limited framework of possibilities. (2004, p. 781).

In my use of policy borrowing as a theoretical framework I will begin with local actors’ engagement with global policy (the foreign or imported university and higher education internationalization process) recently adopted in Iraqi higher education. The policy borrowing framework doesn’t focus on the convergence or divergence explanations of policy borrowing, or

on the underpinning assumption of many theoretical frameworks such as world culture and systems theories to explain why and how borrowing happens at the local level. The framework emphasizes the dynamic, complex and unpredictable nature of educational transfer because of the interaction between external forces and local agents. Emphasizing the local context within each stage in the framework increases the explanatory power of the policy borrowing theory.

Thus, the model is a context-sensitive approach that promises to detect conflicts between the borrowed policy and the home country, and it fills the methodological gaps neglected by positivist approaches. Finally, Phillips and Ochs emphasize that borrowing needs a specific definition that involves “a strictly deliberate, purposive phenomenon” and not “an imposed policy” (2004, p. 773). Thus, their emphasis is on the voluntary nature of borrowing as a consequence of attraction. Clearly adopting internationalization and transferring an international university are purposeful acts; yet, they might be both influenced by emerging trends of transnational higher education worldwide and encouraged by the development of some of the education systems in the region.

2.7 Summary

In this chapter, I have discussed literature related to rationales of higher education internationalization and policy borrowing in order to explore the tools I can use to critically examine the issue of adopting and adapting internationalization, specifically adopting a foreign university model in Iraqi higher education. The literature on the internationalization of HE shows that it is interpreted differently in different cultures, based on their local context and the objectives that inform the decision to implement it. Hence, as a late adopter, it is important to understand the underpinning rationales and the influences that led to adopting internationalization in post-2003 Iraq.

Some literature on policy borrowing suggests that the transnational flow of global educational ideas has led to conversion of local education systems to standard models that might be divorced from the context of the individual nation state. However, the literature also shows that actors in the local systems usually resist, negotiate and adapt these global transfers to fit the local context. My review of these bodies of literature helped me to design my study in a way that links the cross-national and local contexts to focuses on the rationales for borrowing in higher education and my use of a policy borrowing framework as the conceptual and theoretical lens most appropriate for the study of adopting internationalization and establishing a foreign university in the Iraqi context. The Phillips and Ochs policy borrowing framework helps to answer my research questions: why certain policies are borrowed (externalization); how they are locally modified and implemented (recontextualized); and what impact they have on existing structures, policies, and practices (internalization/indigenization).

Chapter 3 : Research Design and Methods

As detailed in the previous two chapters, in this study I seek to develop an account of and a perspective on internationalization of higher education and imported universities. I follow the constant comparison and qualitative case study methods to gain an in-depth view of the complex dynamics of policy borrowing and educational transfer within the context of conflict and its legacy. As explained, this study explores reasons, rationales, and relationships that led higher education institutions in Iraq to embrace internationalization activities and to adopt a foreign university model as part of their reform efforts after 2003. In this way, policy borrowing and educational transfer in the Iraqi context are examined, compared and contrasted using explanations provided by various actors in the higher education system. With these guiding principles for the study and with little educational data available in Iraq, the voices of research participants were sought to play a central role in this study to highlight aspects of importance that become evident through their reflections offered on internationalization and imported universities. I discuss three levels of comparison, internationalization in general, and imported universities specifically in the first section of this chapter. Also, I outline my methods and study design. In the second section, I introduce the various data sources I have used and methods of collecting data. In the third, I discuss the analytical strategies I have followed. There is a description of the research sites in the fourth section. The fifth section reviews some limitations of the study, and the final section briefly comments on research ethics procedures I have followed to carry out this study.

3.1 Study Design

My study was designed around three levels. As shown in Figure 3, the first area of analysis explores global and cross-national influences on Iraqi higher education post-2003 and how

internationalization activities are shaped by this influence. The second area of analysis is internationalization of higher education in Iraq, which is a national initiative implemented at the institutional level. Some institutions have built their own internationalization initiatives too.

Thus, the second level of comparison is located between the national and the institutional levels.

By comparing internationalization initiatives at the national and the local level, I seek to understand rationales of internationalization at both the national (the government and the

Ministry) and institutional (universities) levels in the Iraqi higher education system. I also seek to determine whether there is a shared rationale and common understanding about internationalization among them. The third level of comparison is internal, within the universities, among academic leaders and staff. For example, I will investigate how university presidents, middle management and faculty perceive and define internationalization, and how they view the impact of conflict and pre-conflict legacies on the potential contribution of internationalization to reforming higher education in Iraq as shown in Figure 3.

To examine the rationales for establishing an imported university in Iraq, I will make comparisons between two case studies: The American University of Iraq-Sulaimni (AUIS) and the American University of Iraq-Baghdad (AUIB). Both universities were initiated by individuals and supported by the government, established in 2007 and 2018 respectively. While the focus of this study is Iraq, the case study of the American University of Beirut (in broken lines in Figure 3) serves as a source of information to enrich the comparative analysis with respect to the conflict, post-conflict and the Middle East contexts.

Figure 3: Levels of Analysis in the Internationalization of HE and Imported Universities

In the two areas of comparison, this analysis aims to explore the socio-political impetus, enablers and barriers to educational reform in Iraq through internationalization and an imported university.

My study uses a qualitative case study approach to capture the complexity of adopting internationalization and importing a foreign university model within the context of Iraq. It attends simultaneously to global, national, institutional and local-individual dimensions through vertical comparisons. To build a rigorous research design, I incorporate a multi-sited fieldwork approach. This offers rich data for in-depth analysis to resolve the research questions. Multi-sited fieldwork is used to document and analyze the many factors that emerge across structural, systemic and local levels (Henne, 2017).

Qualitative case study methodology provides tools for researchers to study complex phenomena within their contexts using a variety of data sources (Baxter & Jack, 2008). This approach provides considerable flexibility in using multiple data sources and ensures that the issue is explored through a variety of lenses, which allows for multiple facets of the phenomenon to be revealed and understood. A case study design is appropriate when the focus of the study is to answer “how” and “why” questions and when contextual conditions are important and relevant to the phenomenon under study (Yin, 2003). The traditional case study literature considers it a bounded system (Creswell, 2007; Merriam, 2009; Stake, 2005; Yin, 2003).

Creswell (2007) defines case study as:

a qualitative approach in which the investigator explores a bounded system (a case) or multiple bounded systems (cases) over time, through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information (2007, p. 73).

The case study approach is most often used prospectively (Yin, 2003) where research can play a

vital role in comparative education, especially in the connection between policies and practices of the educational institutions (Crossley & Vulliamy, 1984). Case studies can also expose the gap between rhetoric and practice in a particular society. This is particularly relevant in the case of educational reforms and policy borrowings that are advocated by elites, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), donors promoting them as ‘best practices’ and ‘international standards.’

Micro-level analysis is intended to expose the reality of borrowed policies and educational transfer to the host culture and how relevant they are. Further, case-study methods are well placed to identify important constraints on innovation, which may not be apparent to Iraqi policy makers, or a detailed understanding of the local context in which the innovations are being attempted may be missing (Merriam, 2009). Shields puts forth the following argument in favour of qualitative case studies:

The strength of qualitative approaches is that they account for and include difference— ideologically, epistemologically, methodologically—and most importantly, humanly. They do not attempt to eliminate what cannot be discounted. They do not attempt to simplify what cannot be simplified. Thus, it is precisely because case study includes paradoxes and acknowledges that there are no simple answers, that it can and should qualify as the gold standard (2007, p. 13).

As noted above, and in Figure 3, I implement vertical and horizontal comparisons in order to explore the complex connections of power and resistance inherited in reforms through policy borrowing and educational transfer (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2015). The vertical comparison allows simultaneous attention to and across micro-, meso-, and macro-levels, which constitute the verticality of comparison (Bray et al., 2007), and this encourages the analysis of different agencies and layers within a system. Also, Vavrus and Bartlett (2006) advocated the use of the vertical case study to uncover the larger structures, forces (including at the global level), and policies reflected in a particular local context as well as the causal web within a case. Vertical

case studies provide an account of how sites and levels of analyses are interrelated in order to capture the implications of an actor’s situatedness.

The vertical approach suggests that we think of policy not in the usual dichotomy of

‘text’ and ‘discourse’, but instead as a series of mutually negotiated, multi-vocal constructs as it moves from the global to the national and then to the local and the individual level. That is, despite what may be written in a particular policy text or intended by a particular ‘reference’ to elsewhere, policy can take on as many different meanings as there are actors involved (Rappleye et al., 2011). This approach or lens lends more explanatory power to the researcher to explore the local policy context (policy relating to imported universities or internationalization). This nuancing also makes it possible to explore the contextual reasons for why reforms, best practices, or international standards, were adopted. The analysis pays attention to the way that internationalization is understood and practiced as it flows from the national to the institutional and then to the individual levels, as well as how it is influenced by global trends and forces. By comparison, the horizontal axis explores how internationalization is interpreted across different locations and how relevant contextual factors influence this interpretation.

3.2 Data Sources and Research Methods

I use an assortment of qualitative data collection strategies through an approach known as

‘methodological bricolage’(Kincheloe, 2005, p.335). “Bricolage” users employ “any means necessary” and “as many methods as possible to make their way through a world of diverse meanings” (Kincheloe, 2005, p. 332). Through this approach, unconventional data collection and analytical strategies are employed to explore the voices of different actors. The purpose is to engage deeply with the subject of internationalization and imported universities in the context of

Iraq without concern for methodological boundaries, while still maintaining methodological 60

rigour. The qualitative data sources in this study consist of participant interviews, news media, institutional websites, literature review, and documents.

The main source of data in this study is semi-structured interviews with different actors in

Iraqi higher education. Merriam (2009) points out that interviewing in qualitative investigations is more open-ended and less structured than in questionnaires. The interviewing format assumes that individual respondents define the world in unique ways. I selected semi-structured interviews as one means of data collection based on two primary considerations. First, semi- structured interviews are well suited for exploration of the perceptions and opinions of respondents regarding complex and sometimes sensitive issues, and for probing for more information and clarification of answers. Second, the semi-structured interview format has the advantage of asking all interviewees the same general questions while also providing an opportunity to ask unique follow-up questions (Brenner, 2006, p. 357).

In the semi-structured interview, either all of the questions are more flexibly worded or the interview is a mix of more and less structured questions. Usually, specific information is desired from all the respondents, through a more structured section to the interview. According to Merriam, “the largest part of the interview is guided by a list of questions or issues to be explored, and neither the exact wording nor the order of the questions is determined ahead of time” (2009, p. 90). This format allowed me to respond to the situation at hand, to the emerging worldview of the respondent, and to new ideas on the topic.

Participants

The interviews for this study were conducted at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific

Research in Baghdad-Central Iraq and seven different public and private (imported) universities

in four cities in Iraq and Lebanon (see Table 2). The semi-structured in-depth interviews were guided by a previously-agreed study rationale with key interviewees (or multiple key informants) comprising six Ministry personnel, including the former minister of Iraq higher education, four university presidents and one investor, four vice presidents for academic and cultural relations. A further 53 interviews were conducted with teaching faculty, deans and heads of departments, to make a total of 64 key informants. Table 2 lists the participants and their profiles (see Appendix

A for a complete profile of participants). This variety of key informants allows for case development, case interactions and triangulation (Hyett et al., 2014).

I developed three interview protocols that catered to each participant’s role (see

Appendix B, C, and D). The first interview protocol explores the Iraqi Ministry of Higher

Education decision makers’ motivations for embracing internationalization and establishing an imported university in Iraq. It includes questions to explore their perceptions about the preferred features of an imported university that are perceived as borrowable and their potential contribution to the ongoing process of reforming higher education in Iraq. The second interview protocol elicits perceptions from administrators and faculty members at public universities in

Iraq about the internationalization activities and the idea of establishing an imported/international university in Iraq, the factors that would affect its transfer into the country, and whether an imported university would maintain its original structure and culture.

The last interview protocol targeted senior administrators and faculty members at the imported universities. The interview questions elicited their experience at the imported university in terms of rationales, benefits and challenges and the local context’s impact on the university functions.

Table 2: List of Participants and Their Positions in the Research Sites Sector Institution /Position Count 62

Private- Imported university American University of Beirut 16 Administrators 3 Faculty 13 American University of Baghdad 3 Administrators 2 Investor 1 American University of Sulaimani 12 Administrators 4 Faculty 8 Public - Ministry of Higher Education and The Ministry 6 Scientific Research - Iraq Associate Directors and Advisors 5 Former Minister 1 Public Universities- Iraq University of Baghdad 10 Deans and Administrators 4 Faculty members 6 University of Babylon 4 Deans and Administrators 4 University of Kufa 7 Deans and Administrators 4 Faculty members 3 University of Technology 6 Administrators 2 Faculty members 4 Total Interviews 64

One of the initial targets for this study was the founders of the American Universities in

Iraq. This challenging task ended by securing only one interview with the founding president of

AUIB at the end of 2018 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and a phone interview with the local investor in February 2020. My interest was to understand their motivations and how they framed their initiatives for comparison between AUIS and AUIB. For the founder of AUIB, the focus was on the motivation for establishing the university, the process of starting it up, the support received from the Ministry and other possible supporters.

I conducted most of my interviews in person. Two respondents answered questions in writing, two via phone or Skype, and three interviews were done by taking notes by hand. The average interview length was 55 minutes. All except five interviews were audio-taped and transcribed. The intention was to “capture something important about the data in relation to the research questions” (Braun and Clarke 2006, p.82). Either a professional transcriber or I transcribed all recorded interviews verbatim. For interviews I did not personally transcribe, I verified their accuracy by comparing selected passages of the transcripts to the audio files and editing them where necessary. Interviews conducted at the imported universities were in English while those at the Ministry and all public universities were in Arabic. Arabic is my first language, so I translated all Arabic interviews into English. I reviewed the translated version three to four times to make sure the exact meaning of words and phrases was captured in the translation.

Documents and Other Data Sources

The other data source I used in this study was analysis of written texts. Documents used in social sciences research provide background information and historical insights, suggest questions for interviews; contextualize data collected during interviews, and verify findings or corroborate 64

evidence from other sources, among other purposes (Bowen, 2009, pp. 29–30). Documents related to my research included the national strategic plans of the Ministry of Higher Education and of the institutions, from their websites or provided by participants. Official documents in particular are “a site of claims to power, legitimacy, and reality” (Lindlof & Taylor, p. 232, cited in Saldaña (2016, p. 61). These documents signaled the intentions of the Ministry and universities with respect to internationalization and how they framed the rationales for why internationalization was valued, sought after, and implanted.

I obtained further primary and secondary data from the Ministry and institutional websites, media outlets, and international organizations. Official documents and information obtained from these sites represent significant lenses for understanding how various actors frame and interpret internationalization, and what activities have officially taken place. I searched each institution’s website for information related to accreditation reports, international partnerships, and joint research activities. Where available, I also collected each institution’s mission as well as information on enrolment and any aspect related to internationalization. News media, interviews and speeches of ministers of higher education and university presidents were also part of my data collection and analysis. These sources provided information that was not captured by interviews or official documents.

3.3 Analytical Strategies

Up to this point I have explained the rationale for why I chose a qualitative approach to describe and interpret the phenomenon of internationalization of higher education and imported universities within the context of dramatic change brought on by conflict. Merriam stated that all qualitative data analysis is primarily inductive and comparative (2009, p. 175). So, this approach fits well with the purpose of my study to capture different participants’ perspectives and views of 65

the recent internationalization activities implemented in Iraq’s universities, how the continuous state of uncertainty affects their perceptions, and how these views vary among them. My analytical strategies are informed by internationalization rationales and policy borrowing theory.

In my analysis, I follow the Constant Comparison Method (CCM) to organize and analyze all the codes generated from the dataset (Fram, 2013; O’Connor et al., 2008). In the work of Glaser and

Strauss, constant comparison is important in developing a theory that is grounded in the data

(Glaser and Strauss, 1967). The CCM is an iterative and inductive process of reducing the data through constant recoding (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). CCM involves breaking down the data into discrete ‘incidents’, the indicators of a category or concept (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), and coding them to categories. CCM incorporates four stages: (1) comparing incidents applicable to each category, (2) integrating categories and their properties, (3) delimiting the theory, and (4) writing the theory (Glaser, 1965, p. 439). Although the CCM does not necessarily constitute a grounded theory design, it can be adapted and used for other types of inquiries beyond grounded theory

(Fram, 2013; O’Connor et al., 2008). The strength of using the CCM is to maintain what anthropologists call an ‘emic’ perspective (i.e. the participant’s view as insider) at the same time as using theoretical frameworks to maintain an ‘etic’ or outside perspective (Fram, 2013, p. 1).

O’Connor et al have emphasized that CCM “assures that all data are systematically compared to all other data in the data set. This assures that all data produced will be analyzed rather than potentially disregarded on the thematic grounds” (2008, p. 41). In this research, I use a constant comparative approach as a tool for processing data. I have coded and recoded participants’ interview data and data from other sources to generate categories that represent the local perceptions of internationalization and the imported universities, thus taking the local context into consideration in the analysis. This approach helps me to understand the rationales for

embracing internationalization in Iraq and how they are perceived by actors at different levels in the organizational structures of the country's higher education system.

Coding and Category Finding

Merriam has defined coding as the “process of making notations next to bits of data that strike you as potentially relevant for answering your research questions” (2009, p. 178). I used both provisional and emic coding. I used the internationalization rationales (see Table 1) as provisional codes to begin the process of coding and category finding. According to Saldaña,

“provisional coding begins with a ‘start list’ of researcher-generated codes based on what preparatory investigation suggests might appear in the data before they are analyzed.” (2016, p.

165) or from a literature review besides other resources. Strauss and Corbin (1998) recognize how a review of the literature can “stimulate our thinking about properties or dimensions that we can then use to examine the data in front of us” (p. 45). Thus, the traditional internationalization rationales serve as a conceptual framework or a lens to begin the process of coding. Next, I applied -emic coding (called also in-vivo coding) to expand these initial codes to include new codes grounded in the participants' perceptions and understanding of higher education internationalization. Emic coding “refers to a word or short phrase from the actual language found in the qualitative data record” (Saldaña, 2016, p. 105), the terms used by participants themselves (Strauss, 1987). In this process, I was looking for and comparing recurring regularities or patterns in the data at different levels that eventually emerged as categories and the relationships among them that explained participants’ perceptions about HE internationalization and imported universities. Actually, identifying categories started during the data collection, as I was constantly trying to check and compare data for relevant tentative categories. With subsequent interviews, observations or documents helped adjust my interview

questions accordingly. Hence the approach in this phase was both inductive, allowing categories to emerge from the data, and theoretically driven, testing out a predetermined framework.

To explore the story of the two American-style universities that were recently established in Iraq, I applied the provisional coding and emic coding within the Four Stages of the Policy

Borrowing framework (Phillips & Ochs, 2004). As detailed in Chapter 2, the policy borrowing framework explores and compares individuals’ rationales for cross-national attraction and the impact of local contexts that might alter the original format of the transferred policy; here it is the imported university. The unit of analysis in this section is ‘imported university’. I selected two American Universities in Iraq, in Baghdad and Sulaimani, and the American University of

Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon. I use AUB as an external and historical reference model from the region. These three cases are sufficiently homogenous to be comparable and internally heterogenous enough to allow for a greater variety and scope in the explanation. This internal variation allows for a “thick description” in my interpretation of the data as organized by chapter into the various stages (Geertz, 1973). Finally, throughout the data analysis process, I used the qualitative software Nvivo to code all interview transcripts.

3.4 Research Sites

In case study research, site selection is a critical step, since an appropriate selection enables the researcher to gain deep insight into the phenomenon under investigation (Yin, 2003).

Further, Hayhoe (2007) suggested that meaningful comparisons could only be made within a broadly similar socio-economic context. With this in mind, I chose to carry out my study at four public universities in Iraq; two in the Capital of Baghdad, one in the governorate of Najaf and one in the governorate of Babylon and three independent American universities, two in Iraq and one in Lebanon. Figure 4 shows the map of Iraq and the research sites. During my fieldwork in 68

Iraq from October 2017 to February 2018, I added the University of Babylon (UBA) in the governorate of Babylon to the public universities. Many participants had advised me to visit

UBA since it has been actively building partnerships with a few international universities through twinning and franchising programs. The following section describes the institutions included in the study.

National Level

The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq is the centre of policy development and decision-making that governs higher education institutions in Central Iraq.

Participants at the Ministry level include three Associate Directors: of Administrative and

Strategic Affairs, the Department of Planning and Studies, and the Department of Scholarship and Cultural Relationships. Also, I included two advisors to the Minister. The interview with the

Minister at that time was conducted by phone one year after he left the Ministry. These interviews helped me to understand central government decision-making and also to refine my interview questions and concepts with participants at the institutional level during the data collection stage. When it came to the data analysis on the idea of internationalization and imported universities, perspectives from national and institutional levels uncovered disparities, consensus, and harmonies between the two.

Figure 4: Map of Iraq and Data Collection Sites

Institutional Level

I included four public universities in three governorates in Iraq in this study. And, as noted earlier, I included three private independent American-style universities in the study in Iraq and

Lebanon (see Table 3). These seven universities were purposefully selected based on their characteristics as outlined below. As shown in Table 3, among the public universities included in the study are the University of Baghdad, which is comprehensive and the first and the largest university in Iraq. It accommodates about 40 percent of students in the capital, Baghdad. Its nickname ‘the Mother University’ is attributed to its distinctive history in the region with its 24 scientific and humanities colleges, 4 institutes of graduate studies and 10 research centres. The

University of Technology is one of Iraq's largest universities and is situated in the city of

Baghdad. The university specializes in Engineering, Computer Sciences, and Applied Sciences and Technologies that offered through its 16 departments. The University of Kufa is a large comprehensive and research university located in Najaf; this is a holy city, which makes it an important participant in the study. Finally, the University of Babylon is a comprehensive university located in the governorate of Babylon south of Baghdad. The university has put significant efforts and resources into internationalizing its campus through twinning and franchising programs and offers scholarships for international students. Even though the public universities included in the study operate in a very centralized system, they still represent a relevant range in terms of socio-cultural, political and economic variation that enriched my study, as they were varied by their history, location and strategic focus. The first of the three private independent American universities inside and outside Iraq included in my study (see

Table 3) is the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani (AUIS).

Table 3: Profiles of Participating Public and Private Universities in Iraq and Lebanon Including the American University of Kurdistan

Country & Degree Year of Student Academic Number of University Status city Level establishment Enrolment staff academic unites 24 colleges; 4 Institutes of Bachelors, graduate University of Iraq, Public Masters 1958 70615 6321 Studies; 10 Baghdad Baghdad and Ph.D. Research and community centres Bachelors, 16 departments; University of Iraq, Public Masters 1975 7116 1572 5 research Technology Baghdad and Ph.D. centres Bachelors, University of Public Iraq, Kufa Masters 1987 31104 2148 21 faculties Kufa and Ph.D. 19 faculties, Bachelors, University of including Public Iraq, Hillah Masters 1991 25462 1998 Babylon Faculty of and Ph.D. Graduate Studies American Private- Bachelors, Lebanon, University of not-for- Masters 1866 9408 1200 141 Beirut Beirut profit and Ph.D. American Private- Bachelors University of Iraq, 7 academic not-for- and 2007 1391 80 Iraq- Sulaimani departments profit Masters Sulaimani American Private- Planned University of Iraq, Not 3 colleges (start- not-for- Bachelors 2018 capacity Iraq- Baghdad available up plan) profit 30,000 Baghdad American Private- 5 colleges (12 Not University of not-for- Iraq, Duhok Bachelors 2014 51 academic available Kurdistan4 profit departments)

Source: universities’ websites

AUIS, established in 2007, is located in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and is the first

4 The American University of Kurdistan (AUK) located in Duhok in the Kurdistan Region was founded by Masrour Barzani, an alumnus of the American University in Washington, D.C., to provide comprehensive liberal arts education and to encourage cross-disciplinary research in the region. Masrour Barazani is a Kurdish politician serving as Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq since June 2019. He is also the chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council and a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. I didn’t include AUK in my study for reasons of security and travel restrictions.

American university in Iraq. The University admits students from all cities in Iraq regardless of their sects and ethnicities, a significant context to be explored in the study. Currently, AUIS has about 1,400 students enrolled in its seven academic departments. Thus, stakeholders from this university could provide insightful information that helps in answering the research questions.

The second is the American University of Iraq – Baghdad. It is a private, not-for-profit university located in Baghdad. It was supposed to open its doors in 2018, but since then many disruptions have happened in Iraq that make hiring faculty members and launching its new programs a challenge. The third independent university in my study is the American University of

Beirut. AUB has a distinctive history in the Middle East and its location in Lebanon as a country that went through sectarian divisions and wars makes it a relevant participant institution in this study and a key reference point. The insights of administrative staff and faculty in these various institutions helped clarify how these universities’ models were transferred to, implemented, and adjusted in the host countries. It is important to note that I originally planned to cover another private independent American university in Lebanon that identified itself as non-sectarian and co-educational; the consequences of the Lebanese civil war created an opportunity for this university to be established. Feedback from administration and faculty could have opened up understanding of various aspects of civil war, the main context of this study. However, the university didn’t respond to my email invitations. In fact, my inclusion of AUIB as a case in this study was also a change I made near the end of my field work when I found out about it through a blog. The blog stated that one of Saddam Hussain’s palaces (he was removed from power in

2003) was taken over and renovated to become a campus for an American university in Baghdad.

At the beginning of my fieldwork, there were no announcements in the Ministry website or in the media about AUIB and that continued till recently. The university started launching its marketing

campaign at the end of 2019, but it was interrupted by the October movement against the government. This has continued with the coronavirus pandemic that began in early 2020. Under its startup plan, only three colleges are opened so far for students. In Winter 2020 about 230 Iraqi students have enrolled in these three colleges. Including AUIB in the study has enriched the analysis as it brings a real case of a newly imported university that has been established in

Baghdad and reflects clearly the impact of conflict and uncertainty in Iraq on this establishment in particular and the entire higher education system in general. Such adjustments and flexibility were possible in this qualitative case study and are strongly encouraged through the qualitative case study inquiry process so that researchers can gain an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon under study (Ragin, 1997).

In most public institutions in Central Iraq, communication via email is yet to be a common practice. Thus, I relied on snowballing techniques to invite participants, especially faculty members. For academic leaders and Ministry personnel, I searched for their contact information from the official websites, visited their offices and invited them in person to participate in the study. With respect to AUIS, located in the Kurdistan Region—north of Iraq, I sent an official email to the president to get permission to visit the university and to conduct the interviews with him and other prospective participants. The interviews were held over a six-month period from

October 15, 2017 to April 15, 2018. The phone interviews with the former Minister of Higher

Education and the AUIB investor were conducted in early 2020. The field work in Lebanon at the AUB started at the end of April and ran for two weeks after securing the AUB’s Institutional

Review Board approval on February 15, 2018 (See Appendix E). The total of 64 key informants were drawn upon to ensure multiple sources of information, further case development, shaped by context and emergent data, as recommended by Stake (1995, 1998). This also ensured

triangulation to guarantee integrity of the study, build rigour, validity, credibility and reliability, as recommended in Creswell (2012), Denzin & Lincoln (2011) and Stake (2005). Altogether, including participants from different institutions at different levels has helped me develop a comprehensive case study to explore the internationalization of higher education and the imported university.

3.5 Limitations of the Study

This study is limited to higher education in Iraq in a post-conflict context. The study attempts to explore the phenomenon of internationalization of higher education and imported universities within the political, cultural, social, historical and economic context of Iraq. While there are various models of imported universities, this study is focused on the American liberal arts university model. The main reasons for this selection are: (1) this university model has already built its presence in Iraq, and (2) this university model has a historical presence in the region with many reputable universities such as the American University of Beirut in Lebanon and the

American University of Cairo in Egypt, and more recently the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. In 2014, another American-style university was established in Duhok in Kurdistan Iraq—the American University of Kurdistan (AUK). I didn’t include AUK in my study because I was unsure about the security situation in the region. Therefore, I limited my cases to only the AUIS in Sulaimani from the Kurdistan region and the AUIB in Central Iraq.

Another limitation, which was also a strength, concerns my data sources, which are skewed, by design, heavily toward interviews. Secondary sources and documents from websites might not be comprehensive and detailed and could be intended for marketing purposes which means they may not reflect reality. Perspectives of other pertinent actors (e.g. ministry decision and policy makers, prospective students, academic leaders of competing institutions) are not 75

represented. For the AUIB so far, no academic staff have been hired to develop a relevant comparison with the AUIS and AUB. Also, the administrative cadre has not been fully established at the university. So, the university is at a very early development stage. One of the main challenges that must be added to the limitation of the study is the lack of other relevant and reliable data or scholarly studies about higher education in Iraq.

3.6 Research Ethics

In this study, I followed the ethical requirements of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research

Ethics Board (REB) of the University of Toronto. The study was approved by the REB on July

11, 2017 (See Appendix F). This ethical protocol is required for all studies involving human subjects in order to ensure participants are fully informed and that they consent to voluntarily participate in the research. I explained to each of the participants the purpose of my study, how data would be collected and used, and how much time the interview would take. Once they agreed to participate in my study, I asked each of them to sign the consent form and asked them for their consent to audio-record the interviews. Almost all agreed that I could audio-record their interviews. In a few cases, I took handwritten notes. Another important ethical procedure, to which I have paid considerable attention, was anonymity. To ensure that the identities of all my participants are protected, I have used their position such as ‘senior administrator’, ‘middle manager’, ‘academic’ as their identifier. I got the consent from the former Minister of Higher

Education by phone and he agreed that I could identify him as a ‘former minister’ in the thesis. I also got signed approval from all the leaders of universities to use the institutions’ names in the study.

3.7 Summary

This chapter has provided an overview of the research design of this study which takes a 76

comparative-vertical case study-approach. The three levels of comparison in this study are cross- national, national, and institutional. The semi-structured interview is the primary data source in my research. I have conducted 64 interviews with participants from four public universities in

Central Iraq and three American-style universities in the Kurdistan Region, Central Iraq, and

Lebanon. Participants include a former Minister of Iraqi higher education, advisors and consultants at the Ministry, university presidents and vice presidents, deans and acting deans, and faculty members. This study is limited to Iraqi HE with a post-conflict context and the

American-liberal arts university model.

Chapter 4 : Reconnecting Iraq with the International Community

Today we need international vision in our university so it could revive. (Iraqi former Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, February, 2020)

After the 2003 invasion, connecting Iraq with the international community was seen by the

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and other international organizations as a crucial first step for post-conflict Iraq recovery. This connection was considered important to enable the transfer of the urgently needed advanced skills and capacities in all fields of knowledge. In societies impacted by conflict, such educational transfer has been recognized as important in assisting with the process of rebuilding higher education systems and institutions in the aftermath of conflict (Heleta, 2017b) as well as filling the capacity gap of the local higher education institutions weakened by conflict and isolation (Milton, 2013).

In this chapter, I use a vertical comparative case study (Bray et al., 2007; Vavrus &

Bartlett, 2006) to explore the rationales for adopting internationalization in Iraqi higher education (HE) with two main objectives in mind: the first is to understand various cross- national influences on the Iraqi higher education system for adopting internationalization activities as part of the revitalization efforts to reform the sector since 2003. This methodological approach helped me to deeply explore how internationalization is rationalized across different sites as well as among networks of actors within the local and global systems across different social fields. Further, this approach was useful to trace internationalization activities in Iraqi HE institutions taking into consideration the dynamics of resistance, support, and agencies of different global and local players.

To do so, I use the concept of cross-national attraction, the first stage in the policy borrowing framework developed by Phillips & Ochs (2004). As discussed in Chapter 2, cross- national attraction is a process of looking elsewhere to solve an educational problem at home. It consists of two phases: ‘impulses’ and ‘externalizing potential’. I begin by introducing the

‘impulses’, which are the internal factors and conditions in Iraq that led to search for best practices abroad. Then, I highlight the ‘externalizing potential’. In the case of Iraq, this externalizing potential is defined as various internationalization activities such as twinning programs, knowledge and skills transfer through study abroad and university partnerships activities, adopting imported curriculum, and establishing an imported university. Further, I examine the role of various external and internal actors in this process of cross-national attraction.

The second objective of this chapter is to understand the local perspective at the Ministry and university levels on why internationalization of HE was needed, what rationales and discourses were used to promote the imperative of internationalization in post-2003 Iraq, and how the idea was supported by and/or resisted by various local actors. To explore the rationales for internationalization at the local level, I mapped out the data using the traditional rationales of internationalization in HE presented in the literature: political, social/cultural, educational, economic, and reputational.

Steiner-Khamsi argues that the two concepts: “externalization” and “reference society” are critical in understanding the influence of the global forces on the local policy reforms (2006, p. 671). She argues that “which systems are used as 'reference societies' … and which are not, tells us something about the interrelations of actors within various world-systems.” (Steiner-

Khamsi, 2006, p. 671). Thus, comparing the perspectives of various actors at both the international and local levels provides a comprehensive approach that serves to (1) investigate how and what educational transfer is introduced from abroad and implemented within the local context of Iraq; (2) understand the rationales of external actors to introduce internationalization into Iraq’s higher education and their influence on re-shaping the sector in post-2003 Iraq; (3) understand how local actors responded to the external impact and their rationales for embracing these new educational transfers.

As explained in Chapter 3, I used various data sources to achieve the two objectives of this chapter, which include interview transcripts, TV and social media interviews, documents, reports and data from relevant national and international organizations. To refine these broad rationales within the context of Iraq, I conducted an iterative process of constant comparison and coding, first using participants' interviews, then data from other sources to ensure data integration and precision.

The analysis shows that the official discourses by various local and international actors on why internationalization is necessary in post-2003 Iraq are the legacy of conflict and isolation and the conceptualization of Iraq as a cradle of civilization that has collapsed, although with disregarding the why and how, and needs the international community to help revitalize its institutions, including those in higher education. The two main cross-national influences are the

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)’s destruction-reconstruction policies in HE and the modernization and capacity building efforts of the various international organizations. The imperative for transferring internationalization was framed by the CPA around transfer of

American-style education to build a democratic Iraq, as a form of U.S. soft power in post-2003

Iraq. Further, Iraq was perceived by some American and British universities, some international institutions, and the media as a lucrative market, one that was not available for them before 2003.

However, the U.S. government and the CPA efforts to reconnect Iraq with the international academic community was part of their political agenda and their attempt to legitimate their authority as an occupation power as well as the appointed new Iraqi authority that proved to be corrupt and fighting for power and wealth.

At the local level, the rationales for embracing internationalization vary by different actors at each level in Iraqi higher education. At the state level, economic rationales dominate the official discourse about internationalization with the objective to develop human resources able to engage in state building. At the Ministry level, four interrelated rationales have framed the imperatives of implementing internationalization in Iraq's academia. These are: rebuilding the status and reputation of Iraq's HE, bridging the knowledge gap produced by isolation and conflict, modernization, and seeing to what extent twinning programs and foreign universities can provide an alternative to the failing public system. As the financial resources become scarcer, university administrators have rationalized internationalization at their institutions as financial aid and a potential for revenue generation, besides the rationales of rebuilding status and bridging the knowledge gap.

The chapter consists of two main sections. The first explores the global, cross-national influences on Iraq’s higher education in the post-2003 conflict period. The second explores the local perspectives on internationalizing Iraqi higher education at the state, ministry, and the institutional levels. The chapter ends with a summary and concluding remarks.

4.1 Global and Cross-national Influences on Higher Education in Post-conflict Iraq

Iraq makes a unique case study of how a particular domain of education policy– internationalization of higher education–is influenced by forces beyond national boundaries. The analysis in this section is based on secondary data that includes documents, reports, articles, and studies. This data helped me examine how internationalization is introduced by external actors and how the context of pre- and post-2003 is used to justify the need for internationalization. The analysis shows three sources of influence: The legacy of economic sanctions imposed by the international community, the CPA’s destruction and reconstruction policies in higher education, and cross-national influences through international nongovernmental organizations. To reiterate, the dominant context of these three influences is the conceptualization of Iraq as a cradle of civilization that has collapsed because of wars and imposed sanctions, and that needs the international community to help revitalize its institutions, including higher education.

4.2 The Legacy of Economic Sanctions-Destruction

Iraq's once-renowned education system has been crippled by years of sanctions that lasted from

1991 to 2003, imposed by the UN Security Council. When, in Geneva in 1991, US Secretary of

State James Baker III warned Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister of Iraq, that Iraq would be bombed back into the Stone Age (Kadri, 2016). Indeed, by the end of 12 years of economic sanctions, Iraqi HE was operating with a depreciated infrastructure, a severe shortage of qualified academics and administrators, lack of knowledge of modern academic policies, outdated curricula, obsolete teaching methods, and in complete isolation from the international academic community. The destruction following the 2003 invasion that led to the political change in Iraq did not offer the HE system an opportunity to revive. Reforming the collapsed HE system is considered by the international community as beyond the capacities of Iraq's local

knowledge since it had been seriously depreciated (British Universities Iraq Consortium, 2014;

UNESCO, 2003; USAID, 2004). Under this situation, there was a crucial need for capacity building, modernization, and reconnection with the regional and international academic communities (UNESCO, 2003). Hence, political change and the systemic collapse of Iraqi higher education were used as the sparks or the impulses (Phillips & Ochs, 2004) by the CPA and other international organizations to open the space to integrate some internationalization activities into

Iraq’s higher education. Obviously, the collapse of Iraqi HE did not start after the invasion, rather; it was a continuous process of destruction to the infrastructure and the academic culture that started with the Iraq-Iran war (1981-1988), then followed by the brutal UN imposed economic sanctions, and continued with the 2003 invasion and in its aftermath the CPA reconstruction policies.

4.3 Post-colonial Influence - CPA Reconstruction Policies

From day one, U.S. policy in Iraq followed what might be described as a destruction- reconstruction framework and strategy to be implemented at all institutions, including the higher education sector. The goals were to avoid the practices of the previous regime and set down pathways toward a supposedly new democratic Iraq. In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the US, Iraq was selected to experiment with spreading democracy in the Middle East. Iraq seemed like a reasonable candidate because its natural wealth, relative secularism, and comparatively well-educated population gave Iraq advantages that are not available in other Arab countries. (Hinnebusch, 2007). These goals were translated through various policies imposed by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) immediately after the 2003 invasion. As discussed in the introductory chapter, one of the destructive policies of the CPA was the de-Baathification of

Iraqi public institutions. In terms of higher education, the de-Ba'athification Order removed an

estimated 1000-2000 academics and university staff from their jobs, the majority in senior positions (Munthe, 2003). Many experienced staff were made redundant at a critical time. Many of these professionals were difficult to replace or were replaced by less qualified people, thereby preventing the universities from carrying out their mission and diminishing the capacity and quality of higher education institutions (HEIs). One of the consequences of the de-

Ba’athification order has been the creation of a serious crisis: a lack of knowledgeable higher education leaders and academics, something that had already presented a challenge for the sector due to the brain drain that had started since the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. De-Ba’athification also facilitated the historical institutionalization of sectarianism in selecting the Ministry and university leaders. According to the current political quota system, high-ranked Ministry and university personnel were selected based on their affiliation with political parties rather than their qualifications. This policy was followed by threats and a wave of assassinations that hit Iraqi scientists and university staff. Hundreds of professors and scientists have been killed since

March 2003, thousands have been forced into exile, and the rest are too intimidated to participate in political life, where their expertise and knowledge are badly needed (Jawad & Al Assaf; Harb

2008). This destruction strategy was followed by a reconstruction regime promoted by the CPA to align Iraq’s economy along a free market system. Saltman has referred to many scholars who have argued, “the Iraq war has been a radical experiment in widescale neoliberal privatization–an attempt to essentially hand a nation over to corporations“ (2006, p. 28). Iraqi higher education was part of this reconstruction plan. In this context, the changes in Iraq’s higher education institutions with new globalization trends in higher education were decentralization, privatization, and internationalization. John Agresto, in charge of the Ministry of Higher

Education and Scientific Research (MHESR) in 2003-2004, believed that the looting of Iraqi

universities in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion was a positive act as it would allow such institutions to begin again with a clean slate and the newest equipment, as well as brand-new curriculum (Baker et al., 2010). The CPA-led reform of Iraqi HE during this crucial first post- invasion period has influenced the post-2003 trajectory of the sector. Thus, this strategy to reform Iraqi higher education aimed to align Iraq's HE sector to the globalization of universities and match it up with significant developments in the contemporary university world, particularly the American one. Erdman5, the American administrator for HE in Iraq, called it the "bedrock principle" of America's plan for post-Saddam higher education in Iraq (Watenpaugh et al., 2003, p. 27). Erdman used the American system of HE as an external reference and suggested it as a best practice that could be transferred to Iraq, without considering Iraq’s context. In this reference, Erdman suggested to open the door for the private sector to invest in higher education.

Also, this proposed reform has aligned Iraqi HE with the privatization trend in the region.

As Romani (2009) points out,

one important pattern characterizing the current academic boom is a dual process of privatization amidst globalization. Two-thirds (around 70%) of the new universities found in the Arab Middle East since 1993 are private, and more and more…of them are branches of Western, mostly American universities. (p.4)

Concerning internationalization, the CPA listed re-entering universities into the international academic community through study abroad and scholarships, and building partnerships with international universities for curriculum development and training as some of

5 Andrew Erdman served as the senior advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education between 2003 and 2004; a position created, he says, “by chance, not by plan.” (quoted in Schweitzer, 2013). Erdman was a Ph.D. graduate in history from Harvard in 2000. Erdman, 36 years old then, was hardly trained in university administration, yet was charged with the recovery of the higher education system in Iraq (Asquith, 2003).

its key achievements after the invasion (The Coalition Provisional Authority, 2004). It could be argued that these self-congratulated policies were part of the CPA’s efforts to legitimize the U.S. led 2003 invasion as well as itself as an authority to govern Iraq particularly after the escalation of the local insurgencies against the US troops as an occupying power in Iraq. After the invasion, many university consortia were developed as an enabling structure for the CPA's overall reconstruction efforts in Iraq with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development

(USAID). In December 2003, USAID announced two additional grants to two university consortia, each led by a U.S. institution of HE, to partner with and strengthen Iraqi universities that brought a total of US $21.7 million. The Higher Education and Development (HEAD)

Organization was one of the USAID's most significant engagements with the university community from 2003 until the contract with USAID ended at the end of 2015. These university partnerships are another enabling structure that aimed to support the CPA in its efforts to modernize Iraqi universities by developing academic programs and curricula and transferring

American-style patterns of HE. The latest grant offered by the State Department of the United

States ($10 million in February 2020) was for private colleges and universities in the U.S. to develop programs for the support of American-style higher education in Iraq (Federal Grants &

Contracts, 2020). The objectives of this award are to build and increase the institutional capacity of HEIs in Iraq, and to enhance partnership with the U.S. and regional institutes of HE for research, exchange, and curriculum and pedagogic development. Also, they were to include faculty exchange (Federal Grants & Contracts, 2020). Besides the U.S. university partnership consortia, many other international consortia were initiated immediately after the 2003 invasion to support Iraqi HE. For example, the British Universities Iraq Consortium (BUIC) represents a group of British universities working to support higher education in Iraq. The consortium works

in partnership with the Higher Committee for Education Development Iraq and the British

Council. One of the main objectives is to facilitate the mobility of students and staff from Iraq to the UK to undertake research and build links with Britain. BUIC is presented as ideally suited to act as a 'one-stop-shop' for Iraqi ministries, universities, and students (British Universities Iraq

Consortium, 2014).

Another enabling structure that has facilitated the adoption of the internationalization of

Iraqi higher education is the soft power of the U.S. as an occupying power following the 2003 invasion. Reflecting on the purpose of the study abroad initiatives developed by the Iraqi government after 2003, a spokesman for the Prime Minister of Iraq stated in an interview:

Instead of armies and war and killing and occupation, we're moving to something more meaningful, namely economic development, education, and exchanges of students and professors. (Murphy, 2009)

Similarly, Al-Adeeb,6 the former Minister of HE, made the following statement during his tour to promote the scholarship initiative in the U.S.:

Our relationship with the United States concerning higher education started 60 years ago, when our students began to study in U.S. universities… 2012 will be the greatest year ever for this relationship—a permanent relationship and one that is not based on the political situation in Iraq. (National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce, 2012, para. 3)

As such, the initiative is an indication of a new phase in U.S.-Iraqi relations that shifts from occupation and war to a relationship on the pretext of rescue and helping Iraq. However, it ignores the strengths of Iraq's pre-invasion education systems and quality infrastructure that was consistently degraded as a result of the United Nation sanctions in 1991, followed by the

6 Ali Mohammad Al-Hussein Ali Al-Adeeb is an Iraqi politician and a senior member of the Islamic Dawa Party. He served as the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research between 2010 to 2014. 87

destruction in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, as well as the pervasive sectarianism that resulted from CPA policies. The status of Iraqi education and higher education systems before

2003 was attributed mostly to the policies of the previous regime and the Ba'ath party, with no reference to the dramatic consequences of the international community’s policies. For example,

CPA Order 8 addressed traveling abroad for academic purposes, which stated that it abolished the ban imposed by the previous regime for academics to travel abroad (The Coalition

Provisional Authority, 2004). However, the ban was part of the UN sanctions; the previous regime had only restricted travel for Iraq academics to limit the brain drain. Further, the initiatives of the previous governments since the 1970s that had resulted in making the Iraqi education system one of the best in the Arab world were also ignored, such as making primary schooling compulsory, establishing the right to free education from primary education through the university level, and launching a national campaign to eradicate illiteracy (UNESCO, 2003).

While Iraq was perceived as responsible for the destruction that occurred, CPA policies and international partnerships and study abroad initiatives were framed as instruments to rescue and help with rebuilding Iraqi education systems. As a USAID document stated:

USAID has committed $20.7 million to five partnerships that support Iraqi universities as they emerge after years of isolation from developments in teaching methodologies, research, and curricula, and decades of diminishing resources and infrastructure damage. (2004).

American university officials framed their support for Iraq as part of U.S. soft power and public diplomacy and claimed that by exposure to their university culture, Iraqis would learn American ideals and ultimately contribute to building a new democratic Iraq. The term "soft power" was coined by Nye, who explained it as "getting others to want the outcomes that you want by co- opting people rather than coercing them” (Nye, 2008, p. 95). For Nye, soft power is having the

ability to persuade and attract people in other countries to embrace U.S. values. Soft power operates partly through what is called "public diplomacy" by transferring what are considered

"American values" abroad through media channels, cultural exports, and the creation of institutional exchanges with other countries. Concerning Iraq, educational initiatives take a position in the policy discourse of soft power and public diplomacy through the creation of programs for Iraqi scholars to study abroad. Accordingly, it could be argued that these reconnection efforts are fundamental to achieve the broader U.S. experiment to turn Iraq into a democratic society and be an example to be followed by other countries in the Middle East.

These initiatives have emphasized the urgency to reconnect Iraq with the international community, particularly the U.S., and also to open Iraq as a lucrative market for investment, which is another enabling structure to promote the international-university partnerships. The

ICEF Monitor suggests on its website that Iraq is "a viable emerging market” that gives universities access to a previously unavailable and now lucrative market:

Iraq may demand more legwork than some of the region's primary markets, but with the higher education sector retrenching and recovering, generous scholarships available, and students eager to study abroad, the potential rewards there are numerous. (ICEF Monitor, 2013)

Although these scholarship initiatives and other partnership programs are seen as an instrument to refurbish universities in Iraq, they also represent educational opportunities for American universities that participate in the programs. The longstanding shrinking budget for public higher education in the U.S. may have contributed to the interest of many higher education institutions to partner with CPA in its capacity-building and modernization efforts in Iraq since 2003. This is indicated in the comment of the Director of International Partnerships and Initiatives for the

College of Engineering at the University of Missouri as he explained that American universities gain diversity and revenue by recruiting Iraqi students:

We are genuinely interested in making our student body more diverse because we want our students to be exposed to all sorts of people and cultures so they're ready for the global world they will be living in…. [Iraqi students] are fully paid. It's an additional plus not to have to think about funding for them. (Madhani, 2012).

By way of comparison, a report prepared for the British Council in Iraq found that the involvement of British universities in Iraq is currently limited both in the scale and scope of partnership activity, while universities located in other countries are developing a significant presence in the country. The report nevertheless stated that considerable opportunities for UK institutions to engage with Iraqi universities are still promising. Regardless of the risks and challenges, the report stressed that the benefits of partnership still outweigh related problems

(Raban, 2019) The author also argues that British universities have advantages over other international universities, relying on the historical relationship between Iraq and Britain and the admiration for British higher education among the Iraqi government and people. An article in

2018, entitled “Education in Iraq is in Crisis. UK universities can help,” stated that “Iraqi academics are desperate for access to modern approaches to learning and teaching. Here’s where the UK can step in” (Sutherland, 2018). The author also mentioned that “There are other potential benefits to partnering: Iraq’s population is youthful, ours is ageing” (Sutherland, 2018).

In this case, internationalization is just another business opportunity provided by war. Further,

maintaining this historical relationship is another source of soft power for Britain as a previous colonial power in Iraq7.

4.4 Cross-National Influences through International Community-Capacity Building and Modernization

Many nongovernmental institutions and organizations also tried to reform Iraqi HE through their efforts to connect Iraqi institutions with other western universities abroad and establishing scholarship programs. One significant player that focuses on the capacity building of

Iraqi personnel in higher education is UNESCO. Immediately after the 2003 invasion and the demise of the Ba'ath regime, UNESCO prepared a situation analysis of education in Iraq (2003).

This document was prepared not only for Iraqi authorities, but also for the international community, to review the state of education systems in Iraq and prepare the initial international response in support of its rehabilitation. Further, in February 2005, UNESCO organized in Paris a round table on the revitalization of HE in Iraq that aimed to assess Iraq's needs and priorities, strengthen international cooperation, and mobilize financial aid. The discussion at the round table concluded that there is a need for systemic transformation of Iraqi education systems since they have been severely damaged and are out of step with international standards and practices.

The urgent needs listed included enhancement of the capacity of the Ministry of Higher

Education and Scientific Research (MHESR) in policy, planning, and management of the HE system, and the necessary support to Iraqi teachers and researchers to re-establish contact with

7 Britain seized Iraq from Ottoman Turkey during World War I and was granted a mandate by the League of Nations to govern the nation in 1920. A Hashemite monarchy was organized under British protection in 1921, and on October 3, 1932, the kingdom of Iraq was granted independence.

the world academic community (UNESCO, 2016). UNESCO also produced a project for the rehabilitation of the Iraqi HE system that was planned for 60 months and targeted personnel at the MHESR, Iraqi academics and Ph.D. and Post-doctoral students in selected universities. The project was implemented by UNESCO, MHESR in Central Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, Iraqi and international universities, and the Iraqi Diaspora with a total budget of US $8,531,671

(UNESCO, 2016). One of the main activities in the rehabilitation project of Iraqi HE was

'Networking and Twinning' that included the establishment of the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chair

Program, that promotes international inter-university cooperation and networking to enhance institutional capacities through knowledge sharing and collaborative work in targeted universities and selected disciplines. Through these regional and international organizations, many capacity building programs and partnerships were developed to assist in the revival of the Iraqi HE sector.

Table 4 shows some of the partnership programs that aimed to focus on capacity building and modernizing this system. Despite the tremendous endeavors and the financial support mobilized by UNESCO and other international organizations in the reconstruction of Iraqi education systems, reviving Iraqi HE is yet to be realized. Iraqi HE still suffers from low institutional and human capacity, a lack of modern infrastructure and educational equipment, and outdated curriculum. Continuing sectarian violence, political chaos, and economic stagnation, as well as other factors, play out in the limited outcomes of these efforts. These rehabilitation efforts, already set back by almost two decades of under investment and isolation, were also hampered by insufficient infrastructure and limited capacity in terms of the planning, policy and management of higher education (UNESCO, 2011, p.28). Furthermore, political interference in the university curriculum, instruction, and management is another critical factor responsible for

the continuous decline in higher education. As an administrator in my interviews from the

University of Baghdad reflected:

Unfortunately, there is external support but also internal pressure. How much pressure these international organizations like UNESCO have to succeed in their efforts? (UB3, Administrator, April 16, 2018).

Also, some of the international partnerships and adoption of foreign curriculum did not come with the necessary cultural understanding, infrastructure and appropriate training, as one of my participants from the University of Kufa noted, describing them as “plastic surgery: not in harmony with the rest of the [system]” (UK7, Faculty Member, November 19, 2019). Further, many of the partnerships were not formally implemented for financial reasons. For example, the

British Universities’ Iraq Consortium, which sought to promote links between the two countries through grants, scholarships and other incentives, did not lead to any formal partnerships (Dyer,

2014). In summary, the reform actors supported by the CPA and the international community have used political change and systemic collapse as structural impulses to 'package' (externalize) their case for the urgency of the international community’s involvement in supporting Iraq to reform its higher education and connect its universities with their counterparts in the West.

Further, most international partnership programs as a form of international assistance for post- conflict Iraq were criticized for not constituting genuine support in that they benefit profit- making for higher education institutions in donor countries instead of building genuine local capacity.

There is no doubt that internationalization and transnational activities have become ubiquitous, and have recently been used as a strategic choice for many states and institutions in both developed and developing countries. The influence of these external actors plays a role in transferring these activities to Iraqi HEIs. Nevertheless, the unique nature of Iraq and its recent 93

history make it simultaneously a target for influence, a profitable market, and a complex context.

As conflict and economic instability continued to emerge, internationalization as a reform tool brought few changes to the system. Further, this externalization process, particularly involving universities in the U.S., was framed around transfer of American-style education to rebuild democratic Iraq, which alludes to the change in the U.S. policy in Iraq from hard to soft power, as well as a potential future market for American and British universities to invest in. However, there was no clear plan for how the externalization potential of internationalization would be realized in Iraqi HE and would be used to support reforming the depreciated sector.

Table 4: Capacity Building Programs Offered by International Organizations

Program Organization Level Country Purpose

Iraq University The Institutional U.S. Build civil society Linkage International Capacity building Research & Exchanges Board (IREX)

DelPHE program Department for Institutional U.K. Capacity building International Development (DFID)

INsPIRE European Sectoral and European Modernize and reform (Innovative Union’s institutional Union higher education Governance Erasmus+ institutions, developing Practices in the Capacity new curricula, improve Higher Education Building for governance, and build Institutions in Iraq Higher relationships between Education higher education (CBHE) institutions and program enterprises

Networking and UNESCO Sector - Rehabilitate the Iraqi Twinning, Quality Higher Education Assurance and System Accreditation, a special UNESCO Chair for Iraq, and E-Learning

Sources: (Iraq University Linkages Program | IREX, n.d.); (Raban, 2019); (Mediterranean Universities Union, n.d.); (UNESCO, 2016).

4.5 Internationalizing Iraqi Higher Education Rationales–Local Perspective

The previous section described the context and the global influence on Iraqi HE to engage in various internationalization activities through developing university partnerships, capacity building and modernization projects. These internationalization activities were perceived by local actors as the main development in Iraqi higher education after decades of isolation. To have a complete understanding of internationalization in post-2003 Iraq, it is important to explore the local perspective on why internationalization is important and how local actors responded to the influence and support of external actors. At the state level, I used reports and publicly available interviews of Iraqi policymakers, while at the Ministry and university level, the analysis relies mostly on data from interviews.

In the next two subsections I will examine the rationales for internationalizing Iraq’s higher education and what discourses were used to promote its importance at the State, Ministry, and university levels. These rationales are summarized comparatively in Table 5.

State Level

On July 25, 2009, Al-Maliki, then Prime Minister, announced in Washington plans to send up to 10,000 Iraqi students per year to colleges in the United States, United Kingdom,

Canada, and Australia through 2014 as part of the Iraq Education Initiative. The program was administered by Iraq's Higher Committee for Education Development that was linked directly to the office of the Prime Minister to avoid any bureaucratic delays.

The Initiative had the support of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the U.S. Department of State; the Academy for Educational Development (AED), a non-profit organization in the

U.S., was selected to run the initiative. Most of the attendees of the launching event were

representatives of the 22 U.S. universities that are founding members of the American

Universities Iraq Consortium–a group that has agreed to help streamline the admissions process for Iraqi students and ease their transition to U.S. campuses (Bevis, 2016; Sawahel, 2009). The

Iraq Education Initiative began with an allocation of around $55 million to help rebuild Iraq's higher education by providing opportunities for study at universities in the United States.

Graduates were expected to return home and help with the country's revival and to contribute to its political and economic development.

For instance, the aim of the study abroad initiative by Al Maliki, the former Prime Minister, was framed around restoring the once renowned prestige of Iraq's devastated education system. He stated:

We are celebrating the desire of the Iraqis to continue to seek their education.... Our universities were known for being the most advanced universities in the world, but because of...all that we have gone through...we have lost what we had before (cited in Murphy, 2009).

The above script shows that Iraqi government and decision makers at the Ministry also have used political change and the collapse of Iraq’s higher education, obscuring the destructive effects of the sanctions regime and post-2003 violence on HE, as impulses to rationalize adopting internationalization activities in post-conflict Iraq Also, I could argue that these partnerships with American universities serve to legitimize the appointed government that was imposed on

Iraqis by the CPA in which both the former Prime Minister and the Minister of higher education were part of it. Further, the Iraqi government framed this initiative as a tool to reconstruct HE and enable Iraqi scholars to gain the skills abroad necessary to rebuild the local educational infrastructure. However, according to Al Monitor, by the beginning of 2014, five years after the study abroad initiative began, only 8,500 students had been sent to study at foreign universities,

far short of the projected 50,000 student goal (Mamouri, 2014). Further, in 2013 the Iraqi

Ministry of Higher Education decided to discontinue support for scholarships in the humanities and instead to devote its financial assistance exclusively to programs in the Science, Technology,

Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields (Mamouri, 2014).

The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MHESR)

Since 2003, Iraq and its institutions have been tagged with labels such as “destroyed” or “lacking in modernity” specifically, lagging behind with outdated policies, obsolete bureaucratic practices, and corruption (Abu Zeed, 2016; Hussein, 2018; Sutherland, 2018; UNESCO, 2004;

2016). After years of being cut off from the latest developments, there is no doubt that the gap between Iraq's higher education and the world’s has widened. Therefore, government has been looking at the experiences of other countries and hoping to transfer contemporary activities (Al

Adeeb, 2014; Government of Iraq, 2012; MHESR, n.d.).

Table 5: The Rationales for Internationalizing Higher Education in Iraq

Traditional Rationales Goals & Government Ministry University Academics Rationales Objectives Administration

Economic Human State rebuilding Resources Development Revenue Generation

Political Financial Aid

Academic Bridging the Develop teaching knowledge gap & administration cadre

Research skills and methodologies

Modernization Update the curriculum

Learning

Reputation Rebuilding Rankings reputation

Imported prestige

Better alternative to private sector

Social / Cultural

* marks in light blue reflects a rationale that is not strongly emphasized by all participants or all universities.

The latest trends in higher education are rationalized by various actors as ways to rebuild the status and reputation of Iraqi higher education, bridge the knowledge gap, make modernization possible, and offer a better alternative to the local system that is resistant to change.

Rebuilding Status and Reputation

In my interviews, I found that Iraq's previous reputation emerged as a key concept in why internationalization is required in Iraq. Most of the Ministry's personnel in my analysis of the data trust that the fruits of the scholarship programs described above have started to be realized and Iraq is gradually building its reputation. A participant from the Ministry stated:

The main reform activities are the connection of Iraqi universities with the international universities, twinning programs, many visits to reconnect with Arab and foreign universities…. Communications have increased…. Iraq starts to take its place and position bigger than [in] the past, especially during the time of the economic sanctions (M1, Associate Director, December 3, 2017).

The above quote indicates that these internationalization activities are perceived by some ministry personnel as an opportunity that was opened for Iraq to reconnect and to restore its place in the region. The reputational rationale was systemically pursuit by the Ministry as illustrated from the 2012-2020 government program for HE, which includes ranking as Goal 1 and partnerships with international universities as Goal 2 as tools for improving the quality of the system (MHESR, n.d.). Outbound academic mobility, whether faculty members or students, is perceived by Ministry personnel as a strategic focus for rebuilding the reputation and the status of post-2003 Iraq's HE. Some Ministry personnel also believe that establishing foreign universities in Iraq is a fast-track option for rebuilding the reputation of Iraq's academia (as described in chapter 5). The status of research activities of these universities is seen as a

‘fundamental aspect’ to consider in establishing or partnering with foreign universities. 100

Most Ministry personnel have linked the importance of hiring international academics to entering the QS University Ranking tables. However, with a continuous state of conflict and instability, having foreign academics or visiting scholars on campus, which is wished for by everyone, was postponed. This ambition was renewed at the end of 2017 when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was defeated and some sense of safety was increased and financial stability was expected. To tackle the lack of innovation and improve university rankings, Al-

Issa8, the Minister of HE at that time, announced in October, 2018 at the Asian Summit on

Education and Skills, that for the first time, that there were 40 scholarships to students from India in undergraduate and postgraduate programs. He stated:

Unfortunately, there have been no [high-level] inventions or scientists from Iraq. We want to change this. We want to push our students to be inventors and create something special. (Al-Issa calls on British universities and institutes to open branches in Iraq, 2018).

Al-Issa’s quote raises pressing questions: why have the government study abroad programs, the international university linkages, and other internationalization activities not produced high level inventions or scientists? And if Iraq didn’t benefit from these programs, who benefited?

Apparently, Al-Issa was trying to counter the 'unsafe' label that has been attached to Iraq for so many decades and he has guaranteed a safe return of international students. In the same announcement, Al-Issa stressed the importance of ranking to Iraq's higher education, stating "We are really looking forward to opening universities in Iraq to international students for a good ranking" (Mihindukulasuriya, 2018, para. 11). At present, Iraq has only the University of

Baghdad listed in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, with "0 percent"

8 Abdul Razzaq Al-Issa served as the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research between 2016-2018. 101

international students. It was placed in the range of 801-1000. Many public universities from the region have already found a position in the global university rankings for many years. For example in 2020, King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia is placed in the range of 201-250, the United Arab Emirates University in the range of 301–350, and Jordan University of Science and Technology, in the range of 351-400 (World University Rankings, 2019).

As I have noted, since 2003, universities in Iraq have been widely condemned and criticized in the national, regional, and international social media for being of low quality and not being recognized regionally and internationally (Mawazin News, 2018; Zidane, 2017). The results of large-scale cross-national studies and studies by nongovernmental organizations were also used to diminish Iraq's reputation in higher education. These included the Arab World

Competitiveness Report (World Economic Forum & World Bank, 2018) and the Iraq Human

Development Report (UNDP, 2014). While many universities from other Arab states are ranked in these tables and studies, Iraqi universities have been absent. Local television channels also helped to popularize the dramatic situation of Iraq's education and higher education systems being left out of the international classification tables. Thus, ranking became the driving force to rebuild the system's reputation as a goal, rather than a means to advance the quality of higher education.

Participants of this study have highlighted two factors–economic and political–that might diminish Iraq's opportunity to re-establish the reputation of its universities as a regional destination to pursue higher education. While Iraq was in isolation, most neighbouring countries such as Jordan and the Gulf States built their HEIs and increased their capacity by establishing private national universities and many international branch campuses with a well-acknowledged

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reputation. This keeps many of their students home and as well attracts more students from the region. Skeptical about the pre-claimed reputation, the advisor to the Ministry believes that this very reason rather than the reputation of high quality was what attracted international students to

Iraq academia. He made the following statement in reply to my question about previous excellence:

Well, I am not sure. This was a fake impression, given by the lack of education in several surrounding countries in the Middle East. We were the first in the Middle East to have universities. In the Gulf, in Saudi Arabia, even in Iran and Jordan, there was no higher education. So, with what you compare, of course we were the best. (M49, Advisor, June 10, 2018)

Being the first in the region to build local education systems in itself was a source of pride among many participants. Nevertheless, as other regional countries have built their institutional capacity, Iraq has lost its position in the international student market. Many Iraqi students are studying in other universities in the region. A faculty member from the University of Technology confirmed this:

We used to have international students mostly from other Arab countries, but education in these countries has improved and developed a lot. They are competitors now. We used to have many students from Jordan in the ‘80s. Now we are sending our students to study there; it is the opposite now. (UT3, Faculty Member, November 28, 2017)

While this reverse trend highlighted in the above quote is attributed to the challenging context of

Iraq, it also alludes to the previous status of Iraq in the 70s and 80s in the region, and what made that reputation. I would argue that one of the other factors that had made Iraqi universities a destination for international students in the ‘70s and ‘80s was that the previous regime provided

9 It is important to mention that M4, while he is an advisor to the Minister, has a different point of view with respect to the HE reform agenda. The other two advisors included in the Ministry sample have more consensus with the Ministry directions toward reforming the system. 103

scholarships, particularly for Arab students, and tuition-free enrolment besides pocket money to cover all their expenses. This direction was part of the previous regime's Arab nationalist agenda and part of the soft power of the Iraq government in the Arab States. This aligns with Altbach's

(1998) argument that, despite being peripheral in the international sense, universities in the developing world are quite central in their regional contexts. Due to its considerable human and natural resources, as well as its strategic position, Iraq has always played a significant role on the regional and the global stage, from both political and economic perspectives. For several decades during the twentieth century, Iraq could claim a position at the forefront of other Arab countries in a variety of domains, particularly in terms of its educated manpower, its universities, and government institutions (Wehrey et al., 2010).

The interest in the rankings of Iraqi universities has not brought the needed changes and improvements to the higher education system, nor has it enhanced its reputation, as reflected in the following critical comment from an advisor at the Ministry:

The mere entry of a university to one of these classifications makes us believe that the university's problems have been solved and that they have become global in their education and research, their reputation has improved, and they are no longer ill. (M4, Advisor, June 10, 2017)

The advisor’s frustrated voice emphasizes that neither recent internationalization activities nor investing in ranking have helped improve the quality and the reputation of Iraqi higher education. Other participants agreed that a few Iraqi universities have entered the classification league tables; yet, the reputation of Iraqi higher education is still significantly far below its previous one.

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Bridging the Knowledge Gap

The Iraqi HE system was and still is under sustained challenges, pressures, and isolation that have widened the gap between Iraq and the rest of the world across the knowledge divide in terms of access to knowledge, infrastructure for innovation, and opportunity to participate in the global knowledge economy. Scholarship initiatives were also framed around narrowing the gap between the standards of education in Iraq and those of the world. This gap was believed to be reduced through increasing the exposure of Iraqi students to modern international standards of research and methodology, to encourage Iraqi academics to improve their teaching and research skills, enhancing curriculum that is compatible with international standards, and improving the administration skills of higher education leaders. Scholars started to build some research activities and publications in international journals; yet, scientific research still appears to lack innovation and quality. Iraqi academics published 41,664 research items in international journals over the period 2015-2019. This went up 505.6 percent from 2,188 in 2015 to 13,251 in 2019.

Scholarly output in Iraq, by the amount of international institutional collaboration, is 35.6 percent compared to 19.9 percent national collaboration (SciVal, 2020). As discussed in the previous section, UNESCO and other international institutions put together plans and projects that facilitated joint research; however, no data was available to confirm the viability of these partnerships and the joint research, particularly that related to the urgent development and social needs of Iraq. In a conference gathering members of the Iraqi diaspora to discuss the future of

Iraq's higher education, Barakat, the director of the Post-war Reconstruction and Development

Unit at the University of York, stated that "there is very little research written by Iraqis about

Iraq. The vast majority is written by Westerners" (as quoted in Lindsey, 2011, para. 9).

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Although universities in Iraq are largely teaching-oriented, there are ongoing discussions at both the Ministry and the HEIs around building research capacity and infrastructure, to transfer best practices (e.g. research grants through university-industry linkage), and to align scientific research toward solving Iraq's economic and social problems. Iraq universities have

293 journals managed by 67 institutions (Iraqi Academic Scientific Journals, n.d.) in which faculty members publish their academic research; these publications are used mainly for the promotion and tenure of teaching faculty, as many participants in this study have confirmed.

The new scholarship programs offered by the Al-Maliki government were expected to create an impact similar to that of the earlier wave of study abroad initiatives in the ‘60s and ‘70s that transformed Iraqi higher education and led to the acclaimed scientific and academic development in Iraq prior to the conflicts. Al-Adeeb, the former Minister of higher education, for example, described the Iraqi Education Scholarships Program:

It will be the yeast that can return the glow of higher education in Iraq and its ability to keep pace with the evolving educational system in the developed world... Scholars who will complete their education in reputable international universities will undoubtedly succeed in localizing knowledge, science and in transferring successful teaching methods within Iraqi universities. There is no denying that the first scholars who studied in international universities during the ‘40s and ‘50s and ‘60s of the last century were very active in the process of localizing knowledge until the Iraqi universities reached the top of the Arab world and the Middle East before the Ba’ath regime politicized the scholarships. And then ended it completely. (Al-Adeeb, 2014, para.10)

The point can be made that the factors that enabled building a reputable system and localizing knowledge during these decades currently do not exist. As discussed in the introduction chapter that government funding for HE, investing in research, secular and inclusive education systems, scholarly exchange with western and with other nations all contributed to this reputation. One participant from the Ministry claimed that since 2003, no significant structural changes have happened at the Ministry nor at the institutional level, as reflected in this comment: 106

The education system in Iraq is old. No updates, reforms, or modernization have happened.... Those who went on scholarships were not able to make real changes, because the system is old and the Ministry is making many ad hoc solutions that do not make real changes or reform movements. (M2, Associate Director, December 3, 2017)

Further, research funding in Iraq comes mainly from the state with almost no participation from industry. Scientific research in Iraq is drastically underfunded and unplanned. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD) is quite low compared to other countries. The research and development expenditure (% of GDP) in Iraq was 0.043 as of 2018; this can be compared to 0.612 in the Arab States, 1.0619 in Kuwait, 1.303 in the United Arab Emirates, and

1.7167 globally. Its highest value over the past 10 years was 0.046 in 2009, while its lowest value was 0.034 in 2008 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, n.d.). Therefore, it can be argued that the necessary system reforms are not in place to enable knowledge and skills transfer, which raises a question about whether adopting internationalization activities was strategically planned, or merely a form of rhetoric around reforming Iraq's higher education. The Associate Director at the Ministry cited above sarcastically stated: "the Ministry should be named only Higher

Education, as there is no Scientific Research" (M2, Associate Director, December 3, 2017) just to indicate the absence of policies and institutional arrangements, in addition to poor governance practices and resistance to change.

While the Ministry is looking outward through internationalization to reform the local system and bridge the knowledge gap, I conclude that the Iraqi higher education system has not gone through a real structural and cultural reform to enable knowledge and skills transfer. This keeps the knowledge gap wide.

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Modernization

Modernization is a theme that runs through participants' comments and official discourses that indicates an interest in modernizing teaching methods, updating the curriculum, and transforming the academic culture. There is no doubt that the new opening to the world and the chance to immerse themselves in these new experiences after years of isolation have provided positive educational opportunities for academics to keep up with the latest technologies and techniques in their respective fields and start to modernize the system. But the reconnection through study abroad has been translated on the ground as slight changes in the system, according to an administrator from the University of Technology:

The best ideas are coming from students who studied abroad, especially in countries like the US, very few in Canada, in the UK... Germany is excellent, especially from top tier universities. I selected one of them to be the head of a department. He really started to improve and push for more. (UT5, Administrator, November 27, 2017)

While students who studied abroad seen as able to transfer advanced knowledge and bringing new ideas to the local system, as shown in the Administrator’s quote above, teaching faculty who are graduates of Iraqi universities were described by Ministry personnel as 'locally produced' and not well trained to teach using the latest teaching methods. The former Minister even pointed to faculty members as one of the main problems of the system, stating:

Today the main problem we have in our universities is the teacher. The main element of the university who leads the education process is the teacher... and actually during the ‘90s, the teachers were locally produced, so we have this drawback...The challenge that prevents us from developing higher education...is the teacher…This is the whole story, so we stayed where we are and as we are. (M6, Former Minister, personal communication, Feb 12, 2020)

Although the Minister believes faculty members lack the capacity and the willingness to contribute to enhancing the system, most participants in my research stated that instead they lack the power to make changes because of the politics and antagonism of the university atmosphere. 108

Disappointed by a difficult academic environment and the inability to transfer what she has learned at one of the western universities, one faculty member stated in an interview that:

They have ideological problems with us. They refuse our existence. Maybe we present a threat to them... I am always afraid of losing whatever I have got during my study in the UK... It is not fair that Iraq spent lots of money to fund my study and the certificate is only for me; this is not fair. (UB8, Faculty Member, December 3, 2017).

The “they” in the above quote refers to the university management, administrators, and people in power because of their political networks that have dominated universities’ campuses since

2003. To some extent, this structure is similar to that kind of network of powerful actors that dominated Iraqi universities in the pre-2003 era. This dominated culture could explain the frustration of the Associate Director at the Ministry discussed in the previous section as well as many other participants in my study, that no real reform or modernization has happened. In this fractured and politicized academic environment, efforts to transfer advanced knowledge and modernize the system stay at the individual level rather than throughout an institutionalized system.

To compensate for the perceived lack of dedicated academics, the former Minister has looked outward and advocated either to open branch campuses or to have twinning programs with universities where scholars could come and transfer some of their modern knowledge and skills directly. Yet, as I indicated earlier, inviting scholars from abroad, including Iraqi academics, has faced many structural and cultural barriers, with security issues the most obvious obstacle. An advisor to the Ministry has synthesized the obstacles to making changes in Iraq's academia as "lack of knowledge", a process he called 'self-embargo'. He stressed the issue of knowledge a few times throughout our interview, for example he said,

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The barrier to change or reform in Iraq is the mindset of Iraqis and lack of knowledge; the biggest difficulty I face is lack of knowledge… at all levels. Why is there a lack of knowledge? Because of the embargo, now we have a self-embargo. Why? Because faculty members don't speak anything apart from Arabic. Even Arabic is a problem. They don't have communication skills. Also, the Iraqis do not put in any effort… This is our problem, KNOWLEDGE. (M4, Advisor, June 10, 2018)

Thus, the Ministry position is that there is a gap between modernization discourses, whether by the international communities, media, or the government, and the reality of Iraq’s higher education at the sector, institutional and individual levels. The lack of knowledge is indicative of the undecided vision and philosophy of post-2003 higher education and why internationalization is needed. The Advisor's comment reflects a strong critique of the Ministry and its approach toward reforming higher education through internationalization and looking outward for solutions before examining the difficulties at home. Further, it underscores the limited capacity of Ministry personnel to reform the system because of lacking modern knowledge. The

Advisor’s doubt about the effectiveness of internationalization in Iraq with the current structural and Ministry limitation stands in stark contrast to the mainstream view of other Ministry personnel and other participants at the institutional level; as I will discuss in the next section.

A Better Alternative

As discussed earlier, public and private universities are widely condemned in the social media, as well as by many participants who have reiterated that the low quality, the interference of political parties, the lack of interest of corrupt governments, and the unqualified, politically affiliated administration have all led to the deterioration of the system. Hence, twinning programs and imported universities in particular, as an externalizing potential, were seen to be the best alternative to local private institutions, as indicated in the following comment by a

Ministry official:

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The education system in Iraq needs to be internationalized. The scientific research is old and is impacted by the weak economy. The ministries are semi-social institutions and individuals depend on the state. If an international university with a modern system is established and integrated here, this different university might have an influence. (M2, Associate Director, December 3, 2017)

The above quote reflects that internationalization is not the primary solution to Iraqi HE in post-

2003. It shows structural, economic, and cultural issues that go beyond the higher education system and the impulses of internationalization. The Associate Advisor assumes an alternative – modern—system could have an impact on these socio-cultural issues. Under this imagined assumption, many participants also contrasted the quality of imported universities with the low quality of private institutions and believe they should replace the existing low quality private institutions. Reflecting on an interest to establish imported universities in Iraq, the former

Minister stated:

Since the reforms and development in public universities were not realized and did not happen, I changed my direction toward opening distinguished private institutions. (M6, Former Minister, personal communication, February 12, 2020)

This perception does not necessarily reflect the directions of the successor ministers; yet, it is an admission on the part of the Minister that he was facing tremendous and continually emerging obstacles in reforming the Iraqi national institutions, both public and private. Participants assume that imported universities will bring skills, experience and a strong academic culture. Further, these foreign universities are argued to be much needed in Iraq, rather than private institutions that copy the public institutions in terms of programs and academic culture, but with low quality teaching faculty, and being still under the control of the Ministry. Imported universities were not only seen as a more reputable alternative to the private universities, but also to the study abroad that has yet to prove its benefits as well as having high associated costs.

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The interest in establishing international or imported universities highlights an alignment with the privatization reconstruction agenda of the CPA and global trends in higher education, as discussed earlier in this chapter. Since 2003, public universities started a type of internal privatization through evening and parallel programs, and there is a plan to increase the percentage of private funding of public education gradually. One person at the Ministry reflected on the experiment of privatized universities:

Each experiment at the beginning usually has issues and problems. It is left to the students' decisions. The available educational opportunities are much higher than the demand. We have central admission, parallel, private, and evening programs. So, the competition is high, so if the private sector doesn't improve its services and the quality of its education, it will vanish with all these educational opportunities. The percentage of parallel education will increase from 10%, 15%, 20% yearly. It is indirectly to accommodate the demand of the Iraqi youth (M1, Associate Director, December 3, 2017).

While the above comment contains some contradictory information about the demand for university education, it indicates the direction of the Ministry towards increasing the role of private institutions in shaping higher education in Iraq where they are seen as strategic partners with the public universities. To improve the quality and the reputation of private colleges, the

Ministry enforces partnerships between the two sectors where public universities supervise the academic and educational activities of the private universities. The few twinning programs have also gradually shifted from being funded by the Ministry to being privately funded by students as the public financial resources continue to be scarce.

It is not possible to isolate all the challenges and the obstacles presented above from the complicated reality of post 2003-Iraq. There are not only corruption, lack of resources and lack of knowledge, but also many emerging issues that always shift priorities toward solving day-to-

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day problems. An advisor at the Ministry describes the difficulties the sector is facing on a daily basis that shift the Ministry’s priorities toward solving emerging issues. He stated:

For Iraqi universities in all their current circumstances, it is right they are distanced from the society because they focus on solving internal issues. The Ministry works on a daily basis on how to provide a suitable environment, how to make students regularly attend college, how to protect the teacher to reach the university, and all these are very hard situations…. After things get settled down, universities can take on their normal roles. (M5, Consultant, June 10, 2018)

In summary, my interviews indicated that the imperative of internationalization is considered a means of restoring the reputation of Iraq's higher education, bridging knowledge gaps, and modernization. It is motivated by the historical status of Iraq’s higher education in the region and perceived by the Ministry as addressing years of isolation, sanctions and the current problematic political and economic situation of the country. Further, while the Ministry is occupied with normalizing the operations in Iraq’s higher education amidst continuous challenge, transnational activities such as twinning programs and imported universities are rationalized as a possible alternative to the private and even the national public universities, which operate under a strained situation and struggle to reform. These rationales are projections to various structural and governance limitations in higher education as well as a doubt that internationalization could solve issues of “self-embargo” and other ongoing constraints in the system.

Views of University Leaders

Public universities have been required by the Ministry at large to set plans on how to enter the international classification tables as part of the 2018-2020 Government Program. Thus, naturally, rebuilding the status and the reputation of Iraq’s higher education through ranking has also become a common rationale among university leaders, however, with the objective of generating revenue. The other rationale for internationalizing Iraq’s universities from the perspective of

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university leaders is to receive financial aid to respond to the diminishing financial support of the state. In what follows, I will discuss these findings in detail.

Rebuilding Reputation and Revenue Generation

An administrator at the University of Babylon summarized the rationales for adopting internationalization—specifically the twinning programs, in his institution as to:

(1) increase the reputation of Iraqi universities abroad; (2) increase the reputation of the private university that will enter the partnership; (3) attract students to bring revenue to the university.

(4) show the world our local patents; and, (5) make others see the value of the Iraqi student and his/her capabilities. (UBA3, Administrator, December 12, 2017). A second university leader believed that the pathway toward taking a bigger position in the academic map and reviving

Iraq’s higher education is through "entering the battle of international classification" (UBA1,

Administrator, December 12, 2017). However, he adds the objective of attracting more international students and academics. An administrator at the University of Babylon explained:

The international universities will not know you through only some pages in the websites.... International classification will make the university very well known in the international space….We open the door of scholarship for foreign students….We invited faculty members to come here to give lectures, short courses for one or two weeks, workshops, or work as external evaluators….But I think it is hard now. This is one of the standards that make the classification of Iraqi universities [lower] than other regional universities from other Arab countries. However, this criterion doesn't have a big scale but it has an impact on the cumulative scale. (UBA1, Administrator, December 12, 2017)

International university ranking puts weight on internationalization activities such as the number of international students, the number of international academics, and publications in international journals. Therefore, university administrators have emphasized the importance of these activities as necessary to enter the league classification tables. For instance, to achieve this reputational rationale, most Iraq universities are implementing monetary and evaluation incentive

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mechanisms for international publications, particularly in 'reputed' and predominantly English language journals. The University of Technology has put up a proposal to commit faculty members to publish, within one year, 250 research papers. For this, they will provide a reward of

200,000 Iraqi Dinar (or $250) for each published research paper in Thomson Reuters.

While the recent connection and opening up of Iraq's universities to the outside world thus brings gradually more opportunities for building international partnerships, it also brings a chance to borrow on these institutions' reputations. An administrator at the University of

Babylon stated in an interview:

One of the issues is how you could introduce yourself to the world.... Partnership is the best way.... How to attract students from them if there are no specific qualities or reputation? We should build a good reputation with them, so everyone would know who the University of Babylon is....We started looking at the rankings of universities worldwide and went to them. Before, we thought any foreign university was better than our university…. For example, Leicester is 232 worldwide, Tehran University is 330…. so we are looking for rigorous universities. Through these universities, we can connect with them and show yourself with them in many areas. (UB3, Administrator, December 12, 2017)

From the point of view of these administrators, challenged by a deteriorated status, Iraq universities can build their reputations based on the reputations of their partners, through

‘imported reputation' or 'imported prestige'. To have the status of an international university also requires an imported curriculum, as noted by an administrator at the University of Babylon. As he put it:

We have now partnerships with German universities in Nursing…and the School of Medicine with Northampton University in the UK…. Based on this foundation, one of the tasks of this college [College of Graduate Studies] 10 is to move us to the world, be an

10 College of graduate students at University of Babylon, established in September, 2017.

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international university and our curriculum to be compatible with the international ones so we can do partnerships and other activities. (UBA3, Administrator, December 12, 2017)

Building reputation through imitating imported curriculum is one of the experiments used by

Iraqi academic administrators not only for twinning programs, but to update the curriculum of public universities to “emulate the international ones” as a faculty member I interviewed from the University of Baghdad put it. Also, according to an administrator at the University of Kufa, the university in recent years has sent instructions to all departments to adopt curriculum from accredited, highly reputable, and rigorous international universities. Adopting imported curricula also implies trust in western education, which is perceived as rigorous, more practical, and prestigious. At the same time, this situation obviously related to being economically less developed, years of isolation due to war and the degradation of higher education after 2003. But from the administrative point of view, this partnership not only brings reputation but also legitimacy to the institution, making it able to attract more international students.

Among the institutions I visited, the University of Babylon is a big player in establishing twinning programs compared to other Iraqi public universities. The University has made internationalization a strategic priority as part of its vision to be an international university. For the academic year 2019-2020, the university offered about 130 scholarships to international students in all fields of engineering, sciences, and humanities. An administrator at the University of Babylon stated:

We just want to put our feet there. We chose Northampton. It is not the top university there. But we wanted to establish a base. From this, we went to Liverpool University which is about 300 in the world rankings, and then we went to Leicester University which is even higher…. The point, if we like it or not, we have to change. We are not the source of scientific knowledge; the West wants that, so what to do? They control it like this [he made a fist]. It is tough. You are close there and you know better…. The world in each second is producing new things. So where are we from that? We indeed had sanctions, 116

but that doesn't mean we should stop and do nothing. (UBA3, Administrator, December 12, 2017)

The academic culture and the organization of these western universities, compared to the fragmented and collapsed system of Iraqi universities, made these universities more admired by

Iraqi administrators and academics. However, as part of this competitive culture of the academic world, there is an understanding among university administrators that it is tremendously challenging for Iraq to rejoin the international academic community, let alone overcome the countless domestic obstacles; yet, they argued that partnerships could be a promising fast-track strategy. UBA3 continued with a frustrated tone:

The world should look at Iraq and give it some justice.... For example, we have a researcher in pharmaceutical chemistry: while studying for his Ph.D. degree in a western university, he had four international patents. But this university didn't record these patents for him as a member of the University of Babylon. They told him you must record it as part of our university. You see we pay a student about $300,000 to $400,000 dollars to finish his Ph.D. in total, living, accommodation, etc., but when he wants to publish a research paper, telling him you should publish it through our university…. This is part of the competition against us. (UBA3, Administrator, December 12, 2017)

The administrator’s two quotes not only tell of the powerful nationalism, agony, anxiety, and pride of Iraqis and their eagerness to rebuild their universities that have been exhausted under the wretchedness of wars, economic sanction, and isolation. They also show the power dynamic between universities in the west and the east and how the gap between them in the world system is reproduced. In this context, rebuilding reputation becomes a fight against this unfair and challenging competitive world.

Building academic reputation through partnerships is a strategy used by many countries in the region. For instance, the wealthy Arab Gulf states invested heavily to borrow a western model of institutions with global repute to establish a differentiated local HE system that could generate increased capacity and build world-class universities to foster the countries’ movement 117

from an oil-based economy to a knowledge-based economy. By contrast, some Iraqi observers have criticized the fact that the few existing partnerships are built with less reputable international universities, which are seen as further damaging the system. For example, an Iraqi activist captured the situation of the exploitation of partnership between the University of

Babylon and University of Northampton in a local newspaper:

Who seeks development based on international partnership should be with the best, not with the worst.... What is the significance of offering a bachelor’s degree at the University of Babylon on its campus using its facilities and capabilities, and its professors with their salaries paid by the University of Babylon? Then this university grants a certificate to its graduates bearing the name of another university that is less efficient. How much will this British university charge for the use of its name by the University of Babylon? Give me one convincing reason this cooperation is good. That is no more than the delusions of some people [at the Ministry] that is not more than the syndrome of the white man [he means colonialization]. If you think deeply, it is part of the destruction of Iraqi higher education. (Mawazine.com, October 2018)

Administrators at University of Babylon justified this connection with Northampton as a first step toward strengthening the university reputation that enables the university to be known internationally. The president of University of Babylon also reflected on this aspect:

We are a country that has never been stable for a long time and this will leave its legacy on all sectors including education. As we are a state university, we are subject to the state policies, because all our budget comes from there. The universities abroad have big independence, their culture; they are stabilized from a long time and this has an effect on the quality of the system besides the power they have. If we compare University of Babylon and University of Northampton, sure they have privileges and advantages we don’t have, which is related to the culture of these societies, the culture of the state, and independence. (UBA1, Administrator, December 12, 2017)

Nevertheless, Iraq as a post-conflict country with its demolished infrastructure, knowledge and skills gap, unsteady financial resources, and other cultural factors that were destroyed over more than four decades was perceived by many participants as not ready to build a reputation gradually from the bottom up. Thus, there is a reliance on these international partnerships as a fast track to being “on the map”. Internationalization from university leaders’ perspectives is a 118

policy measure promising to overcome the country's generally accepted lack of capacity in terms of knowledge production. However, current arrangements raise a critical question about whether this approach makes Iraq more dependent on the western institutions. As one of my participants questioned, are Iraqi universities going to become “a source of science and discoveries”, or only be misled in that they are using a fraudulent tool to accelerate change and to speed up bridging the knowledge gap produced by years of sanctions and war?

Financial Aid

As the Iraqi government became less generous in funding partnerships and twinning programs, the rationale for internationalization has shifted toward financial aid and support. In my research, many university administrators were welcoming international education initiatives particularly when they cover all their costs and, in some cases, generate modest profits. The financial crisis that hit Iraq since 2014 put most development and modernization projects on hold, including projects related to international partnerships and study abroad. Therefore, international institutions have sized up the affluent sector of the student market in Iraq, looking for twinning and franchise agreements and in some cases setting up campuses. Iraqi students became a favoured group of students, particularly during the temporary financial prosperity between 2008 and 2014 due to the increase in oil prices. This interest seems to have dried up gradually as financial resources become scarcer and security remains a big risk. Funding some of the twinning programs was shifted to students, as it was seen by university administrators and the

Ministry as a more feasible strategy owing to lack of funding for scholarships and the related possibilities of brain drain. Further, some other twinning and partnerships programs were shifted to where financial aid was available.

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Administrators at the University of Babylon stated that because of a lack of financial resources, they are shifting their partnerships towards western countries that offer more financial support:

We have projects for developments with the EU through Erasmus, a program by the EU for poor countries and we were able to enter and get grants for our students under the umbrella of EU universities, especially from Holland or the UK, so the areas of development are ongoing. Not the US or UK, we moved more toward the EU. (UBA1, Administrator, December 12, 2017)

Today, positioning Iraq as a poor state contradicts its historical status as one of the most oil-rich countries in the world. The country holds the world’s fifth-largest proven crude oil reserves (U.S.

Energy Information Administration, January, 2019). However, Iraq now faces a difficult fiscal crunch, arising from the collapse in international oil prices coupled with persistent political and social turmoil. During the brief financial prosperity between 2008 and 2014, the government was very generous in reforming the system and investing in the study abroad initiative, and renewal of the university infrastructure. Now, as dependent institutions with limited autonomy, Iraqi universities seen to be looking cross-nationally for an alternative source of financial support.

Further, lack of financial resources has shifted their university partnerships to regional countries.

These arrangements have less cost. Partnerships with countries such as Iran and Malaysia are a more affordable option for both the Ministry and students. An administrator talking to me indicated that it would be great:

If we got any funds from any international university in this direction, we won't say no. If you can do some help from Canada to improve our staff, we will be thankful. (UK6, Administrator, December 13, 2017)

My assessment, based on my research, is that the situation of Iraqi universities is one of a lack of resources, autonomy, skills, and knowledge that creates a culture of dependency on others for

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funds or capacity to manage these issues. A mathematics professor at the University of Kufa explained that this kind of culture is new to Iraqi higher education:

We have lots of social problems, in agriculture, industry, manufacturing, poverty, illiteracy. Until now we didn't have research look at and study these problems…. We are relying on other people to solve our problems.... The most important is the scholarships and the attraction of scholars. Starting from 1985, things started to worsen, but we didn't rely on outsiders to build for us our system. (UK5, Faculty Member, December 6, 2017)

Prior to 2003, Iraqis were self-sufficient in managing and solving local problems and the ability to ‘localize knowledge’ as the former Minister said above. So, the conflict and years of sanctions not only diminished local capacity and knowledge, but also created a culture of dependence and reliance that was passive in terms of reform.

Table 5 (see page 112) shows the rationales for internationalizing Iraqi universities at the government, the Ministry, and university levels as they relate to the traditional rationales of internationalization in higher education.

4.6 Barriers to Implementing Internationalization

University administrators, like their counterparts at the Ministry, generally agree that adopting internationalization activities could help with bridging the knowledge gap produced by years of isolation and war. However, in my interviews with them, university leaders highlighted more structural, political, economic, and cultural barriers than enabling factors, saying they challenge the process of implementing internationalization in their institutions. The two main structural constraints to bridging the knowledge gap are constrained university governance and lack of university infrastructure and funding.

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Governance and University Autonomy

University governance was identified by participants as “fragmented” and under Ministry control. As discussed earlier, the CPA had introduced decentralization as one of the key reform plans for Iraq's higher education institutions. Further, one of the objectives of the UNESCO capacity building program was to provide training courses that focused on management and leadership for better governance and to lay the grounds for decentralization and reform.

However, Iraq has struggled to dismantle its classical governance system and has not been able so far to replace it with new types of governance. The goal is a decentralized system which has been associated with the development of exceptional higher education systems in many countries in the world. In light of the current reality of higher education in Iraq, the country is not in a position to make any progress toward this goal, especially following decades of control by a centralized system, established in the 1970s and burdened by layers of red tape. Reflecting on the bureaucratic structure of Iraqi higher education, an advisor at the Ministry stated:

The implementation of various projects faces horrendous objections and difficulties from inside. The laws and regulations here prevent change. You come to certain points you want to change, you discover that you have to change a law, and then you find another law that controls this law, and we also need to change that. (M4, Advisor, June 10, 2018)

Despite the fact that most participants believe that institutional independence is a requirement to modernize the system, they viewed a constrained decisional autonomy at both the administration and individual levels, as preventing modernization. This lack of autonomy limited their ability to obtain and spend resources for any activity to bring change. Various participants thought changes would not be possible as long as the university budget comes from the Ministry. In the words of an advisor at the Ministry, "Who gives the money has the right to control" (M4, Advisor, June

10, 2018). Therefore, even though a university president or administration may be willing to build their institution’s strategies and the related action plans, they don’t feel they have the 122

conditions to do so at the moment. Specifically, university administrators face challenges in plans to expand and build new international partnerships and sign memoranda of understanding with regional and international universities.

One of the ways to compensate for the lack of university autonomy, from the perspective of some university administrators, is internationalization. For example, twinning programs are one of the new global activities that are part of the discourses of internationalization among Iraqi academics. These twinning programs are seen as an opportunity to implement different curricula, attract more international students, learn from partner universities, and as a way of being more independent from the control of the Ministry. In Iraq, imported curricula generally do not go through the same bureaucratic approval process as is required for local curricula. Therefore, having an international university could break this structural barrier. As an administrator from the University of Technology explained to me, "the international university is not controlled by the strict laws of higher education that limit me" (UK6, Administrator, December 13, 2017).

Further, lack of self-governance was seen by participants as the most serious barrier they face in trying to develop and implement strategies to reform and enhance their institutions on their own.

Many administrators feel their hands are tied and they are losing opportunities to reach out to the world, as they are not able to build any partnerships without going through the Ministry loop.

At the same time that there is bureaucratic centralized control, decentralization of higher education has a political dimension that directly affects any reforms and changes. An administrator at the University of Technology believes, like many other participants, that no real reform has happened in Iraq higher education since 2003 because of what he called tri-problems:

"the politics, the Ministry administration, and unqualified university leadership" (UT5,

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Administrator, November 13, 2017). Nevertheless, some universities are pushing for their self- governance to build their connections and to develop their international strategies independently from the control of the Ministry. For example, the School of Medicine at the University of Kufa has completely transformed the school curriculum and adopted the curriculum of Leicester

University in the UK. Following these steps, most Medical schools in Iraq have implemented the same curriculum with different levels of adaptation and success. During my fieldwork, almost every participant referred to the success story of the Dean of the School of Medicine at the

University of Kufa. Why was he able to avoid the Ministry's control while others were not? An advisor at the Ministry believes the government needs more initiative from the university. Yet, some faculty members believe many factors should be aligned to make possible positive change at the institutional level. A faculty member from the University of Kufa explained:

Everybody had resisted him, but he insisted. Because he had a great personal relationship with the president of the university at that time and his excellent relationship with the consecutive ministers of higher education, he was able to maintain his position over 10 years and maintain his determination to implement this new program…. So, by chance, [it was] the characteristics and personality of the dean assigned to the school. (UK7, Faculty Member, November 19, 2019)

This example suggests that even in this fragmented governance structure, the rigidity of the

Ministry's control is breakable. Thus, there is hope that when many cultural and political forces align, this could bring the needed autonomy and support for university administrators.

Concerning internationalization, in this context, some administrators were able to use it as a reform tool rather than part of the government priority of rebuilding status.

University Infrastructure

One of the objectives of the Iraqi study abroad initiative is to transfer advanced research skills and methodologies; yet, it is hampered by lack of a functioning modern university

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infrastructure. At the institutional level, scientific research is presented as a strategic goal for most public universities. For example, academic research is the priority among the three pillars

(Academic Research Support, Productive Quality Enhancement, and Optimal Resource

Investment) of the 2010-2020 strategic plan of the University of Babylon (University of

Babylon, n.d.). Similarly, the University of Kufa, according to its website, has implemented research and innovation as a philosophy of learning (University of Kufa, n.d.). But despite the high interest in research in the discourses of the Ministry and university leaders, Iraqi universities are mostly teaching institutions. State universities in Iraq are themselves underfunded, particularly after the 2014 crisis when HE funding was only 2.3 percent of the state’s budget with about 80 percent of the budget going toward salaries of the employees, including academics and officials (Al Ruba’ai, 2018).

In the 1970s, using the massive resources generated by the country's oil industry, generous allocations were dedicated to research activity in Iraq. This situation changed in the

1980s during the conflict with Iran. At that time, only some research activity continued, and perhaps even intensified, particularly defense-related research (UNESCO, 2013). International sanctions during the 1990s led to a significant lack of resources, both in terms of manpower and funding. However, the previous regime promoted a 'self-sufficiency' plan that encouraged research using local materials and collaboration between researchers and partners in economic and military institutions (Harb, 2008). Yet, the post-2003 destruction affected all military and civic organizations, keeping universities isolated and absent from any kind of development or reconstruction plans. Further, university administrators highlighted many structural issues in

Iraq's higher education system that they presented first as obstacles to transferring research skills and international standards, and second, as a gap which is immense, compared to the established

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infrastructure in western universities. For instance, the grant system that exists in most western universities, the partnerships between the private sector and universities, policy research and advanced research infrastructure are largely absent in Iraq’s HE. With the destruction of research facilities and assassination of scientists and intellectuals that followed the 2003 invasion, Iraq was not able to reorient defense research towards civilian or applied research. An IT professor from the University of Kufa elaborated on this:

We don't have manufacturing or industry to support education and vice versa that we had during the ‘60s and ‘70s, from big companies, oil companies, and food companies. In the ‘90s, communication and technology companies were the biggest, but we didn't know how to keep up with technological advancement. To have applied research, you should employ technology first; to solve the poverty problem you should have a database. (UK5, Faculty Member, December 12, 2017)

In other words, the nonexistence of any grant system is a major problem. University—industry relationships or joint research with international institutions are also connected to the funding system of public universities that keeps universities under the control of the Ministry. This keeps the objective of transferring advanced research skills and methodologies promoted by the

Ministry merely an idea.

Historically, Iraq had been doing extremely well in learning from others. For example, as discussed above, study abroad programs during the previous regime were successful in localizing knowledge according to the country's development plans. However, Iraqi universities are trying to reach out today to the world through twinning programs and partnerships; home conditions such as university governance, infrastructure, and lack of knowledge are the main barriers to transferring modern knowledge and advanced skills.

4.7 Summary In this chapter, I have outlined the rationales for Iraq’s turning to internationalization in the competition for a position in the regional and international academic space. Ministry officials

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attempted to normalize the operations of higher education in Iraq and seemed to assume that the expanding the network of international contacts would help the public higher education institutions to position themselves for the reintegration into the regional role of the early 1970s and 1980s, particularly with the recent openness and despite the few active international partnerships. Conceptualizing Iraq as in a state of conflict, corruption, and insecurity moved government toward rationales for internationalization to rebuild universities’ reputation and status, using ranking as a promising technique rather than supporting a real reform agenda to enhance the quality of the system. These rationales also reflect critical structural issues and limitations of the government and the Ministry actors in reforming Iraqi higher education.

At the institutional level, the financial crisis and the lack of real reform in the public higher education system have shifted the interest of university administrators away from partnerships except for viewing them as a source of financial support where they perceived Iraq as a poor country that needs financial and technical support. Such a false perception of Iraq could develop a tendency among some administrators toward more dependency and looking outward for western-style reform packages rather than looking inward for locally produced solutions to reform the system.

By contrast, the discourses of the Ministry, and some of the universities’ administrators agreed as well, were still around rebuilding the reputation and enhancing the capacity of higher education institutions. Further, the rebuilding reputation rationale for internationalizing HE, particularly through partnerships and twinning programs, shows the issue of the power dynamic between home and host universities and becomes a representation of the struggle against the unfair and challenging competitive world. Such tendency was also found in some in-transition

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countries after experiencing dramatic organizational change. For instance, Niyozov and

Dastambuev (2013) state that processes of borrowing and lending of educational reforms in post-

Soviet Central Asia have resulted in these countries’ education systems and societies reproducing their “dependence on external forces with serious implications” for their policies and practices to specifically becoming “similarly dependent consumers of Western-led, neoliberalism, top-down, outside in reform policies and practices” (p.1).

My analysis in this chapter shows that while internationalization activities such as twinning programs, imported universities and imported curriculum, and their externalizing potential as foreign educational ideas, were idealized by both external and local actors, the latter have brought their perspectives to it based on their individual interests. This was evident from the different rationales and interpretations of internationalization at the four levels of Iraqi higher education. Thus, bringing both external and internal perspectives into this comparative analysis helped to explain how the rationales for adopting an external model changed as they moved through the multiple levels of the Iraqi higher education system. At the international level, internationalization was rationalized for Iraq as a tool to reconnect it with the international academic community; yet this was with implied soft power, a legitimacy imperative, and economic rationales. At the national level, the rationales for internationalization vary within each level from reputational at the Ministry level to more a potential source of revenue generation and financial aid at the institutional level, to overcome the lack of financial resources.

My analysis also questions whether political change and systemic collapse as the impulses to embrace internationalization make higher education institutions culturally ready.

Faculty members in this study stated that the new knowledge and skills they have learned from the recent reconnection with the international academic community stayed at the individual level.

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They attributed that to multiple political, structural, and cultural factors. These factors also linked to the fact that for about thirty years, Iraq’s connections with the outside world were very slim.

This disconnection didn’t allow for gradual change or development. However, the dramatic changes brought by the 2003 invasion didn’t allow universities to catch up and renew themselves. Another question that emerged in my analysis is: would importing a foreign university, as many participants have suggested, bring qualitative transformation to Iraq’s higher education as a better alternative to the collapsed local universities? To borrow from Altbach and his colleagues, for Iraq’s academia, “[t]here are many reasons why creating a university may be more desirable than attempting to reform an existing one” (Altbach et al., 2018, p. 3).

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Chapter 5 : The Promise of an International University

Because of the histories of sanctions, conflicts, and the ideologies of the previous regime, Iraq has adopted internationalization relatively late compared to many other countries in the region that have established international branch campuses, joint universities, and independent

American-style universities. The founders of these universities are attracted by the reputation and quality of western education. However, importing foreign universities has promoted discussions on governance of higher education and concerns about the quality of these educational transfers

(Noori & Anderson, 2013; Stella, 2006; Wilkins, 2011). In my interviews with them, educators in Iraqi higher education eagerly stressed that establishing “not only one” international university in Iraq is “necessary” and “crucial,” often pointing to the American University of Beirut as one of the most prestigious universities in the region. Iraqi higher education has thus opened its system to the world, offering an opportunity for transnational activities that were not available before. As I will detail in this chapter, Iraqi academics and many observers returning from the diaspora support this view and expect that, sooner or later, more foreign universities will be imported to Iraq once security is improved (Raban, 2019).

Before considering the issue of transferring a foreign university to Iraq, it is important to understand what each foreign university model represents and in what context. There is no single best option, as each foreign university is different. However, there are some common elements that are preferred. For example, the main elements of a liberal education model are a student- centered approach, a not-for-profit financial system, academic freedom, international accreditation, democratic governance, and English instruction (Becker, 2015). By comparison, the common attractive elements of a German university model are the applied research and industry partnerships (Lanzendorf, 2008, 2013). Most participants in my research had little or no

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detailed knowledge about what a foreign university model involves. However, all participants had an ideal perception about what a foreign, and particularly, a western university entails, and why it is needed in Iraq. The reflections of Iraqi faculty members and university administrators reported here represent genuine hopes and dreams around the wish to import a foreign university.

Participants are aware of the reality of the local context, and they yearn for a different future for higher education in Iraq. In this chapter, I explore the key features of an imported university that attract decision makers at the Ministry level and university administrators and academics. Here I outline the particulars of what Ministry officials believe to be readily transferrable to Iraq’s higher education, in the sense of being culturally appropriate. I also explore underlining internal factors that drive this attraction. To do so, I have borrowed the structural typology of cross- national attraction developed by Phillips & Ochs (2004) to structure participants’ perceptions using a thick description approach. These features or externalizing potentials include the philosophy or the ideology of the imported university, its goals, strategies, enabling structure, and its techniques and processes (Phillips & Ochs, 2004).

My analysis shows that decision makers at the Ministry level are attracted specifically to an American-style university, by its prestige and its status as private. This contrasts with faculty members and university administrators, who are attracted to the idea of foreign universities because of their rigorous practices and governance structure that are strikingly different from those of Iraqi national universities. This finding, emphasizes highlighting that faculty members are not just externalizing the justification for educational reform to what education does elsewhere, but they pinpoint different political, economic, and educational crises in Iraq.

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Further, the analysis shows that the idea of establishing a foreign university in Iraq is not really about borrowing a foreign university model, rather than it is a projection of the fact that

Iraqi public universities are being perceived as illegitimate and inadequate to play their social and economic role in the development of post-2003 Iraq.

The chapter consists of two main sections. The first section uses my interview data and other data sources to analyze the discourses of decision makers at the Ministry level about importing an international university to Iraq. The second section explores the insights of academics and administrators from four public universities in Iraq about the promises of an imported university. The chapter ends with a summary and a brief discussion of my findings.

5.1 Attractions of an International University for Ministry Officials

In my interviews, the idea of importing a foreign university from the perspective of the Ministry as I will explain in detail, emphasized providing a model that promotes liberal education, gives quality education, and offers a reputable private university to support the quantitative expansion in universities and the privatization trend. I mapped these key features of an imported university onto the foci of attraction developed by Phillips and Ochs (2004) and presented in Table 6.

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Table 6: Attraction of an imported university in Iraq – Ministry level views Factors in Cross-national Ideal university Expected results attraction Guiding philosophy or Liberal Education Promote diversity, western and ideology Reputable private university democratic values. Encourage critical thinking Restore the history of Baghdad an intellectual capital Ambition or goals Acts as a competitive agent or a Reputable higher education stimulus to enhance the quality of public and private universities Strategy Western academics and western textbooks Educational Standards Privatization & quantitative Support public universities in meeting expansion the demand for HE Adopted from Phillips & Ochs (2004)

Philosophy of Liberal Education

In an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the former Minister of Higher Education and

Scientific Research, Al-Adeeb, legitimized the idea of transferring an American or international

university to Central Iraq by arguing that this university model would offer a type of education

that cannot be provided in a “non-American college”, in his words,

A Western education seeks to produce students who are critical and imaginative thinkers, who are able to draw on the world's knowledge in all areas of thought. Ideally, they welcome diversity in society as a source of strength and cultural richness and learn compassion toward others. Their education seeks to make them capable of distinguishing fact from opinion, [make them] intellectually curious and aesthetically aware, and adept at both synthesis and analysis... we want that today in Iraq. (Al Adeeb, 2013, para. 7).

Obviously, Al-Adeeb is attracted to the American liberal arts university as a foreign university

model and he subscribes to aspects of liberal education such as critical thinking, democratic

values, diversity and other qualities that local universities are not designed to deliver. The former

Minister frames his attraction to an international university using, first, the consequences of war

and continuing sectarian violence that are pushing the new generation “toward a culture of 133

violence and sectarianism” and the hope that a liberal arts university would reverse this trend. By immersion in the education cultures of the West, he believes such universities could be a tool to transfer democratic values while building a post-2003 democratic Iraq. Second, Al-Adeeb highlights the success of this U.S. university model in the Kurdistan Region, Lebanon, and in the

Middle East. Such success underlines an assumption that this model is culturally appropriate to be transferred to Iraq that is strikingly decontextualizing its current political, economic and social crises. He uses the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani and the American University of

Beirut as references to argue that a decision that should be made urgently to establish this university model in Iraq:

In Iraq today we are, sadly, part of the sectarian tensions in the region as the war in Syria spills over our borders, and the conflicts of our past continue to fester. But this violence serves only to show why we need a new university now more than ever. (Al Adeeb, 2013, para. 15)

This framing illustrates the argument of Steiner-Khamsi that foreign examples are used to glorify the success story somewhere else (2004) and borrow it as a solution to a problem at home, while ignoring the home situation. Another goal of such a university set by the former Minister is to restore the history of Iraq that used to be an “intellectual capital and haven for all of the

Abrahamic faiths for centuries” (Al Adeeb, 2013, para. 3). According to the former Minister, as shown in Table 6, the answer to achieving this goal is education of Iraqi students by American or

European professors who have been educated in similar universities, and by using western textbooks to study western history and society besides the Arab values and traditions. But this social and civil role of the proposed western university stands in a sharp contrast to the realities of the educational environment in post-2003 Iraq, dominated by political parties that impose their religious-sectarian agendas. Such agendas not only have divided Iraq society, but also have

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politicized national university campuses and challenged their survival. This politicization threatens the goal of providing a safe learning environment for their staff and faculty. Thus, the fact that the former Minister sees an international model as a solution signifies a break with the social, economic and educational role that public, not- for- profit universities had played since the 1950s in Iraq. It seeks to circumvent the longstanding sectarian agenda that has governed

Iraq’s political and social landscape since 2003.

Along with Al-Adeeb, many reformers find liberal arts education in harmony with their broader political and social goals (Becker, n.d.). However, Al-Adeeb is also accused of promoting sectarian ideologies and discrimination against Sunni academics (Sawahel, 2011), which seems at odds with promoting democratic and liberal education through a foreign university. As of 2012, a few reports noted that 471 Iraqi academics had been murdered, presumably because of their Sunni identity (Shamoo, 2011). Such action was part of the chaos created in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion that eliminated or frightened and alienated Iraqi intellectuals who presented a threat to those now competing for power. Neither do Al-Adeeb’s statements around educational reform supporting the new Iraq, such as pluralism, tolerance, and reconciliation, match the story that the few reform actions show. For instance, new Iraqi textbooks continue to promote religious and sectarian agendas that were implemented by the previous regime (Rohde, 2013). While the previous, supposedly secular-nationalist, regime had integrated Islamic religion into the curriculum when Iraq was dominated by a Sunni context, in post-2003 Iraq, Islamic religion continues to be part of the agenda of the new regime but with

Shiite domination (Rohde, 2013). At a basic level, then, sectarian ideology contradicts the discourses concerning the rationales for the proposed international university in post-2003 Iraq.

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Historically, a lack of critical thinking in formal spaces, has defined most universities as well as pre-university education in the entire Middle East, reproducing this tendency in America; Iraq is no exception. The current educational system of rote learning has governed Iraqi schools and universities for almost one century (Mohammed-Marzouk, 2012) and various historical, political, religious, and cultural factors have played a role in reinforcing the rote learning style in Iraq’s educational institutions. The ‘banking model’ (Freire, 1970) philosophy of Iraqi higher education was critiqued by a few participants who argued that it is ‘wrong’ or ‘ill-defined’. In the words of one participant, this philosophy of higher education merely indicates students' interest in getting the bachelor’s degree “and not learning.” Their credentialism also results in an imbalance in the focus between sciences and technology, and the humanities. It offers students an educational environment and campus culture that are not all that different from their pre-university education experiences. Salih, an Iraqi psychology professor, writes that the problem in Iraq is that it is a country without an identity. He expressed the opinion that, years after the fall of the previous regime, “still we do not know whether Iraq is a secular or Islamic state and the most skilled politicians cannot predict the future of Iraq’s identity” (Salih, 2007, para. 2). This bifurcation is reflected in the philosophy of education and higher education institutions according to Salih.

Paradoxically, the former regime had a clear philosophy, ideology, and political program for how that philosophy was applied. By contrast, the current regime has failed to successfully develop

Iraq’s economy and social structure. Thus, the new Iraqi government attempts to create a national identity was ineffective and even generate tension in which sectarianism behavior prevails and due to a perception that some groups have benefited from it. So social relations based on cooperation and trust, often considered as necessary for democracy, do not exist in Iraq yet. According to critical observers, it is assumed in current Ministry thinking that Iraq has

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enjoyed democracy and freedom since 2003 and that adoption of a specific philosophy that supports this freedom would involve reform of the educational system, its method of administration, and curricula (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). What would be retained from pre-2003 goals is the expansion of higher education to accommodate all applicants. The expansion could help with both the development plans of the country and the military needs of the state of that time. The current national strategic plan of higher education also aims to absorb the high student demand, particularly by increasing the private university sector and allowing public universities to provide tuition-paid education through evening and parallel education programs (Government of Iraq, 2012). This is completely aligned with the CPA reconstruction policies discussed in

Chapter 4. As Agresto (2007) the CPA’s higher education advisor viewed the expansion of private institutions in Iraq as important to support the transition from state-controlled socialist economic systems to market-led liberal models. As such, private higher education may fit better with the ideological and strategic goals of powerful external agents including the World Bank and USAID (Milton, 2018). Further, it indicates that establishing an American university model in Iraq, at least from the perspective of the former Minister, is not aimed to adopt liberal education and to practice critical thinking in this university, but rather is merely part of the agenda to privatize the public higher education and reduce the role of the state in the higher education. So, the idea of importing an American liberal Art university has less to do with its ideals, such as liberal education or critical thinking, than the material and ideological conditions under which these agendas are envisioned and implemented, which is part of the broader efforts to reconstruct Iraq’s economy around the neoliberalism and free market, as discussed in Chapter

4. As Steiner-Khamsi (2006) argues, international standards or international models are a common point of reference in the political policy borrowing discourse supporting external

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financial or political support, which legitimates introducing the government’s new policy. As

Cowen (2004) puts it, the foreign example might only be borrowed to legitimate policy discourse, or the debate, without any accompanying intention to “domesticate’ lessons from abroad (cited in Ochs, 2006, p. 601).

Quality of University

Compared to Al Adeeb, Al-Essa (Al-Adeeb’s successor) had a clearer explanation for why Iraq needed an international university. As he was quoted in the previous chapter, part of his argument was that an international university, as a reputable private institution, would address the goal of improving the quality of public universities. He assumed the problem was that faculty members were resistant to change and lacked modern knowledge. Al-Essa’s new direction implied that the goal was set as part of strengthening the reputation of the private higher education sector as a partner to public universities in their struggle to improve. This aligns, as discussed earlier, with the CPA’s reconstruction plan to reduce the role of the public sector and shift the control of civil society largely to the private sector, that started with the 2003 invasion

(Saltman, 2015). Thus, while the foreign university was defined as a form of democracy promotion, it also reflected a privatization project as well.

As shown in Table 6, an imported university was also seen by many participants from the

Ministry to promote competition in which public and private institutions, in order to survive, have to improve their educational offerings. One of the implied goals for establishing private national and imported universities is to create a competitive environment in which these universities compete to attract students. This transformation and the domination of market forces in Iraq’s higher education for the first time in Iraq’s history aligns with what Cerny (1997) describes as “a move from a “welfare” to a “competition” state” (cited in Yang, 2002, p. 83). 138

Reputable Private University

As explained by my Ministry participants, the Iraqi Ministry of higher education was also influenced by trends in the Kurdistan Region and other regional countries in its attempt to reform

Iraq's higher education and to find solutions to absorb the increasing demand while reducing the burden on the state of financing higher education. For instance, the Ministry considered borrowing from the education policy of the Jordanian HE system that was implemented in 2003.

The following excerpt from one of my interviews indicates that in addition to the liberal arts university being discussed, Iraq also was attracted to the German-Jordanian joint university, but could not engage Germany.

We wanted a German university, but actually the Germans were not interested, they have one in Amman. The offer in Amman is very lucrative. They came and built the university, and they told them [the Jordanian] after ten years you will own the university. (M6, Decision Maker, personal communication, February 12, 2020).

Therefore, since 2003, as discussed in my introductory chapter and mentioned above, there has been a clear direction taken by the Ministry supporting quantitative expansion coupled with more privatization whether through local or international investment. A consultant at the Ministry confirms the direction of the sector toward more private engagement; this is an idea that has transferred to Iraq from outside, as he indicates in the following words:

Iraq didn’t think about this before the fall of the previous regime, thinking that it is a foreign university and will bring its culture and values and could affect the youth. After 2003, Iraq became more liberal and open to the world…. Because the government is not able to support higher education, the idea is to rely on the private sector or education that comes from outside Iraq to help carry some of the pressure on the higher education budget. (M3, Advisor, November 28, 2017)

The Advisor’s quote reflects that the main driver for importing foreign universities is the financial difficulties of the state rather than, as Salih (2007) argued a clear philosophy of higher education to support the new change in post-2003 Iraq. 139

Students themselves are the victims of the current precarious political and economic situation that arguably limits their motivation to engage in their academic development but emphasizes their hopes that university education will help them find secure jobs, particularly in the public sector. The argument is made that in graduating from university, many youths are waiting to be appointed to the government, Iraq's biggest employer. Four out of five jobs created in Iraq in recent years are in fact, in the public sector, according to the World Bank (2015). A few participants have argued that an international university could change this culture of dependency, assuming that students who attend such an institution will develop advanced skills and be more independent.

Iraq is a rentier state11 with oil as its main source of revenue. Providing free education and promising jobs in the public sector is part of the redistribution of the oil wealth to the population and the social contract between the state and its citizens. Therefore, the trend toward engaging the private sector and adopting more internal privatization of public universities is an attempt to change this social contract. This trend is also obvious in the school system, as the interim Minister of Education was quoted as saying in Saltman:

Certifying private schools is a way to add classrooms without tapping public coffers…. after years of surviving on subsidies, the citizen is realizing that not everything can be provided by the government. (2009, p. 244)

11 Rentier states derive most of their revenues from the outside world rather than on extraction from domestic populations’ surplus production (Anderson, 1990, cited in Mazawi, 2005, p. 222). The functioning of their political systems depends to a large degree on accruing external revenues that can be classified as rents (Schwarz, 2008). Rentier states rely on allocation and redistribution, and hence show a remarkably different political dynamic than other contrasting states (Schwarz, 2008). Generally, the rentier model of statehood is stable as long the abundant availability of resources helps to preserve traditional loyalties through generous welfare allocations and thereby makes state-formation a legitimate process (Schwarz, 2008). 140

Saltman’s argument shows a gradual change, among Iraqi citizens as well as the government, about the role of the state in funding and governing the public education sectors. Particularly, in light of the financial crisis that Iraq is going through in which job opportunities are even more scarce in both the public and private sectors. Many Iraqis with bachelor's and postgraduate degrees, as well as graduates of institutes, are actively organizing protests to compel the government to create job opportunities. Many protest that the few opportunities are first and foremost given to the relatives and acquaintances of politicians and officials.

As Iraq continues to develop its market economy, there is a massive gap between the labour force and job market where the university plays a significant role. Meanwhile about

700,000 young Iraqis come onto the job market each year. The World Bank estimated the youth unemployment rate at 26 percent in 2017 (The World Bank, 2020). The statistics of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in 2014 indicated that there are more than 142,000 educated unemployed, 65 percent of whom have diplomas, bachelor’s degrees, and graduate certificates

(Robert & Rwanduzy, 2018). Such a critical situation raises questions about the rationale for the recent increase in the capacity of public universities, and the increase in private colleges and universities, as well as the interest in importing foreign universities at this challenging time unless there is a clear plan to create jobs for the large number of graduates. An IT professor who was a participant in my research believes that universities after 2003 turned into merely four-year

‘waiting rooms’ (Romani, 2009, p. 3) for students because of the destruction of the economy and the national industry. As she explained,

In Iraq's higher education, we have concealed unemployment. We got a student who stayed four years and graduated with a paper without skills and stays home; end of the story. This is to

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absorb the unemployment in the street, nothing more than that. If we become like other countries with only students who love and desire to do so going to higher education, then the level could be different. This is one of the consequences of free education. (UB5, Faculty Member,

December 28, 2017). Ironically, UB5 is a graduate of one of these tuition-free Iraqi universities and a recipient of the government scholarship program. However, her quote alludes to the economic crisis of Iraq that diminishes the role of Iraqi higher education as well as how it is used as a political agenda to cover this crisis. In my interviews, there was conflicting feedback about the oversupply of higher education provision compared to the student demand. An advisor at the

Ministry said with alarm, that, “the economy is not developing, but higher education is expanding... higher education produces a surplus of graduates” (M4, Advisor, June 10, 2018).

However, the higher education attainment rate in Iraq is still low at only 18.1 percent of the population within the ages of 18-23 years old. According to the National Strategy for Education and Higher Education in Iraq (2011-2020), the goal is to increase the rate from 20 to 23 percent.

An associate director at the Ministry also confirmed that parallel education is planned to gradually increase from 10% up to 20% yearly to accommodate the increased demand of Iraqi youth for higher education. Such a plan favours a trend towards more internal privatization that would affect the fact that tuition is covered by the free public universities. Steiner-Khamsi makes the argument that this kind of discourse promotes a foreign policy as a way to legitimate change in the local system (2012). I can conclude that international universities could be part of the

Ministry plan of privatization and quantitative expansion of universities to increase the attainment rate; however, this plan is disconnected from the local context. Further, there is no clear idea from the Ministry on how to integrate the large number of graduates into the local labour market, which is already stagnant in the current slow economy.

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Iraq has a young population with more than 50 percent of its population under 18. While this demographic group presents an opportunity to rebuild post-2003 Iraq, it also produces a challenge for the government and the Ministry to provide a promised free education at public universities. As such, the direction chosen by the Ministry seems to partially address the educational needs of this large population group. But while many university administrators also support the idea of privatization, academics tend to disagree with the idea of shifting responsibility for paying university tuition fees to students and their parents. Despite this concern, there is a gradual acceptance of the Ministry’s financial model resulting from the continued decline in the quality of public education, coupled with the belief that no real reforms have happened to the sector since 2003.

In summary, decision makers at the Ministry level recognized the serious problems in

Iraqi higher education and agreed that since the public sector is not able to play its social and educational roles, they have advocated importing foreign university models as the solution to the philosophy and low quality of higher education. In the Ministry interviews, the difficulties of the public higher education were identified as low quality, high demand for higher education, and high unemployment. Further, as discussed in Chapter 4, the other problems of the public sector are sectarianism and the lack of accountability of faculty. But identifying the problem with faculty downplays the political agenda of the Ministry and ignores the need for resources, infrastructure, and advanced technologies required to support reforming the sector. Thus, for the

Ministry, the best solution so far favours importing a private international university. Further, it alludes to the fact that importing universities is not about its ideal dimensions needed in post-

2003 democratic Iraq, such as liberal education and critical thinking, rather these exact ideal dimensions used to legitimate a bigger plan to reform Iraqi HE toward more privatization and a

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gradual cultural change in the role of the state in the HE that has failed so far to define the

philosophy and the identity of the new democratic Iraq.

5.2 Attraction of an International University at the University Level

Providing a Model “Different from Ours”

The idea of importing a foreign university from the perspective of academics and administrators

in my interviews emphasized providing a model that is ‘different from ours’. The desired

difference was directly linked to practices, governance structures, and the desirable academic

culture of foreign universities. These were seen as possibly providing outward-looking ideas to

reform post-2003 Iraq’s higher education situation. Table 7 shows the key features of an

imported university mapped out with the foci of attraction developed by Phillips and Ochs

(2004). As shown in the Table 7, the binary of ‘ours’ versus ‘theirs’ or ‘here’ versus ‘there’ in

most participants' perception was embedded within each individual borrowable quality of an

imported university. For example, the ‘ours’ contemporary Iraqi model was characterized as

traditional, failing to provide quality education, corrupt, politicized, and perpetuating

antagonistic institutional cultures.

Table 7: Attraction of an Imported University in Iraq – University-Level Views Factors in Cross-national Ideal University Expected Results Attraction Guiding Philosophy or Different from local Reputable higher education Ideology universities’ Ambition or Goals Acts as a competitive agent or a Reputable higher education following stimulus to enhance the quality stimulation of real reforms of public and private universities Human Resources - Strong reputational and highly Transfer of management skills and Strategy personality qualified human styles, advanced teaching skills, resources advanced knowledge and democratic values

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Enabling Structures Possesses institutional Protection of system diversity autonomy Is able to provide foreign investment Educational Standards Governed by rules and Transfer of positive academic culture, regulations critical thinking Promotes new teaching methods Possesses updated curriculum A ‘Pure’ Academic’ Scientific Production of modern knowledge Educational Process

Adopted from Phillips & Ochs (2004)

By contrast, ‘theirs’ or a contemporary Western model is mostly idealized as high

quality, modern, following international standards, with highly qualified faculty and apolitical

administrators, qualified students, funded research, and institutional prestige. In the process of

idealizing the international university, participants compared and contrasted the international and

the domestic, emphasizing the weaknesses of their own system and underlining how much better

universities are elsewhere. The ideal institution versus the domestic universities was constructed

as being differentiated in the quality of human resources and structural elements, which justified

the strategy of transferring these desirable aspects of an international university to Iraq. It is

assumed that the foreign university has highly qualified administration and teaching staff, that it

adopts and maintains international standards, and that it is governed by a “pure” or apolitical

academic culture. The goal of having an imported university from the perspective of academics

and administrators is for it to act as a competitive agent or a stimulus to enhance the quality of

public and private universities that ultimately enhance the country’s HE reputation. This aligns

with the main rationale for building partnerships and adopting twinning programs, which is to

rebuild the reputation of Iraq’s sector of HE through imported prestige.

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Human Resource Strategies

From the perspective of university level participants, the main strategy to achieve the goal of enhancing the quality of the local higher education institutions and their reputation is having qualified administrators and teaching faculty, each of which is discussed in this section. This strategy was discussed as facilitating the transition from what currently exists to a university that, in the words of a faculty member, “has a strong personality” (UK1, Faculty Member, December

13, 2017).

As noted several times, the selection of high-ranking administrators, including university presidents, vice presidents, or deans in Iraqi universities, is mostly based on political affiliation.

Such a situation puts appointment legitimacy at stake and creates trust issues, particularly among academics. By contrast, participants believe that secular American or European administrators are a crucial component that makes an international university a legitimate institution; legitimacy is based on administrators being chosen based on their qualifications, not on their political interests or their religious affiliations. Even a Ministry advisor, the only participant who had a reservation about importing an international university to Iraq, insisted that it would work only if it hired Western management and faculty. He expressed it as follows:

My [only] reservation is that you cannot leave such international education in the hands of Iraqis. If the international universities are in the hands of the American or the European educators, it will work, but it cannot be run in a country like Iraq. (M4, Advisor, June 10, 2018)

Like other academics and administrators, the advisor's concern is that Iraqis lack the skills and knowledge to manage such an educational institution. They believed it would not survive the political interference, either. In other words, management of the international university by foreigners comes with the expectation that they will provide management skills and styles that

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are different from what is available at national universities. Another consultant at the Ministry confirmed that the expected role of an international university is to contribute to the local higher education system by transferring some management skills. He made the following point:

It [international university] will add management skills. Management skills are one of the problems that Iraqi universities are confronting. The skills include making decisions, managing the finances...and giving a clear picture to students and the public that this university follows strict educational principles. Students would graduate based on their educational outcomes, [it would be agreed on] what to expect from students after they graduate, and connected with the job market…. So, for sure it will add to the Iraqi higher education. (M5, Consultant, June 10, 2018)

The above comment reiterates the assumption that the high reputation of public universities relies on absence of connection between the university and its students and the community at large; further, it assumes that international universities could play this role better. As discussed, the HE sector has witnessed visible expansion, which explains participants’ perception that no real reform of their human resources component since 2003 has happened. A professor from the

University of Technology stated:

Now [if], you look at the websites of Iraqi universities, they are all propaganda for the top administration of the university. This is shameful.… Some administrators think that universities are good if we have marble paving. (UT5, Administrator, November 13, 2017)

The above comment reflects the suspicion some administrators have about a reform agenda that is based on quantitative measures and marketing discourses to legitimize their positions (at university, college, or department levels). This propaganda instrument ignores the fact that the university either lacks administrative skills and knowledge or the power to make real changes under the rigid scrutiny of the Ministry. Faculty members and some middle management staff emphasized instead that there is a lack of leadership skills in public universities and described this situation as an ‘eternal problem'. They believe that ‘things can be different’ if management is

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from their home university, as compared to the current situation depicted in a remark from a participant’s interview with me. He remarked that an administrator can govern better “when he knows how long he is staying to serve and then go,” rather than “staying forever to serve his bosses and the bosses' bosses.” (UB7, Faculty Member, December 2, 2017)

From the perspective of university participants, the existing political nepotism in Iraqi universities creates a leadership vacuum that could better be filled by a foreign administrator with some modern and advanced management skills. Since 2003, participants argue, the national situation has had a disastrous influence on the quality of Iraq higher education. In fact, I found a dominant theory among many participants that the post-2003 rulers of Iraq and administrators in higher education are destroying higher education by placing unqualified people in leadership and management positions. A recipient of the study abroad initiative reflected:

It is so obvious. I know some positions held by people with qualifications that do not match these positions. So, their unit is not functioning. It has the best equipment similar to that found in Western universities. Believe me...we have some qualified people, and the West would pay them millions of dollars, but they do not belong to a particular party. So, when they submit any proposal, it is rejected automatically because the person in the administrative position [above him or her] doesn't want the qualified person to be recognized. (UB8, Faculty Member, December 2, 2017)

This view contradicts the Ministry’s statements, as discussed, about the lack of qualified academics in Iraq’s universities. Further, it indicates a lack of trust in local knowledge and expertise. Thus, while the poor reputation of Iraq’s higher education is widely publicized, local qualifications that do exist go unacknowledged, according to my university participants.

With respect to qualified teaching staff, both administrators and faculty members agreed that western criteria regarding credentials, skills, and administration and academic staff are very important in an ideal foreign university. However, each group expects the other should have

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these qualities to be considered as a legitimate institution in Iraq. An administrator commenting on the idea of establishing an international university in Iraq wondered if foreign teaching staff would come. He said:

I don't have a clear idea about the activities of these universities. It is a good idea. However, here is an important point; will the Americans or the British come and teach in these universities? (UT2, Administrator, November 27, 2017)

On this point, a Ministry advisor agreed:

You don’t have legitimacy if you don’t send the staff members themselves to teach there. They are part of the university. So why would you be recruiting different staff? This is what happened in some countries…. [my question is] what kind of experience or knowledge [do the locals] bring to the new university? Anyone could call it an international university, but if they hire staff who don’t belong to the home university, they don’t bring any experience to Iraqi universities. [Or] they do not bring much. The academic level is very important. What is the benefit of a branch of a university if the original staff does not come and teach from that university? (M4, Advisor, June 10, 2018).

As this professor suggests, it is a common practice in transnational education to hire local faculty with western credentials to offset the high cost of hiring faculty from the home university

(Shams & Huisman, 2012). Foreign teaching faculty are seen as having the latest teaching skills, absorbed along with western democratic culture, and thus provide an ideal means for transferring advanced skills and knowledge to local universities in Iraq.

Enabling Structure: Foreign investment and Institutional Autonomy

As shown in Table 7, a fourth attractive aspect of an international university identified by faculty and administrators is that it possesses institutional autonomy and is able to provide foreign investment. Participants describe an international university as “being its own entity”. This ideal quality is linked to its governance structure as a private university with its own capital, which makes it possible for it to make a foreign investment. It also is assumed to have a structure that

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protects it from any political interference. In this context, independence becomes a goal rather than an enabling structure.

When I introduced the idea of an international or imported university, many participants, mostly faculty, questioned “who is the investor?”. There was an implied assumption among most participants that an imported university is private and capable of foreign investment. This is another plus of the international university, compared to national private universities in Iraq. A teaching faculty member in my study observed:

It depends if foreign or Iraqi investors will establish this university; if the investors are foreigners, for sure [this will make a difference]; but if the investors] are Iraqis then the situation will be similar to other Iraqi universities. (UB7, Faculty Member, December 2, 2017)

This refers to the common practice of high-ranking politicians and businessmen investing in high quality and reputable transnational higher educational institutions. The American University of

Sharjah, a respected institution in the UAE, is an example of such a local investment by the ruler of Sharjah. Quite baldly referring to local politicians and other powerful individuals, an IT faculty member quipped: “There [the UAE] they want to build their country, here [in Iraq] they want to destroy the country” (UB9, Faculty Member, March 18, 2018). In fact, I observed that my participants tended to perceive all local private universities established after 2003 as low quality and profit-orientated; they were critical of local investors who are mostly Iraqi politicians. These local investors were seen as corrupt and thus not hesitant about interfering in higher education affairs for their own interest. This was viewed as not only putting a lot of pressure on the Ministry, but also damaging Ministry credibility and politicizing the private sector. Thus, many participants positively believed that foreign investment could block political

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interference and lead to quality education. For example, a faculty member in computer sciences stated:

If the university is a local investment, political issues will affect its performance, because most of the businessmen here are politicians. So, I prefer that the investment comes from outside, so the university would be protected from all the political and commercial tensions. And from those who are looking for only profit over the scientific knowledge, and real education. (UT6, Faculty Member, December 4, 2017)

Although participants at the level of the university agreed that private local universities have been able to absorb some of the pent-up demand for higher education, they emphasized that these institutions have failed to respond to the country’s post-conflict development priorities and social needs. Expansion in the number of private institutions is a common trend in fragile states where regulatory bodies previously either checked or prevented their establishment (Milton, 2018).

Also, the private sector is governed by market rules as well as political agendas. Thus, the unplanned expansion of colleges and universities has contributed to the high unemployment rate among university graduates. Further, private institutions are seen as a poor copy of public institutions as they use retired faculty from public universities, are controlled by the Ministry

(except for their finance), offer similar programs and curriculum, and use traditional ways of teaching. Thus, the private sector was neither able to differentiate itself from the public universities nor to improve the overall higher education system in the country. In this negative perception of private investment in the education sector, foreign investment becomes a differentiation factor as well.

Ideally then, from the perspective of university-level participants, an international university would be an independent and apolitical institution. The obvious reason is its financial and political freedom from control, unlike public or private universities that have become an arena for political interference and conflicting regime agendas. However, university autonomy is 151

a complex topic in Iraqi higher education. Many attempts have been introduced to give universities the independence to manage their own affairs, with no success. As discussed in

Chapter 1, decentralizing the sector was one of the reform agenda items brought in by the CPA; however, it is yet to be realized. The latest trial was in 2016 when the Ministry launched the institutional autonomy initiative and selected the University of Technology as a pilot site.

Institutional autonomy emerged as a controversial topic during my interviews, among academics in particular. In 2019, the Minister 12 at that time stated in an interview that the institutional autonomy experiment did not produce its expected outcomes. Thus, upon the requests of the public universities themselves, the Ministry decided to stop it (Al-Suhail, July 2019).

Talking about institutional autonomy as “mere mockery”, most academics in my research described the autonomy experiment as ‘heresy’, ‘showing off’, ‘fake’, and ‘creating mess and chaos’. For example, a faculty member posed the following ironic question:

What independence? We are still living the old Ba’ath system, it is still working.... There is nothing without [political] influence. You know our system and the idea of one party. We still have this culture and control. These we cannot remove from our brains. We talk [about autonomy] but in reality, we implement something different. Even at the university, everything is centralized (UB7, Faculty Member, December 2, 2017)

By contrast with faculty members, the Ministry personnel and top administrators I interviewed viewed their initiative as a leap toward reforming higher education and empowering universities to manage their own affairs. Between these two opposite perspectives, international universities are imagined as independent and immune from the control of the Ministry. The sarcasm of many participants about institutional autonomy was linked to a lack of understanding and transparency

12 Qusai Al Suhail was the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research from 2018- 2020. 152

about the process and doubts about its success. Particularly, participants identified the problem as existing because autonomy was awarded to the university, not to the colleges or departments.

This is a top-down approach. Thus, financial dependence of universities from the government is presented as both risk and opportunity that make institutional autonomy precarious. An economics professor explained this as follows:

It is an opportunity because [with government funding], we are guarantee that we have comfortable resources to some extent. We are comfortable as long as the state is in a comfortable situation. But when there is expenditure competition, we are at risk. For example, expenditure on defense competes with the expenditure on education; it eats up all the expenditure on education…. [In contrast] when the state has the money, it is very generous (UK1, Faculty Member, December 13, 2017).

In short, while the Iraqi state plays a paternalistic role in this opportunity-risk dichotomy, it also creates a culture of dependency that limits national universities from making changes or even innovatively responding to post-conflict social and developmental needs. This is part of the rentier mentality of the state discussed earlier. Further, universities in Iraq, both public and private, are operating in a context where other institutions share the power, such as political parties, religious sects, tribes, and society. There was a serious concern among some university participants that powerful individuals or tribes would replace state control if institutional autonomy is institutionalized. For instance, an IT teaching faculty member stated:

Once the universities are independent from the ministry, it will be messier and more chaotic. Now, few people are managing and controlling the university. At least when we complain, we go to the Ministry. If you complain to your university, a thousand people will interfere before it reaches the Ministry.... This university autonomy will drag the university to what person X wants. It is a problem. (UB5, Faculty Member, December 28, 2017).

The impact of these societal institutions collectively is a strong force limiting institutional autonomy, whether private or public. This could partially explain why the experiment of

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university autonomy in Iraq did not survive. A mathematics professor elaborated on this in the following way:

The influence of society on the university is huge. Our code of reference is the Ministry. If it goes, the influence of tribes, the Governorate Council, and the religious authority (Al Marja’aya13) comes instead. Those do not have a relation with education; so, it is better to be controlled by the Ministry than those institutions. Other countries do not have this [social system]; they have their own policies and standards. Here we have wasta, religious men that can enforce what they want; they have power. A few years ago, they changed the VP of the university because of a trivial issue, [so] they have power. [It is] not only religious people but also elite public officials. This still exists in Iraq’s society (UK5, Faculty Member, December 12, 2017).

The power of religion and tribal institutions has become more significant and problematic in post-2003 Iraq, as they fight against each other and against the state for legitimacy and resources.

Participants agreed that intellectuals and technocrats are absent from the social and political scene of post-2003 Iraq. They have been alienated out of the fear that their role in developing the society and the state could challenge narrow-minded ideologies of the religious and tribal institutions. Actually, the role of civil society, including higher education, has been repressed since the time of the previous regime when the military and tribes were given more power to support the falling legitimacy of Saddam’s regime, particularly after the Shiite intifada that followed the Kuwait invasion in 1991. However, the killing of academics and intellectuals since

2003 has diminished their role even more. Further, since public and private universities are limited by political pressure and not able to completely play their social and educational roles, international universities are seen as having more potential in this regard. As another faculty member reflected, an international university is needed

13 Al Marja’aya, also called Hawza, is an honorific title for high-ranking Shia clergy. 154

because people who will run it are saturated with democratic thinking and culture, and we are not. We call or advocate for democracy, but we really do not believe in it. When they talk about it, they really believe in it. (UK1, Faculty Member, December 12, 2017)

To be different from the mainstream of public and private institutions, international universities should, as a university administrator stated, “not be controlled by the strict laws of higher education that limit me” (UT5, Administrator, December 3, 2017). Through making a comparison between their own system and an international university, participants idealistically believed that an international university could survive the post-conflict reality of Iraq. Its financial independence and its democratic culture would shield it from external forces that negatively influence public higher education in post-conflict Iraq and enable it to realize a real reform.

Western Standards and Educational Development

Continuing with Table 7, the fifth attractive aspect of an international university model is its rules and regulations and its teaching methods, which I will deal with in this section. First, importing home university rules, regulations and “standards” was emphasized by Iraqi academics and administrators as an important quality to add to the list of the importable elements of an ideal international university. As integral to institutional autonomy, participants believe that unlike

‘ours’ in Iraq, foreign universities are governed by solid and respected internal policies and bylaws, which are directly linked to the idea of an autonomous university. A participant from the

Ministry reflected on this point:

Having their own rules and regulations makes the international university more independent and justifies one to be opened here. [The international] university is a particular entity and operates according to its regulations and policies. No way can anybody impose certain rules on it that could conflict with its goals (M5, Consultant, June 10, 2018).

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This is in contrast, as discussed in the previous section, with religious and tribal institutions that exert an immense pressure, particularly against faculty members who are on the frontline and in direct contact with students. A teaching faculty said that he felt powerless in this context:

Who has an influence on students? It is the religious man, his fatwa or his voice is stronger than the 44000 teachers collectively. The second influencers are the politicians. Why? because they have the power and the authority. One has spiritual power that I cannot compete with, and the other has political power that I cannot compete with either. (UK1, Faculty Member, December 13, 2017)

The above quote alludes to the blurring line between the spiritual and political power that has emerged in 2003 with the increasing influence of political religion not only on Iraqi universities but it goes into every social, political, and cultural aspects of Iraqi lives. In this adversarial culture, imitating the rules and regulations of international universities is advocated; this is not because the Ministry and universities do not have their own local-oriented policies, but because these international universities can do what the public sector couldn’t do since 2003, which is adhere to these rules. Steiner-Khamsi asked “How come everyone talks international standards, but nobody knows what they are?” (2010, p. 328). By contrast, Iraqi faculty members have defined international standards clearly as those rules and regulations that promote healthy academic culture in a typical educational institution. This definition is politically laden and also a projection of a problematic context where the rules exist, but are continuously violated or constantly changed for temporary and politically charged purposes. The above quoted professor described the higher education rules and regulations as ‘flexible’. He felt the need for reform goes way beyond the HE institution:

The key to development in my opinion is to have a solid legal system that does not allow me as a student, staff, faculty, or administrator at higher education to violate the system. Now we have the flexibility and stretched regulations that allow all people to overstep each other. For example, it is possible a dean or a university president works against the

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system because they can, and because there is no authority [that] protects the law (UK1, Faculty Member, December 13, 2017).

By contrast, ‘the strong personality’ of the international university is a power that protects its standards, which everyone is following and respecting, even against the local cultural norms and traditions. The same professor continued as follows:

As Iraqis, we have always embodied the roles and the places we live in. If we go to visit holy places, we are Islamic; if we go for fun, we are liberal. So, the strong personality of these universities will play a role in this. They have solid standards which neither teacher nor students can overstep. Here it is easy; just call the dean and everything will change immediately. He can violate all rules of higher education by one phone call. There, they don't do that. These institutions will enforce or impose a new culture that we need.... When the private sector came here, it was established in these circumstances. So, certainly, it is a distorted experiment. When I bring an international university that brings skills, experiences, a strong culture, and implant it here, we need that more than the private sector. In my opinion, private institutions should have the culture and systems of international universities. (UK1, Faculty Member, December 13, 2017)

The above powerful comment is not a mere agreement with the idea of establishing an international university or its ideal dimensions. While it also idealizes this university as just the opposite of the current status of public universities in Iraq and its culture, it tells about the critical context that Iraqi educational institutions, whether private or public; local or foreign, are operating in.. It is the voice of a frustrated faculty member who feels he has lost his power in an antagonist academic culture that is taken over by politics, corruption, and greed for power.

Further, the comment shows that the faculty member believes that this kind of academic culture could be maintained by an independent university in Iraq not only because the import is part of the western culture, but because the outside environment and the local culture are going to protect and accept it.

Iraq’s academics and university administrators are outwardly looking for international standards that are mostly defined as ‘rigorous’ as a way to revive the rigorous academic culture

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that used to distinguish the public universities in Iraq; this is what an IT instructor called the “ideal university life” (UB5, Faculty Member, December 28, 2017). Seeing the pre-2003 academic culture as ‘ideal’ is a critical aspect that promises to filter out the politicizing of campuses, state control, and militarization of research, that was practiced by the previous regime.

This idealism is not limited to higher education. Many Iraqis constantly compare and contrast pre- and post-2003 nostalgically. The nostalgia is not for the regime, but for functioning institutions in the pre-2003 era where the power, at least between teaching academics and students, was evenly distributed. International universities were idealized as expected to bring some of the academic culture that universities have lost as a consequence of years of destruction and isolation, and the interference of multiple non-academic institutions. A faculty member reflected this when she said what she expected from an imported university was “to obligate

Iraqi universities to follow their teaching methods, policies, and give power to teachers” (UB5,

Faculty Member, December 28, 2017).

The collapse of academic culture in post-2003 Iraq was linked by many participants, partly, to what one academic called “the election crisis” where many ad hoc and temporary policies were issued to attract students. One of most negative consequences is what a faculty member from the University of Kufa called the culture of “gifting”; she explained this as follows:

The department gives [to students] five marks, the college gives five marks and the university another five marks, so 15 marks without any effort. A student passes the course from the gifting, so why should the faculty teach and put in effort? Not every faculty member cares about academic integrity. So, many faculty and students have figured it out and both [groups] are comfortable (UK7, Faculty Member, June 13, 2019). The practice of gifting is one of the legacies of the previous regime that has been transferred, maintained, and even strengthened. It is another tool to legitimate the power of the government

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that is declining with its corruption, instability and lack of services. During the previous regime, some students used to receive marks on top of their GPA for their kinship to military personnel or war martyrs. This practice has been maintained, particularly with consecutive governments since 2003. The maintaining of such a culture reveals that the dramatic changes brought by the

2003 invasion are not conveying the gradual modernization and systemic and cultural readiness for new educational transfer or borrowing. Also, this sustained gifting culture, coupled with political corruption, has redistributed power among administrators, academics and students and faculty members have lost their agency to enforce academic policies and teaching standards, and even to propose any positive change.

Many participants stressed that if an international university followed the same rules and regulations of the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, it would have no value and would succumb to failure. By contrast, following international university standards of quality meant availability of expertise, resources for research, more support for students and academic staff, availability of labs, and following a different curriculum. The rules and regulations of the international university also cover admission requirements and policies in assessing students’ performance. The curriculum is another important differentiating dimension of quality which participants associated with western university standards and regulations.

The Purely Academic Institution

A final ideal quality that participants in my research added as an exportable element of an international university is being ‘purely academic’; according to this ideal, the international university will not engage in any political or social change activities. Most participants have an expectation that an international university is also more limited in its mission, offering only scientific and academic programs without engaging in debates about politics and social 159

problems. In the words of a faculty member from an engineering department, “they will confine themselves to science and academic aspects”. (UB8, Faculty Member, December 3, 2017)

In practice, the interference of the political parties promoting religious or sectarian agendas brings some non-academic activities to the culture of the university such as the Celebration of .

Muharam14, display religious figures in the official offices at the Ministry and other educational institutions. and expecting that international university should turn completely away from these non-academic, sectarian oriented activities.

To this point, I have not reported participants raising any concern about any potential risk of exporting an international university. However, I did find one faculty member from the

University of Kufa who has a concern about establishing universities with a hidden political agenda under the attractive title of ‘international university’. He worried particularly about universities coming from regions like Iran and Saudi Arabia. In his words,

We are so creative in confusing things. Broadly, we want a partnership with an American university, but the reality may be a partnership with Al Mustafa University, an Islamic university, Abdul Aziz University. This may transfer and consolidate their extremism to us. Unfortunately, some people are ignorant and they think for example, if I bring Abdul Aziz university to Anbar, this is a big victory for the Sunni sect. Similarly, if we bring Al Mustafa University to Najaf, [they are not] aware that these universities will plant ticking bombs in the country. (UK1, Faculty Member, December 13, 2017)

By contrast, this faculty member didn’t believe that western or especially American universities would be ‘ticking bombs’ in Iraq nor would they have a political agenda.

14 Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar and one of the fourth sacred months of the year. The tenth day of Muharram is known as the Day of Ashura, better known as part of the Mourning of Muharram. Muslims, especially Shiite, mourn the martyrdom of Husain bin Ali (grandson of Prophet Mohammad), and his family. Since 2003, mourning rituals have been overtly practiced, even in some official institutions. 160

5.3 Summary

In the words of Steiner-Khamsi, the “study of educational transfer has a political, as well as an economic, dimension” (2010, p. 324). The analysis in this chapter shows that both dimensions are associated with the idea of exporting a foreign university to Iraq. Decision makers at the

Ministry level use discourses that ‘scandalize’ the public higher education sector to legitimate the idea of importing an international university as a reputable private institution. Private, foreign, and prestigious imported universities are presented as a rational problem-solving way to address this problem. When the public sector is resistant to change, a foreign university becomes the best solution. So, in this case, the attraction to the international university fits the policy agenda of privatization and is part of a gradual change to the social contract between the state and its citizens.

‘Interpretation’ is one of the ‘filters’ through which perceptions of a borrowed practice pass and become transformed. Ochs calls it “the different ways in which individuals and organizations will understand an educational phenomenon” (Ochs, 2006, p. 610). In this chapter,

I demonstrate how participants see the degraded reputation of higher education in post-2003 Iraq.

I showed how agency was significant in how Iraqi academics and university leaders interpreted and glorified (or idealized) the promise of an imported university. Through the process of idealization, the reception of imported universities from the perspective of some faculty members and administrators has virtually filtered out any potential risk (cultural, political or social) that such a university model might bring, or any challenges it might face. In the words of a consultant at the Ministry: “There is no harm if Americans come here, or Canadian, or

Australian universities come here, whatever” (M5, Consultant, June 10, 2018). Consistent with the policy borrowing literature, academics and administrators, even though they are not decision

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makers in the borrowing process, have ‘deterritorialized’ and already drawn on broadly defined practices of western universities (Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012). This de-territorializing from the part of the state or Ministry personnel is indicative that borrowing this university model is less about the need to establish a new university with a set of ideal dimensions that are urgently needed in post-2003 Iraq, such as liberal education and critical thinking, but rather these exact ideal dimensions were used to legitimate a bigger plan to reform Iraqi HE toward more privatization and a gradual cultural change over what role the state can play in Iraqi higher education after 2003. By contrast, faculty members in their reflection about the importance of establishing foreign universities in Iraq are pinpointing dominant political, economic, and educational crises in Iraq. Also, it is a projection of the fact that Iraqi public universities being perceived as ‘ill’, collapsed, illegitimate and unable to play their social and economic role in the development of post-2003 Iraq.

Some participants are aware of privatization efforts, and a few of them have realized that the welfare system of the state is blocking competition and improvements in higher education institutions. The idea of establishing a foreign university in Iraq, from the perspective of academics, reflects a necessary break with the Ministry. Academics in my study believe that an imported university can be established in Iraq without any risk of interference from other institutions and political agendas, as prevails in the public universities. The human factor appears to be a strategic dimension to any international university, as it is confronted with political affiliation or favoritism as a hiring criterion. It appears to be a kind of a modern institution that has the potential to reform higher education in Iraq in its ideal configurations in terms of content, organization, and culture.

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The post-conflict situation thus appears to exhibit a fragmented structure of governance in which influences of various institutions and actors overlap. This kind of fragmentation affects all sectors including higher education. Thus, reforms in this context are challenging and make borrowing from outside appear more reliable, trusted, and risk-free. This raises another question: how is this ideal university to survive in a less than ideal environment? The next two chapters aim to answer this question.

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Chapter 6 : Establishing American-style Universities in Iraq: Historical Comparisons and Current Rationales

This college is for all conditions and classes of men without regard to color, nationality, race or religion. A man, white, black, or yellow, Christian, Jew, Mohammedan or heathen, may enter and enjoy all the advantages of this institution for three, four or eight years; and go out believing in one God, in many gods, or in no God. (Daniel Bliss–AUB founder, December 7, 1871, cited on the AUB website)

After the 2003 invasion, the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and the international community argued that a modern education system is crucial for post-conflict Iraq to develop highly qualified talent capable of building the new democratic society of Iraq (Government of Iraq,

2012; UNESCO, 2003). To that end, three American-style universities were established in Iraq:

The American University of Iraq-Sulaimani (AUIS) in 2007, the American University of

Kurdistan (AUK) in Duhok in 2014, and the American University of Iraq-Baghdad (AUIB) in

2018.

When the first board of trustees of AUIS made the decision to establish an American university in Iraq and it was approved by the Government of Kurdistan, they chose Sulaimani, not Baghdad, as the city for the first American university in the country, mainly for security reasons (Wong, 2007). In the New York Times, Wong (2007). This was also confirmed by a few of my participants; some officials from Central Iraq have argued that the university should be built in “Baghdad, not in a part of Iraq where secessionist ambitions are well known.” After witnessing some stability, in March, 2017 the US Ambassador to Iraq and Iraq's Higher

Education Minister agreed to take steps to open another American university in the capital

(Rudaw, 2018). Baghdad has selected Al Faw Palace as the location for AUIB, a facility originally built by Saddam Hussein, and then used by the U.S.-led coalition as a camp following the invasion. On December 2, 2020, AUIB started the admission of its first cohort.

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The American University of Iraq-Sulaimani (AUIS) and the American University of Iraq-

Baghdad (AUIB) model followed the well-known American liberal arts institutions in the Middle

East such as the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the American University in Cairo

(AUC). The profound effect the latter American-style universities have had in the formation of the elites of their respective countries and of the broader region is well known (Ghabra &

Arnold, 2007). They have also proved pivotal in introducing and strengthening habits of critical thinking, which underpin responsible citizenship as well as economic development (Ghabra &

Arnold, 2007). Such qualities are especially desired in war-ravaged countries such as Iraq.

In this chapter, I use cross-national attraction, the first stage in the policy borrowing framework (Phillips & Ochs, 2004), to explore how the two American universities of Iraq in

Sulaimani and Baghdad were established, what political opportunities sparked establishing them, the role of various external and internal actors, and what rationales were used by their founders and other actors to advocate for establishing these two universities. I map out the identified rationales with the traditional rationales of internationalization in higher education presented in the literature: political, social/cultural, educational, economic, and reputational. This process serves the two objectives of this chapter. First, the approach allows me to examine how and why these four traditional rationales vary between the two American universities of Iraq in Sulaimani and Baghdad. Second, the comparisons show how the rationales of these two universities compare to the American University of Beirut, as a historical reference model.

The first part of my analysis detailed in this chapter shows that the rationales for establishing AUIS and AUIB in post-2003 Iraq differ by how each was funded and politically and financially supported. The rationales for establishing AUIS were framed by its founder

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around peace and social cohesion, developing the political elite of the future, and a likely preparation for the Kurdistan Region to become a state independent from Central Iraq. By comparison, the rationales for establishing AUIB were framed around reviving the tradition of excellence and greatness of Iraq, and revolutionizing public higher education. Further, the analysis presented here shows that AUIB is part of the policy direction of the Iraqi Ministry of higher education to strengthen the role of the private sector in higher education. From the investor’s perspective, it is a philanthropic project that implies an economic rationale. Finally, the analysis in this chapter showcase the rationales of peace and social cohesion, leadership, the transition to democracy, and serving as a catalyst for positive change after conflict. These all serve American public diplomacy objectives and their influence in post-2003 Iraq. Compared to

AUB, as a role model for the young universities, the founders of AUIS and AUIB borrowed similar political rationales of peace, social cohesion, unity of Iraq, and leadership. Such rationales facilitate financial and political support locally and internationally. Other rationales such as civilizational and cross-cultural enlightenment missions that were used by the missionary founder of AUB more than a century ago were also used by some of the American actors at the two young universities.

The chapter consists of four sections. The first section provides a brief discussion of the influence of American missionary education in Iraq and Lebanon and the American liberal arts universities in societies that have lived through conflict and dramatic change. The second section provides a comparative description of the context of the three American liberal arts universities included in my study, while the third section provides a comparative analysis of the rationales for adopting an American liberal arts university in post-conflict Iraq. The fourth section discusses how the new American universities of Iraq serve the public diplomacy objectives of the

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American government in Iraq and the region. The chapter ends with a summary and a brief discussion.

6.1 American Missionary Education in Iraq

American-style education is not new to Iraq. In 1932, the Iraqi government of the newly independent state granted permission for American Jesuits from New England to establish the first private American high school for boys in Baghdad. It was originally named Baghdad

College High School and later became Al-Hikma University (B. Dodge, 1972; MacDonnel,

2003). Teaching and learning at this school was based on understanding, analyzing, and critical thinking through differentiated instruction, effective pedagogy, and additional curricula. The quality of instruction and the atmosphere in the institution were so excellent that in 1956 the government gave the Jesuits 168 acres to serve as a campus for Al-Hikmah University (1966-

1969) as a private institution. Once the Ba’ath Arab Socialist Party seized power in 1969, Al-

Hikmah University was nationalized and replaced by what was renamed the University of

Baghdad. A few years after the establishment of Baghdad College, Iraqi Catholic nuns had also established their private elementary, middle, and high schools in Baghdad. Though these schools followed official curricula, they focused on English as a second language, teaching English from kindergarten on. In contrast, English in public schools usually started and still starts, in fifth grade. These schools, together with other “good state schools” in Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra, provided Iraqi universities with a new influx of qualified and talented high school graduates

(Mohammed-Marzouk, 2012).

The Jesuits' reputation for academic rigour attracted many of Baghdad's prominent families, which made Baghdad College one of the elite schools for boys from grades 7 to 12; it has graduated countless alumni, professionals, and intellectuals now working all over the world. 167

The College was established during an era that Shadid (2011) describes as a time when the

American presence in Iraq was marked by cultural, educational, and not military action.

Similarly, Abdul-Jabbar has stated:

It was a time of innocence when the United States had not yet lost the 'respect’, one is tempted to say the "love," others have felt toward America [and which] has been traditionally one of the country's most valuable assets ( 2017, p. 198).

Founders and teachers at Baghdad College historically showed a sentimental attitude towards

American-style education that has persisted in modern times (Abdul-Jabbar, 2017). Abdul-Jabar argues that the “fascination with all things American/Western has never lost its influence over the Arab intellectual landscape even today” (p.199). This ‘fascination’ also reflects the power these missionaries had exerted through education and the accepted legitimacy of American universities in the region. At that time, Britain was the predominant political and military power in Iraq, and therefore, the Americans were not the primary target in local efforts to resist foreign intervention (Alhassani, 2014). Nevertheless, when Baghdad College was operative, some resistance towards Western practices existed as well (Abdul-Jabbar, 2017). Alhassani (2014) points to three characteristics of missionary activities and schools in Iraq, as in other foreign cities. They involved Christian missions, colonization, and imperialism. As Makdisi notes, missionaries borrowed and built on certain imperial structures without the burden of colonial attachments (1997). Similarly, Abdul-Jabar (2017) argues that the Jesuit quest to establish

Baghdad College was not only educational, but part of a so-called “civilizing” endeavor intended to help the Christian community in Iraq. However, Baghdad College was a site of American influence in and around Baghdad.

Although the goal of these missionary schools was defeated by powerful nationalist movements in the Arab world, their cultural dimensions continue to emerge. Critics maintain that 168

Baghdad College is regarded as superior only because it was founded by “American Fathers”, a situation that “is a kind of a psychological subordination” (Abdul-Jabbar, 2017, p. 2020). This is consistent with Swanson’s (2004) arguments that traditional missionary discourse, and especially the early missionaries’ methods and attitudes, were a form of Orientalism that particularly reflects the dualism and power imbalance between the west and east. Makdisi (1997) agrees that both Protestant missionaries and European colonial administrators thought of themselves as representative of modernity within the boundary of the civilized and Christian world. As such, they wanted to instill Western values via education. In this sense, “Baghdad College seems to represent this tendency to present an image of the West as superior and therefore, desirable”

(Abdul-Jabbar, 2017, p. 200). Some scholars have even noted that the American imprint on the

Middle East, before the Second World War, was largely a product of its private educational, missionary and humanitarian activities, and that its commercial contacts and interests in petroleum were only secondary (Ment, 2011).

Calls to protect Iraqi/Arab domestic spheres and culture from modern or Western decadence did emerge, but not primarily in response to colonial policy or any other practice of a

Western state, either during or after the British mandate (Bashkin, 2008). Iraqi national elites were profoundly immersed in western culture—especially Iraqi bureaucrats, policymakers, and intellectuals (Bashkin, 2008). However, the expulsion of the Jesuits and other foreign institutions from Iraq in 1969 suggests that this resistance to the colonization has always loomed large.

Further, as MacDonnell explains:

Each succeeding government studied the question of 'foreign' schools … until the traumatic crisis of June, 1967… [when] the wave of anti-American feeling reached new intensity because of the United States’ stance in the area. (MacDonnell, 1994, p. xvii).

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The Ba’ath Arab Socialist Party seized power in 1969 and the Ba’athist Government nationalized

Baghdad College High School in 1970. Gradually, the government established a new political agenda to convert the educational system into a major instrument to promote the ideology of the

Ba’ath party, as discussed in Chapter1 (Mohammed-Marzouk, 2012).

Similarly, universities originating as missions, including AUB, were clearly a soft power tool for proselytization (Bertelsen, 2012, 2014), or specifically what Bertelsen has defined as

"undescribed reverse university soft power" (2012, p. 283). These universities were advocating

Middle Eastern interests and raising moral, political, and financial support for education, healthcare, and development in the region. Since the 1950s, it has been argued that the U.S. has pursued national soft power through AUB (Long, 2018) in terms of explicit goals of promoting

Western education, language, and liberal norms among elites. But Bertelsen (2012) insists that these universities have not contributed to national soft power regarding the acceptance of unpopular foreign policies in the Middle East, since this was also not a university or government goal; rather, they were established as a tool to bring peace and unity to people in the region.

Of special interest in this story is the American University of Beirut (AUB), which is one of the oldest American-style universities in the Middle East. AUB opened its doors in the aftermath of a vicious 1860 sectarian war between the Christian Maronite and Muslim Druze populations in the Bekaa Valley and Mount Lebanon (Dorman, 2017). AUB was founded by

American missionaries in 1866 as the Syrian Protestant College (SPC), one of the many activities of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). The

ABCFM sent missionaries to various parts of the globe for the purposes of conversion, including the Levantine province of the Ottoman Empire. Drawing few converts to the faith after decades

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of effort in Beirut, the founder of AUB, Daniel Bliss, saw an opportunity to open a western college in Lebanon (Anderson, 2012). Bliss wanted to change Middle Eastern society from within through education, rather than making an exogenous imposition through politics. Bliss predicted AUB would be an educational landmark: "If the institution is favored of God and of man it shall be the Amherst or the Yale of the Orient" (cited in VanDeMark, 2012, p. 41). AUB was presented by its founder as a tool for cross-cultural enlightenment and coexistence

(VanDeMark, 2012) and part of a “civilizing” mission to change Middle Eastern society where proselytization had failed. The university shed its formal Protestant affiliation in 1920, when it assumed its present name (American University of Beirut), embracing a nonsectarian character and admitting female students a few years later. AUB has been a consistent source of attraction for international observers since its creation despite its association with missionary activity and the soft power of the U.S. Although AUB has changed since its creation, it is still a role model in the region, and most young independent American universities have followed its model and have the ambition to be the next AUB in their respective societies.

Indeed, over the past 30 years, more than a dozen American liberal arts universities, known also as independent American universities abroad, have been established in the Middle

East, many of them in the Arab Gulf States (Long, 2018; Purinton & Skaggs, 2017). Thus, despite the considerable opposition from Arab public opinion toward U.S. foreign policy across the Middle East, American-style universities are very popular and admired; they are widely believed to open the doors to a successful, productive, and prosperous future (Bertelsen, 2012;

Ghabra & Arnold, 2007; Waterbury, 2003). This respect for American universities stands in stark contrast to widespread dissatisfaction with the local higher education institutions in the region, consistent with my findings in the previous chapter.

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The founders of these independent institutions have come from diverse backgrounds.

They include accomplished local academics, ambitious entrepreneurs, visionary rulers and crown princes, politicians, and local investors. The common factor among them is admiration for

American higher education. In modern history, many new American liberal arts universities have been established in countries that have lived through the crisis of regime change or conflict, such as Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq. Various motives led the founders of these institutions to establish an American liberal arts university. For example, the founder of the

American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), Sharif Fayez, believed an American university would become a vital resource for strengthening national capacity amid armed conflict, and selected the American model to develop an institution that would meet international standards.

Further, Moulakis, the University's former Vice President and Chief Academic Officer, framed the rationales for establishing AUAF as “the prosperity and stability of Afghanistan” and “the security and prosperity of the rest of the world” (cited in Baehr, 2009, p. 9). The founders of the

American University in Kosovo and the American University in Bosnia and Herzegovina

(AUBiH), among others, hoped that the advent of an American university would stimulate change in other higher education institutions. The American University in Bulgaria (AUBG) was established in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, and its purpose was framed around the

Bulgarian desire for ‘democracy,’ which identifies the American ability to offer such education as important for a democracy. In other Central and Eastern European countries and the former

Soviet Union, liberal arts education was linked to the notion of enhancing the citizen's agency in the wake of the collapse of authoritarian regimes (Becker, 2015). It is interesting that the founders' backgrounds, distinctive impulses, and political opportunities led them to the same idea, which was to establish an American university with a liberal education philosophy.

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As discussed earlier, while religious conversion was used as an instrument of colonization and imperialism in the Middle East, Baghdad College was founded at a time when the political climate in Iraq was increasingly anti-British during the years just before World War

II. Thus, unlike Britain and France, the geopolitical presence of the United States at the time was considered negligible and the Jesuits' endeavor then appeared harmless, compared to the British agenda. However, with the current U.S. policy towards Iraq, this raises the question of what the rationales are for borrowing the American education model, and what roles will these two

American-style universities play in post-2003 Iraq? The anti-colonization and nationalist movements in the early ‘60s were so profound in Iraq that they led to the closing of missionary schools. Monroe, an American comparative educationalist, even argued that “it must be recognized that the past of Western education in Moslem lands is now a closed chapter” (cited in

Ment, 2011, p. 175). However, referring to Baghdad College, Dodge predicted that "perhaps some new change of policy will revive it again" (Dodge, 1972, p. 20). Will the context of post-

2003 and the American political interest in the region revive this kind of education in Iraq? I deal with these questions in the next sections.

6.2 Comparing the Context of the Three American Universities

The three universities included in my analysis have comparable features, including their location in a region with long histories of civilization, sectarian political system, diversity, and conflict.

On the other hand, the AUB has deep roots in Lebanon and the Middle East and celebrated its

150th anniversary in 2016. By contrast, AUIS and AUIB are young universities and are still struggling to establish roots in a region grappling with conflicts and political and economic instability. AUIS only celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2017 and AUIB just opened its doors in fall 2020.

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The main common factor among these three universities is their history; they are all located in a region known for its cultural heritage as a cradle of civilization. Lebanon and Iraq are notable for their diversity of religions and ethnicities, and political and religious conflicts, which also mark the Middle East as a whole—past, present, and future. Government institutions in both countries are often weaker than other actors, including religiously-affiliated paramilitary forces. In Lebanon, the Shiite group Hezbollah is probably the best-known of these organizations

(Watenpaugh et al., 2014). Similarly, in Iraq, many Shiite groups such as the Popular

Mobilization Forces (Al Hashed al sha’abi) supported by Iran-backed militias, have more power than the state, and are perceived as powerful states inside a state. All three universities were established after a dramatic change in their respective regions. As the power of the Ottomans was weakening, European influence and interference in the area were growing. At that time, Lebanon became an autonomous province that formally remained part of the Ottoman Empire. In reality, it had become a protectorate of the rival European powers, particularly France. Lebanon's new status as a European protectorate within the Ottoman Empire brought a surge of Western influence and prosperity. European merchants, travelers, teachers, and missionaries flooded into

Beirut. Eventually, Beirut transformed itself, tilting toward the West as it had long ago during

Phoenician, Roman, and Byzantine times (VanDeMark, 2012, p. 40). This transformation dramatically altered the population of the city. A large new influx of Maronites and Orthodox

Greeks and some Sunni Muslims created a growing demand for Western-style education for all disciplines. Although establishing AUB can be seen as a colonial impulse planting a Protestant institution in a Muslim country, the environment at that time encouraged Daniel Bliss–the AUB founder–to establish a western-style missionary college, nominally open to all Middle Eastern races and creeds, but run according to New England's best standards. In his words, the institution

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was established to provide a practical and liberal education: "a college that shall be a great and lasting benefit to Arab lands" (cited in VanDeMark, 2012, p. 41).

In Iraq, the collapse of the authoritarian Ba'ath party and the overthrow of Saddam

Hussain after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion have created another opportunity to transfer American- style education to Iraq. Supported by the new diplomatic relations established between Iraq and the U.S. after 2003 (as discussed in Chapter 4), AUIS was established, followed by AUK, then

AUIB. Lebanon's higher education system was founded by religious missionaries and remains highly fragmented along sectarian and religious lines to this day (El-Ghali, 2010). The civil wars and conflicts in both Lebanon and Iraq gave rise to universities that did not exist before, including many private and religiously-affiliated institutions (Bashshur, 2006, cited in Buckner,

2011, p. 22). This high level of fragmentation and privatization has shaped Lebanon's system of private and decentralized higher education (Buckner, 2011). The Iraqi system of higher education, both public and private, is still under the Ministry’s centralized control.

AUB and the two American universities of Iraq exist in two countries with long histories of internal and external disturbances for their respective peoples. Since AUB’s founding in 1866, conflicts have long been part of Lebanese history, and it has witnessed all of them. The Lebanese civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990 threatened the very existence of the AUB. Similarly, in

Iraq, the Kurdistan Region still fights to survive the atrocities perpetrated in the Anfal genocide15 in 1988 against Kurds, and the tragedies of wars and internal conflicts that have defined the

15 From February to September, 1988, Iraqi Kurds were subjected to a genocidal operation known as the Anfal operation by the Iraqi government. It lasted just over seven months but had a devastating impact on most parts of rural Kurdistan in Iraq, resulting in the killing of thousands of Kurdish civilians. (Kirmanj & Rafaat, 2020) 175

region for a long time. The most recent regional emergency involves the Syrian war and the extremist terror group ISIS that has created a continuing refugee crisis. From day one of its birth,

AUIB has struggled to launch its programs. It was impacted by the emergence of the Youth

Revolution in October, 2019 when thousands of young Iraqis, most of them university and school students, protested against the corrupt government and demanded basic needs, jobs and decent lives. Thus, these three universities have all been established in a region where conflict has raged and at a time when sectarian divides and instability were at their highest. Both countries have struggled to increase the quality of their public and higher education since the end of the civil war in Lebanon and the 2003 invasion in Iraq. These recent incidents are illustrative of the sudden and unpredictable contexts that these three institutions have faced in a region torn by sectarian dispute, civil revolts, military invasion, and rivalries among regional powers.

6.3 The Rationales for Establishing AUIS and AUIB Compared to AUB

The next two sections discuss the rationales for establishing AUIS and AUIB. Table 8, found on page 181, summarizes and compares the rationales behind the establishments of the three

American-style universities in the Middle East along with their main characteristics. Below, I discuss these rationales starting with AUIS, followed by AUIB, in comparison with AUB.

AUIS: An Opportunity for Peace, Leadership, and Post-conflict Reconstruction

The American University of Iraq-Sulaimani (AUIS) was the first American-style university established in Kurdistan Iraq, located approximately 354 kilometers northeast of Baghdad and

112 kilometers west of the Iranian border. AUIS started with a small campus in the heart of

Sulaimani before it moved to its new 169-hectare campus atop a hill overlooking the city of

Sulaimani. On the other side of the street, the University of Sulaimani, the largest public university in the Kurdistan region, faces AUIS. Compared to other cities in the Kurdistan Region 176

and Central Iraq, Sulaimani is known for its liberal society, peaceful environment and tolerant culture, which was one of the reasons that Sulaimini was chosen for the first American university in post-2003 Iraq. The other important reason for selecting Sulaimani was the pro-American attitude of people in the Kurdistan Region, who welcomed American troops as liberators, while anti-American anger had emerged in many cities in Central Iraq.

AUIS was founded by Dr. Barham Salih, a former prime minister of Kurdistan, former deputy minister of Iraq, and an elected president of Iraq since 2018. Being himself a graduate of a

British university, Salih was attracted to establishing a Western-style university equivalent in its quality to prestigious American universities in Beirut and Cairo and ‘dreamed’ of transferring this university model to the Kurdistan Region. He was quoted in The Chronicle of Higher

Education as saying: "I often wondered why Iraqis and my Kurdish compatriots could not have access to the type of education that I had" (Krieger, 2007; para. 3).

The Kurdistan Regional Government has supported AUIS politically and financially by donating the land and money to start up the University. Many powerful people in Sulaimani and Kurdistan and the business community in the region have also helped and donated generously. A common factor among most of the new American-style universities is the cross-national attraction of their founders to AUB and other similar universities in the region emerging as an attempt to emulate their success. As shown in Table 8, the rationales or the externalizing potentials for establishing

AUIS in post-conflict Iraq, specifically in Kurdistan Region, were framed by its founder around peace, unity and transition to democracy, leadership, and a catalyst for post-conflict reform.

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Peace, Unity, and Transition to Democracy

Established amidst conflict, AUIS is seen by its founder and supporting team as an instrument for peace and social cohesion. Moulakis, the president of AUIS between 2010 and

2014, stated that peace and unity have been the rationale for numerous American universities abroad, including AUIS (Moulakis, 2011), and echoing Bliss’s rationale more than 150 years ago, Salih, the AUIS founder, was quoted in Krieger (2007, para.7):

I don't want this to be an ethnic project…. I need educated Arabs, Turkmen, and Kurds who can be molded into sharing the values about tolerance, rule of law, and economic prosperity.

Salih argued that education is key to the future of the region. As he put it in a broadcast video,

"our part of the world need not be condemned to the cycle of instability, violence and bad governments" (AUIS official, 2016). In other words, Salih believes that the liberal arts component of the American-style university can cultivate tolerance, unity, and leadership among students.

He was quoted in Long’s thesis as framing AUIS as a "resource for unifying the country's ethnic and sectarian divisions by using a practical liberal arts curriculum to cultivate tolerant leaders for a burgeoning, pluralist democracy" (2018, p. 172). Similarly, the current AUIS president identifies this rationale, emphasizing that the national accreditation from the Ministry of Higher Education in Central Iraq also lists unity as a rationale. He noted this in a comment:

We get accredited from Baghdad. We worked for six years and for that we were recognized in February. Within six months, six other universities got recognized in Baghdad. The reason this is important is that it lets us accept students from outside Kurdistan and bring them to the region. This helps connect the country. (AUIS12, Administrator, November 20, 2017)

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The unity rationale is also emphasized by including ‘Iraq’ in the university name. A former

American administrator at AUIS emphasized the national status of AUIS. He stated:

We are the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. We are not the American University of Kurdistan, Sulaimani because we aspire to be a national university. We want a student body that reflects the country of Iraq and not the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan…. That means that Iraq will stay in the name of the university. (Long, 2013)

Being a university of Iraq and not of Kurdistan was a critical aspect for AUIS, particularly

during the early stages of its establishment. Including ‘Iraq’ in the title gives the rationales of

leadership, peace, and social cohesion more validity and legitimacy for financial and political

support locally, regionally and internationally from the U.S. government, and to be aligned with

the 2003 invasion agenda of liberating Iraq as a united country.

Table 8: Key Rationales for Establishing American Universities in Post-conflict Societies American Founder Political Traditional Rationale Motivation / framing Style Context Rationales University AUB Foreign Collapse of Political - peace and unity Promoting a context of Missionary Ottoman - soft power respectful coexistence, and Empire; enlightenment conflict AUIS Local The fall of Political - peace, social Serving as a resource for Politician Ba’ath cohesion, and unifying the country’s regime; transition to ethnic and sectarian 2003- democracy divisions, and producing the conflict - leadership leaders of the future; as well - post-conflict as meeting the standard of reform the international university - independence community. Educational - reforming Iraqi Offer different education public higher education AUIB Local The fall of Political - peace and social Serving as a resource for investor Ba’ath cohesion unifying the country’s regime; - transition to ethnic and sectarian 2003- democracy divisions conflict; - post-conflict sectarianism reform 179

Social/cultural - reviving Reviving Baghdad's history Baghdad history Educational - reforming Iraqi Revolutionizing Iraqi higher public higher education; providing a education template for an exemplary university Economic - privatization Philanthropy - investment Reputational Serving as an Availability of different alternative to low types of education quality, profit- oriented private universities

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Leadership

The AUIS founder’s rationales were also repeated by many participants in my study who confirmed that the mission of the AUIS was to provide high-quality American education in

English that helps develop students' critical reasoning skills so they can be leaders in today's and tomorrow's society. “You really need to develop the political elite of the future, the educated elite of the future,” Salih declared, as quoted in Wong (2017, para.6). This new rationale of developing leadership forming Iraq character resonates with the more traditional rationale of supporting citizenship and social cohesion proposed by the AUIS founder and its successive presidents. They evoke similar rationales given by the AUB founder more than 150 years ago.

Such themes have clearly been retained from AUB’s missionary origins and have become attractive to many politicians, investors, and decision makers who see the potential in American- style universities. The leadership hope is also expected by many participants in this study to bring a good reputation to the region as other institutions may imitate this American-style university model. This view was presented in this comment by an AUIS administrator who recalled:

I grew up in a certain village, my children are going to grow in that village. They’re not going to experience the same experience; things change. And I think education is key to this change. So, this model is not here to affect the political system, or to affect anything else. The model is here to make a difference in the life of individual students, and to make individual students educated. If this model produces a Nobel prize holder one day, that is something we will be proud of, and lots of liberal arts systems have produced people like that. (AUIS11, Administrator, November 11, 2017)

Similar to the peace and unity rationales, producing the leaders of the future positioned AUIS not as an imported university, but rather one that emphasizes its local nationality.

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Catalyst for Post-conflict Reform and Independence

As shown in Table 8, another rationale for establishing AUIS was the expectation that it would be a catalyst for positive change in post-2003 Iraq—at the very least working to establish a university model that would contribute to the reconstruction of Iraqi higher education and an economy impacted by war. Observations about the context of war, destruction, and the declining quality of Iraqi higher education compared to its reputation prior to these conflicts were made by many of my participants. An administrator at AUIS reflected on this rationale:

The education system in Iraq has been affected a lot by the war. I hear that in the seventies, education in Iraq was very strong and Iraq was producing excellent academics and excellent graduates. Then Iraq went through several wars and the education system has suffered. I think the model used here is the British model, but it’s not just the British model, it’s the classical British model. Here [in Sulaimni] they respected who we are and what we do. We are bringing something new, healthy, and positive. (AUIS 11, Administrator, November 19, 2017)

To facilitate the post-conflict reform, some administrators and faculty members argued that the rationale for establishing AUIS, specifically in the Kurdistan Region, is to support 'catching up' to recent development happening in the rest of the world. As a faculty member from the U.S. argued:

They are trying to catch up. They are really a developing world in the sense they want to catch up with what is modern everywhere else. So, they think of American and European education.... [AUIS is] here to bring the modern world (AUIS5, Faculty Member, November 11, 2017).

Although theorists are critical of discourses of modernization and enlightenment, they were used by a few American participants as part of making post-conflict reform an implied rationale for establishing AUIS in Kurdistan Region. A second American commented:

We're trying to bring up contemporary ideas of what’s going on, get [students] talking about contemporary things, maybe in ways they likely wouldn't outside, where I think still the culture breeds a black and white mentality, 100 percent of this or 100 percent of 182

that. There's nothing in between. And that's one of the things that I really like to see change, when I see that I think, OK we've done a good job on this person or that person. (AUIS10, Faculty member, November 11, 2017)

Implied in the post-conflict reform rationale is a gradual cultural change away from dependence on the state to provide free education and guarantee jobs in the public sector after graduation.

This reflects the fact that the Kurdistan region of Iraq is moving from a socialist society to one much more market-oriented. An American administrator argues:

The university vision as expressed by AUIS’ founder is to develop in the long run a "critical mass" who are able to make effective change, [and to] let that come from the bottom and from Kurds themselves, so that people will be able to say that they don't need their government to give them jobs, in that culture and civilization started here. (AUIS6, Administrator, November 19, 2017)

The above quote also evokes educating people in Iraq and creating a civilized community through enlightenment–a civilizing mission rationale that has survived since Bliss’s time with the conflict being a context in both eras.

Although the university is named the American University of Iraq, on many occasions,

Salih positioned AUIS as an instrument central to a new era of the Kurdistan Region. It would move beyond, yet learn from, the histories, tragedies and atrocities of war and conflict that the

Kurdistan region had gone through. “We can be so different in the future,” Salih has envisioned

(Salih, 2014). AUIS and other public and private higher education institutions are thus part of the strategic plans for the Kurdistan region to reform its HE sector and to be more independent from

Central Iraq. The founding of AUIS occurred at a time that was critical in the Kurdistan Region’s history and when unity of Iraq was doubtful. The post-conflict era has been transformative for the region. This period opened up both possibilities and challenges for the Kurdistan Region, which initially perceived the dissolution of the Ba'ath Party as an opportunity for independence.

Yet, the tension with the Central government as well as the emergence of ISIS, and the 2017 183

referendum also posed daunting challenges to the university. These included its not-for-profit status, and rejection of being a university only for the elite, and instead one of the new models in

Kurdistan HE. AUIS is not the only western-style university in the Kurdistan Region, and in the long term, it could become part of long-term planning by politicians for the region to be independent from the federal government in its own state.

AUIB: An Opportunity to Revive Baghdad's Intellectual History

According to Iraq Business News, the permission to build an American University in Baghdad as a foreign investment was issued by the Baghdad Council in 2011 (Iraq Business News, 2011).

The founding president of AUIB also claimed that the idea to establish an American university in

Baghdad “came from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad…. However, it took this long because there was concern about the safety of the project and the safety of the people.” (AUIB1, Administrator,

April 20, 2018). The founding president of the American University of Kurdistan in Duhok in the Kurdistan Region, Dr. Michael Mulnix, was selected by the U.S embassy in Baghdad to be the founding president of the first American University in Baghdad. The campus was estimated to cost USD $245 million with a capacity for 30,000 students. The AUIB campus is part of a massive project to establish a comprehensive and integrated community that includes schools, five-star hotels, and a teaching hospital. The government paid the 50-year lease of the land and gave Al Faw Palace, known as the Water Palace, to be the AUIB campus.16

16 A few official national newspapers published news that the Parliamentary Economic and Investment Committee had revealed details of a corrupt deal behind the American University project in Baghdad. Newspapers said that the former prime minister had directly pressured the Investment Authority to grant approvals to a Gulf company. Further, it granted an area of 100 hectares in the heart of the capital, along with four presidential palaces, to establish the American University in Baghdad. (Almuraqeb-aliraqi, 2019; Alzawraapaper, 2019) 184

During my fieldwork in Iraq during December 2017, the doors of AUIB had not opened yet and there were few announcements about it by the Ministry of Higher Education. Many participants had no idea about the plan to establish an American university in Baghdad. AUIB was established amidst much change and a redistribution of power that affected how the rationales of the university were framed and how it was supported. The money used to establish

AUIB was linked either to the pervasive corruption among Iraqi politicians and powerful people, or to working with the Americans. These controversies in post-2003 Iraq could explain why the

AUIB investor’s name was not revealed to the public17 and may have affected how the rationales for the university were framed, and how it was supported. Unlike the founder of AUIS, who formed a political and academic alliance to raise support and funding for the university, AUIB was established from local investment by an extremely wealthy Iraqi family. This critical issue has affected the marketing campaigns of the university, as described by an administrator at

AUIB who stated:

We don't have a real media campaign to raise awareness yet. And part of that is that the donors are a very wealthy family. I am not going to tell you their name, because they don't want any publicity on this. I admire them for that. Normally university donors name a building after them, stuff like that. But this family is very wealthy; they have made tons of money since the fall of the Saddam Regime and they made it honestly. It is not corrupt money. They believe that an American university will do more good for Iraq, more than anything else they could do right now. (AUIB1, Administrator, December 13, 2019)

17 Some social media channels have unveiled the family name and linked it with a corrupt government and electricity project, the most corrupt file of Iraqi government since 2003. On the other hand, the investor, according to two administrators from AUIB, has noble interests in funding this project. Also, it is important to mention that there was no official document that revealed their lease of the Water Palace to AUIB. However, leasing or selling the state’s properties for very low prices or their takeover by political parties has been linked to government corruption.

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As presented in Table 8, the rationales or the externalizing potentials for establishing an

American-style university in Baghdad were framed by its various actors around peace, unity and transition to democracy, reviving Baghdad’s history, post-conflict reform, rebuilding Iraqi higher education, and providing the best possible alternative to local private universities for students. I discuss these rationales in the next sections.

Peace, Unity, and Transition to Democracy

As discussed in Chapter 5, the former Minister of HE in Central Iraq believed that an international university, specifically an American university, would offer a type of education that cannot be offered in a 'non-American college'. Similar to AUIS’ founder, the former Minister used a unity-of-faiths agenda to justify the need for an American university in Central Iraq. As he put it:

We want it to be a place where Arabs and Kurds, Muslims and Christians, Shias and Sunnis can study together in peace. To paraphrase the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., we want a university where all students are judged by the content of their character and not the language they speak or the way they pray. (Al Adeeb, 2013, para. 13)

Al-Adeeb links the American university with the notion of enhancing citizens' agency in the wake of the collapse of the previous authoritarian regime. As noted, his goals including respecting Iraq's diversity on campus, and understanding and embracing the ancient history of

Iraq.

Reviving Baghdad’s History

AUIB promotes itself as a world-class institution aiming to have a “transformative impact on Iraq, the Middle East and beyond” through exceptional academic programs, research, and entrepreneurship. According to the university website, the purpose of the university is to provide a high-quality education that 'revolutionizes’ the education and higher education system in Iraq. 186

The university aims to “bring back the history of Baghdad” as a centre of intellectual thought and international knowledge, and pave the way for a complete revival "reminiscent of the days when the city was an educational and cultural mecca and the flourishing capital of the Muslim world"

(AUIB, n.d.). AUIB packaged the rationales for its establishment around reviving the reputation of Baghdad as a center of intellectual culture, and reviving the history of the Islamic renaissance.

The founding president stated:

As you know, Baghdad used to be such an incredibly intellectual centre. It has been for a century. The House of Wisdom was there and all these things. It used to command as high respect as an intellectual centre as anywhere else. So, the hope is that this university will start the cultural revolution and cultural revival of Baghdad. (AUIB1, Administrator Founding president, 29 July, 2018)

These rationales are expected to bring a positive impact on society through the commitment to cultural and religious tolerance, as opposed to the sectarian divide that is prevalent in post-2003

Iraq.

Post-conflict Reform

Another layer of the revival of Baghdad's history is to revolutionize education, higher education, and the health care sectors in the ‘face of war’, ‘destruction’, and ‘horrible things’; these key words were used in the rationale for the American university to be established in

Baghdad in the post-conflict era. The AUIB founding president, in my interview with him, stated:

I've been told by everybody [that there are] two things we need most. We need everything, but we need two things the most—to transform, or revolutionize. This is the word that has been used—revolutionize K to12 education in Iraq and revolutionize health care in Iraq. It will take a long time. By the time all these students graduate from the college of education—which takes four years right there before they go out and work in the school system in Iraq…. It may take10-20 years, but it has to start somewhere. That is how we will really revolutionize the education system. Health care, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing. Nursing is critical. It is really in bad shape in Iraq; and medical care is not all 187

that great either…. We are going to have highest standards and curriculum…based on the U.S. model. (AUIB1, Administrator, 29 July, 2018)

The above quote reflects the consensus that Iraqi post-conflict reform is going to be based on the

American system. Other participants from AUIB, as well as AUIS, criticized the British education and health systems that have been adopted in Iraq for decades.

Similarly, Al-Adeeb, the former Minister of HE, framed the need for an American or international university around the revival of a collapsed public higher education. The previous system of higher education, he said, had been politicized by the previous authoritarian regime to indirectly legitimize their post-2003 changes. AUIB was also presented as an instrument for much-needed innovative change in Iraq’s higher education, which is based on borrowing and imitating a successful American-style university model. An administrator at AUIB summarized the voice of the investor and the Minister in the following statement:

I think everybody broadly agrees that change is needed. But how do you do it? What reforms do you institute? Where do we go to learn? How do we find examples? Here we are putting a good model right in front of them…and you know I think there is a broad understanding within both the political class and the larger society that higher education needs innovation. So, where do we get that innovation? Well let's have these American universities and let them function the American way. And let's see what we can learn from them. (AUIB1, Administrator, December 13, 2019).

Reputation Building and Providing a HE Alternative

The former Minister of Iraqi HE believes that AUIB and other imported universities could help to revive the reputation and the academic culture of higher education in Iraq, following years of deterioration and lost status. He stated:

We need international vision in our university so it can rise. You know of the destruction that happened in the 1990’s [because of the economic sanctions] and when faculty started to get bribes and engage in corruption. All the legacy of the previous regime happened in

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the 1990’s. With respect to internationalization, we have the American university. This is the first step in Baghdad (M6, Former Minister, personal communication, Feb 12, 2020)

The Minister expected that an American university would stimulate changes in other local universities, using a "weak student" metaphor to underscore how an American model could positively influence the weak status of public universities in Iraq:

When an American university comes with high standards to upgrade standards of teaching and education, when an American university comes with high standards, other universities will learn from it. When you bring a weak student near an excellent student, he gradually, step by step, will upgrade the performance of the weak student. (M6, Former Minister, personal communication, Feb 12, 2020)

As noted earlier, aligned with the decision to involve more private investment in higher education, local and foreign, the other implied rationale at the Ministry level is to support the privatization of higher education. Challenged by a lack of sufficient financial resources and various political and cultural forces, AUIB is seen as the best alternative to private universities.

The former Minister stated:

For the public university, we didn't have the funds. The improvements we have started in 2005 and 2007 all were stopped in 2014 when ISIS appeared and oil prices declined. So, since reforms and development in public universities were not realized, we have changed our direction toward opening prestigious private institutions. We have many private universities, but they are weak. (M6, Former Minister, personal communication, Feb 12, 2020).

With this statement, the former Minister also argued that a new American university could be the best alternative to the low-quality private sector that has mushroomed after 2003. The 2011-2020

National Strategy for Education and Higher Education sets out a comprehensive reform plan and lists opening international branch campuses and allowing for foreign investment in Iraq as two of the goals for increasing the sector's capacity (Government of Iraq, 2012).

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Although the university's role may transcend the vision of its founder, at the moment, for

AUIB, the vision of the investor, according to the founding president of AUIB, is "to just have an American university". As he stated:

They don't really have a vision. It is my vision…. They have a vision of an American University that goes as far as it goes. They don’t really know what that meant. And many people do it. A lot of people think American universities are all somehow related together. They are not. You can start one tomorrow...because you cannot trademark the name America. So, there are really good ones, and I can name these good ones. And there are terrible ones, really terrible ones…and they should really be closed, and they use the name “American.” The American University of Sharjah in a short period of 20 years is a world-ranked university. AUB is also world-class, and AUC is a world-class. (AUIB1, Administrator, 29 July, 2018)

In short, attracted to the American Universities in Sulaimani and Duhok in Northern Iraq, there was a huge interest by the Ministry in Central Iraq to renew interest in establishing an American university in the capital. Through the process of cross-national attraction, some visits were paid to AUB and AUIS by the Ministry of HE in Central Iraq with a few prospective investors.

However, the aim was not to learn from the experiment of AUIS and take it back to the HE in

Central Iraq to reform the HE system, as a few participants from AUIS have confirmed. Rather the main rationale was "We want an American university in Baghdad, so how do we do it?"

(AUIS9, Faculty Member, November 11, 2017). The concepts of not-for-profit and liberal education were not completely comprehensible or attractive to many investors. Nevertheless, the decision to establish an American university seems to be considered necessary to shift from occupation to soft power and a new phase of Iraq-U.S. relationships. The former Minister was in a hurry to establish AUIB during his term at the Ministry, as he said in the following statement:

I just wanted any person to come forward and apply for the idea. I was in a hurry to establish the university.… I told the owner to not expect any profit from the university for more than 10 years and “You should expect you might lose money,” and he said, “Not at

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all, I will consider this university as a philanthropic project.”18 (M6, Former Minister, personal communication, Feb 12, 2020)

Thus, as an investor from a very wealthy family, the investor for AUIB framed the rationales for establishing the university as philanthropy and something “royal” to give back to the country without expecting financial return, at least for the short term. This ambitious vision for AUIB is believed to be possible, according to an administrator at AUIB, because of the scale of this project and the financial support it receives. He stated:

At this point, they are pouring in…tens of millions of dollars, but ultimately hundreds of millions to do this project. And they want simply a good-quality American university teaching in English that ultimately will serve as many as 30,000 to 40,000 students. It will essentially be another university of Baghdad on that kind of scale, of a large public university. (AUIB2, Administrator, December 13, 2019)

There is no doubt that Iraqi higher education needs an urgent holistic change. But in this state of uncertainty and secrecy, it is unclear how AUIB is going to build its roots in Baghdad and how it is going to achieve its ambitious vision to revive the history of Baghdad as a centre of intellectual thought. Could this scale of a private institution bring back the reputation of Iraqi higher education and revive the history of Baghdad? How could the framing of “revolutionizing”

Iraqi education and higher education help in mobilizing sufficient financial support for the university?

6.4 American Universities of Iraq and American Influence

As discussed earlier, the literature shows that American-style universities have long had cultural and political influence in their host societies, and they have been used by U.S. governments to

for the sake of God – في سبيل هللا 18

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promote American public diplomacy objectives in various ways (Bertelsen, 2012, 2014; Long,

2017; Moulakis, 2011). The rationales for establishing American-style universities in post-2003

Iraq, discussed earlier, align to a great extent with this literature and emphasize the soft power agenda of the U.S. through establishing educational projects abroad (Sobe, 2009). Framing the externalizing potential of an American university model around peace building, leadership, a transition to democracy, and the reconstruction of Iraqi post-conflict society is seen as crucial to guarantee receiving political and financial support from local and international actors.

Ultimately, this goal also serves U.S. public diplomacy objectives in post-2003 Iraq.

Indeed, AUIS has received such support since its establishment in 2007. For example,

Zalmay Khalilzad19, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq (2005–2007), promised that American agencies would give AUIS $10.5 million, once American officials approve the business plan of the university (Wong, 2007). The American University of Iraq in Sulaimani was described by some

American writers and journalists as the best hope for Iraq, one of the success stories of the 2003

U.S. invasion, and a big gift Americans left behind in Iraq (Friedman, 2014; Filkins, 2007). The rationale of peace and unity was translated into offering various scholarships from the American government. For example, in 2010, AUIS received a donation from the U.S. State

Department that enabled the university to create 20 merit-based scholarships to recruit students from outside the Kurdistan Region, specifically from the Central and Southern parts of Iraq. In

2016, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad provided ‘U.S. Embassy Merit Scholarships’ which offered a full scholarship to ten high-achieving Iraqi students from low socio-economic origins.

19 Zalmay Khalilzad was an alumnus of the American University of Beirut who helped found the American University of Kabul after the American military ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001. 192

Preference was given to students who had been directly affected or internally displaced by ongoing violence in the country. In Fall, 2016, AUIS was also awarded a $4,000 grant by the Institute of International Education (IIE) to support the education of two Syrian students enrolled at the University.

The AUIS founding board of trustees also reflects the influence of the U.S. and its practice of soft power in Iraq. Salih assembled a high-profile political and academic alliance to mobilize academic and financial support that included Fouad Ajami, a prominent Middle Eastern

Studies professor at Johns Hopkins University; Kanan Makiya20, a professor of Middle Eastern

Studies at Brandeis University; Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister of Iraq and an alumnus of Baghdad College; and Iraq's former president, Jalal Talabani. The common factors among all members of this first board of trustees are that many of them are neoconservatives and were supporters of Bush's agenda of liberating Iraq. This group of supporters also included Agresto, the CPA's senior adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education (2003-2004). Aligned with the Bush slogan for the 2003-invasion, Agresto believes that this university is a tool for liberating Iraq's people from tyranny; as he put it, "This kind of university offers a kind of liberation, a kind of freedom" (cited in Krieger, 2007, para. 17). Further, this founding board group reflects the diversity of Iraq as they come from Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish leaders as well as American academics, among others. In addition to the founding board of trustees, the current board includes several higher education governance experts, a former member of the U.S. State

20 Makiya was one of the supporters of the 2003 invasion and one of the architects of U.S plans for post-Ba’ath Iraq. Bashkin (2015) argues that the outlook of Makiya’s book Public of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq “colored much of the US occupation efforts. The de-Ba'thification policy, for example, was modeled after the attempts at de- Nazification in Germany and inspired by Makiya’s observations”(Bashkin, 2015, p. 214). He was one of the graduates of Baghdad College. 193

Department involved in policy planning, and a former assistant U.S. Attorney General. This founding board of trustees fits with the arguments of Steiner-Khamsi that “Politically, borrowing…is a coalition builder. It enables opposed advocacy groups to combine resources to support a third, supposedly more neutral, policy option borrowed from elsewhere” (2010, p.

324). The engagement of such a wide range of politicians and academics creates credibility, and suggests that this institution will be a resource for national unity and reconciliation, nation building, and a support for transition to democracy. Such framing facilitates political and financial support from the Kurdistan Regional Government and the US. Embassy. The relationship between the U.S. and the semi-autonomous, stateless Kurdistan has strengthened because of the support the U.S. provided along with the UK and France in the early 1990s when they implemented a no-fly zone to protect the Kurds from attacks by the previous Saddam regime. This support partly explains the pro-American attitude of Kurds. Therefore, actors, both

Americans and Kurds, expected establishment of American universities in Kurdistan region to represent this relationship with the Americans as supporters and rescuers rather than occupiers.

Unlike AUIS, AUIB has not yet received any kind of external financial support or media coverage, either from the U.S. government, or from other regional governments. This lack of support could be attributed either to perceiving AUIB as an investment recipient with sufficient financial resources already, or because of the possible corruption attached to the new university.

Nevertheless, the externalizing potential of AUIB is still framed around peace and unity, transition to democracy, post-conflict reform, and revival of Baghdad to its previous glory; most important is the rationale to maintain its legitimacy as a private institution in post-conflict Iraq in a region that it is known for its anti-American sentiment.

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These institutions will continue to function as a U.S. public diplomacy initiative even after American troops leave Iraq, and could replace other official diplomatic and investment channels, such as the U.S. embassy in Iraq, that might not survive due to the foreign policies of the U.S. in Iraq at the time I am writing this thesis. The cultural and political influence of the

U.S. will also continue through its American faculty and staff members who interact and communicate with Iraqis regularly and who have done so for sustained periods of time. Further, these universities, are a substitute for the study abroad initiative discussed in Chapter 4 that was interrupted because of financial instability and replaced by the “Support to American-Style

Higher Education in Iraq” program (Federal Grants & Contracts, 2020). For example, recently, the U.S. Government granted the American University of Kurdistan (AUK) $4 million as part of the “Support to American-Style Higher Education in Iraq” program. This grant will support accreditation processes and help fund scholarships for underrepresented populations, providing more Iraqis with access to local higher education (U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Iraq, 2020).

6.5 Summary and Discussion

Steiner-Khamsi (2010) questions why policymakers refer to international standards or foreign models to generate pressure for domestic reform (p. 328). She argues that such a comparison implies political and economic rationales. In comparing the rationales driving the establishment of American-style universities in post-conflict Iraq and Lebanon, it is apparent that the views of the founders and decision-makers in each jurisdiction are convergent at some points and divergent at others, even though they were created in similar conflict and post-conflict environments. Nevertheless, the political and economic rationales that Steiner-Khamsi refers to were evident as well.

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Under political rationales, peace, unity, social cohesion, leadership, a civilizing mission and enlightenment appeared to be key objectives for the founder of AUB. Nevertheless, in its early history, AUB had a missionary identity and it represents a cultural and political influence in

Lebanon and the Middle East. While some of these rationales were retained and AUB become more secular, it still represents U.S. soft power and influence in the region. Sharing similar conflict and post-conflict contexts, some of these political rationales were borrowed by the founders of the American Universities of Iraq in Baghdad and Sulaimani. Both AUIS and AUIB found an opportunity during the transition period after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that caused the fall of the authoritarian regime and the formation of, supposedly, the new democratic Iraq in

2003. Therefore, the rationales are directly connected with the agenda of the invasion. Besides the peace and social cohesion and leadership rationales, the founders of the two American universities of Iraq in my study have used the transition to democracy and a catalyst for post- conflict reform as externalizing potentials of the American-style university. These rationales have facilitated political and financial support from both local donors and the American government, at least for AUIS.

AUIS can be considered a new educational transfer that was established in a time when conditions for such an import were favorable, shortly after the fall of the Ba’ath party. This was a time when the people of Kurdistan were hopeful, looking forward to a tomorrow when they could become an independent state. The founder of AUIS was clearly motivated by the dramatic history of the Kurdistan region. Therefore, the political rationale with the objective of building higher education in the Kurdistan region and the vision of seeing it as an independent jurisdiction from Central Iraq was also a critical objective behind the establishment of AUIS.

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In contrast, AUIB rationales deviated from AUIS and AUB’s, with more emphasis being put on ceremonial marketing and economic rationales. In the case of AUIB, besides using AUB as a role model that could be imitated in Iraq, the history of Iraq and the importance of reviving it also were used by the founder to rationalize the ideas of externalization and establishing an

American university after the U.S.-led invasion of Baghdad. This rationale of the renaissance of

Iraq, a revival of Baghdad’s historic achievements, or of Iraqi or Arab scholars could reflect an attempt to downplay the cultural and political impact of these American-style educational institutions. Yet some evidence shows that the policymakers’ rationale for establishing the AUIB is part of a new trend of privatizing higher education in Iraq, with a more reputable and prestigious university model, assuming any American-style university is prestigious by itself.

The ultimate goal is to rebuild the reputation of Iraq's higher education. It seems that the political disagreements and the anti-American attitude in Central Iraq have not obscured the appeal of

American-style education.

Another key aspect of rationales for importing American style universities in Iraq concerns who the actors are in promoting and making the decision to import them. Sabatier and

Weible have put forward “The Advocacy Coalition Framework” that describes the importance of interpersonal networks and political beliefs to a policy processes and agendas where like-minded individuals establish themselves as a group or policy advocacy coalition (2007, p. 189). They typically share the same core beliefs and tend to distance themselves from opposing groups or coalitions (Sabatier & Weible, 2007). So, what made the founders of AUIS and AUIB and other local actors cooperate with the U.S. embassy, for example, to facilitate change and bring the

American-style university to Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion? There are two important characteristics of the founding boards of trustees of AUIS. First, most of them were educated in

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the U.S., and second, most were supporters of the 2003 invasion and were directly engaged with the American government pre-2003 to plan for the fall of the Ba’ath regime, presumably hoping to secure a position in the new political system of post-2003 Iraq. Thus, the reference society, the actors and the agenda of the 2003 invasion all contributed to how the rationales of establishing an American-style university in Iraq were framed and used to gain political and financial support. Further, they represent the influence of American-educated leaders in Iraq society who provided strong links to the United States. In this sense, transferring this university model through those actors was serving the entire American higher-education sector and the public diplomacy agenda of the U.S. in Iraq and the region, and also probably could be used to legitimate the 2003 invasion.

In the case of AUIB, this advocacy network or coalition group was not publicly present.

No evidence was collected that suggested that there was American government support for establishing AUIB other than the approval from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. This cautious approach could be attributed to the fact that AUIB is a local investment of possibly corrupt money, which the government of Iraq has been fighting against since 2003. Nevertheless, the

Ministry’s decision to ‘borrow’ an American university model seems to be considered necessary for post-2003 Iraq to shift from occupation to a new phase of Iraq-US relationship. Further, stakeholders at AUIB have critiqued both the local system of education, as well as the British approach that Iraq’s higher education is modeled after, instead emphasizing the quality of the

American-style university model as a solution. Despite an anti-American environment in

Baghdad, the government seems to have opted to revive collapsed local systems including higher education, through establishment of what they consider a more successful option based on some common rationales, but also a ‘return to greatness’ approach. This could be seen as useful to

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facilitate local support and acceptance of the model in an anti-American environment. This is consistent with the arguments of many scholars that universities taking on the “American” name in their title are expressing admiration for the American system of higher education, and are willing to make this statement despite rejection of important elements of American foreign policy (Ghabra & Arnold, 2007; Holling Center, 2005).

To conclude, the establishment of American-style universities in Iraq and their references to American higher education come at a time of considerable tension in relations between the

United States and Iraq. By replacing U.S. military action with establishing local institutions to offer American-style education, the U.S. continues its practice of soft power in Iraq and the region. The new American-style universities in Iraq in my study thus represented something for both the United States and for Iraq. For the U.S., they are a source of public diplomacy and soft power, and for Iraq, an instrument for peacebuilding, social cohesion, reforming the local higher education system, legitimacy, and probably a tool to ‘revolutionize’ Iraq’s higher education and bring back its glory.

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Chapter 7 : Implementation and Localization of American-style University in Iraq

Rationales to improve Iraq's reputation and modernize its higher education system have focused on finding practical solutions, and establishing an American-style university model was one of them. However, exporting this university model to a new educational environment with different cultural and political contexts has not always proved a simple task. During implementation, contradictions can arise in the local context. American-style universities can hold promise; yet, there is the potential for adaptations, rejection, or questioning. The analysis in the previous chapters showed that the borrowable or exportable qualities of an international university were idealized (and even glorified) by participants as apolitical, independent, operating under a democratic governance structure, relying on the expertise of foreign academics and administrators, and promoting democratic values and practices. Also, the rationales for establishing a foreign university–specifically, an American-style university in Iraq were framed around building peace and unity, leadership, a transition to democracy, and providing an opportunity to revive the reputation of Iraqi higher education. This final findings chapter focuses on the implementation and internalization stages of the policy borrowing and educational transfer framework (Phillips & Ochs, 2004) and examines the challenges of exporting an American-style university model and adapting it to Iraqi higher education. According to the Phillips and Ochs

(2004) policy borrowing framework, the implementation stage explores the suitability of context and examines the role of significant actors, people or institutions alike, with the power to support or resist the educational transfer of an American-style university. Internalization, also called

'domestication' of policy, examines the impact on the existing system and the absorption of external features (Phillips & Ochs, 2004). Phillips emphasizes that, in this stage a “close examination of context is essential to understand how, and the extent to which, features from

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another system have been adopted.” (2005, p. 32). Many scholars have pointed out that borrowed policies are subject to local agency, resistance, negation, and modification (Rappleye, 2006;

Spreen, 2004; Steiner-Khamsi, 2014). Thus, this chapter explores how the ideals (externalizing potential) of the American-style university model are implemented, adapted, or resisted by various actors in post-2003 Iraq. The chapter also examines how the political and cultural context of Iraq in the Kurdistan region and Central Iraq affects this process of implementation and localization.

The analysis in this chapter shows that in Iraq an American-style university may be perceived as politically and financially backed at both national and international levels, which competes, to some extent, with its characteristics as an independent and apolitical university.

Further, my analysis reveals that introducing liberal arts education has helped to bridge the gap between the traditional learning style of the local system and that of the liberal education model with its different standards of teaching and learning and social and political practices on campus.

Despite the attraction of an American-style university in the region, during implementation in the new political and cultural context, resistance to its liberal arts agenda, prestige, and democratic governance structure, as it is transferred to Iraq, comes from various actors and institutions that could isolate the new university rather than engaging and shaping its adaptation, or producing the positive changes hoped for by its founders.

I explore implementation and internalization processes by focusing on three main ideals of an American-style model, which are considered in this chapter’s three sections. The first section outlines how the liberal arts curriculum, as one of the main exportable features of the

American-style university, is implemented and challenged by different actors beginning with

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students and teachers. A related phenomenon is the greater value placed on technical education as compared to the liberal arts, by students, teachers, boards of trustees, professional accreditation bodies, and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The second section examines the political and financial supports provided to an American-style university and how they are related to its not-for-profit and apolitical ideals. The third section investigates democratic practices (social and political) adopted on campus that I have labeled the 'Democratic

Campus'. The chapter ends with a summary and some discussion.

7.1 Liberal Arts Curriculum and Pedagogy

Traditional versus Liberal Arts Education and the Teacher-Student Relationship

Central to the educational approach of liberal arts education is the idea of interdisciplinary, student-centered liberal education that aims to develop the elite of the future. Graduates are expected to be fluent in English, well rounded, and multidimensional in their thinking. This education system resonates with western-trained academics and administrators at the American university abroad (particularly those steeped in contemporary American liberal arts traditions), but not necessarily with local students, faculty, the local board of trustees, and national accreditation bodies. Specifically, although American-style universities have been around for a while in the region, their liberal arts approach may not be appreciated by locals, as it challenges the traditional practices with which students, their parents, and other actors are most familiar. In the case of students, this lack of understanding of the model is translated into resistance and pushback as they transition from a traditional way of learning to a more innovative and critical pedagogy. As an administrator at AUIS put it, some students have to be dragged into the new model "kicking and biting, but by the end of their last year, they embrace it” (AUIS11,

Administrator, November 11, 2017). A western faculty member at AUIS casts an Orientalist

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gaze on the situation when he attributes this resistance to the way students were trained in the local education system that makes ‘converting' to a new style of learning and thinking a challenge for both students and faculty. Using a deficit model, he explained:

Students come in very Kurdish or very Arabic…from high school, coming from the local culture. APP21 instructors have complained that they do the hard work of converting the student to…American standards of behavior or manners.… But thinking critically would be the main thing. It is something we constantly talk about it in our department meetings. We try to teach them and it does not come very easily, whereas, in the West, students are already constantly criticizing things; they are very cynical. And looking at things from different perspectives is more of a natural thing than in the culture here. (AUIS2, Faculty Member, November 19, 2017).

While the APP program, in the words of an administrator at AUIS, "shows that the actual mission of the AUIS doesn’t quite fit in the educational environment here" (AUIS6,

Administrator, November 15, 2017), she says that it helps to bridge the gap between the traditional learning style of the local system that she perceived as "broken" and that of the liberal education model with its higher standards. As such, liberal arts education is presented as in neo- colonial fashion as a 'unique' model that is missing in Iraqi public universities. Specifically, promoting liberal arts is mis-constructed as ‘remedying’ local lack of respect for humanities and social sciences. Just as in the U.S. itself, these majors are not as highly valued as medicine and engineering programs, for instance, because the latter are seen as leading to careers that students desire. However, a liberal arts education, as many participants argued, still has value on

American-style campuses because they—as a faculty member from AUB put it–"copy

21 Academic Preparation Program (APP) is a two-year buffer program that focuses mostly on English and other study and critical thinking skills to prepare students for American-style education and to bring them up to its standards. 203

themselves after the American and North American model" (AUB14, Faculty Member, March

19, 2018).

According to my participants, who seem unaware that American students do the same,

Iraqi students are accused of building study habits that are different from what is expected in a liberal education system so that an expectation gap is created between students and their professors in terms of effort, behavior, and learning. This orientalist gaze claims that this ‘gap’ tends to be wider among graduates of local public schools since they are less prepared for this new learning style and thus, face more challenges and show more resistance, compared to their counterparts from private schools. The latter have better English and are more familiar with critical thinking. Not problematizing the deficit model projected onto Iraqi students, one AUIS participant praised students from private schools as "further along the Westernization spectrum"

(AUIS2, Faculty Member, November 19, 2017). It might be that this projection onto Iraqi students reflects an expectation gap and creates feelings of being 'an outsider' or 'vulnerable' among western faculty members. It is problematic that such AUIS faculty members even suggested that one of the valued qualities of Western education, compared to the tendency of the local system that tends to be more lenient with students, is supposedly to ease the difficult learning environment brought on by post-conflict instability. An APP instructor made the following comment:

I think many teachers would agree that they would love to push the [student] harder and know they would respond [although] the pushback from the students would be angry (AUIS3, APP Instructor, November 20, 2017).

This tension between foreign teachers and the students may have pushed some either to leave or lower their expectations. By comparison, teaching faculty originally from the region feel more comfortable and less challenged because of their familiarity with the region and its culture. 204

However, there is a concern that a few of them might also show resistance to the model and not be willing to give up their authority as the main source of knowledge in the traditional system of education, as suggested in the following comment:

Some faculty might have this [teacher-centered approach], particularly those who studied here. They may have finished their college education, probably their Masters or even their Ph.D., or finished in the U.S. and immediately returned without really going through the basic college experience there at a BA level.… So, my assumption is that some faculty rely on our established culture or tradition here, where the teacher is a source of authority and you have the answers to all questions, and students look up to you. (AUIS9, Faculty Member, November 19, 2017)

In local culture, the traditional ways of teaching and learning have arguably set up a relationship between students and faculty of one-way knowledge transfer with students as receivers and professors as a source of knowledge and authority. By contrast, in the liberal education model, the role and responsibilities of teaching faculty and students in the learning process are different.

Therefore, resistance sometimes comes from both students and faculty, as neither are willing to change. Thus, Western faculty in American-style universities in the region need to exercise more effort compared to their local counterparts to make a significant difference.

Valuing Technical over Liberal Arts Education

The traditional philosophy of education in Iraq is based on human capital formation to promote economic development. Thus, as noted above, the broad multi-disciplinarity of liberal arts, as participants at AUIS described it, is resisted. In contrast, a technical approach uses a curricular model based on a belief that hyper-specialization and narrow training will advance students' technical skills, which are imagined as exactly what the job market needs. As many participants argued, shifting from longstanding specialized curricula to a model involving broad learning and critical thinking at its heart provokes resistance from students, faculty, and local boards of trustees. The financial situation plays a role in this resistance, as students and parents question 205

the value of paying for courses such as history, philosophy or the study of civilizations, compared to technical courses. This resistance peaked in 2017 when the government in Central

Iraq cut off funding as retaliation for the Kurdistan Region issuing an independence referendum22 and parents and students could not afford private universities.

As discussed earlier, the rationales of 'catching up' and 'modernization' are entwined; as an AUIS administrator argues, there is a vision of the Kurdistan Region diversifying its economic activities to rely less on oil as the main source of government revenue. A related vison is becoming independent of Central Iraq. Even before 2003, the economic and technical development needs of the Kurdistan region were associated with technical skills as preparation for employment, as explained by another faculty member. He observed:

I don't know if it is the culture or is it hard times. This is very much a developing world and the city is changing very rapidly. Everything is built up and there is tremendous technical demand. So yes, students naturally think they are aiming for a job [imagining that this is] what a university is all about. (AUIS5, Faculty Member, November 17, 2017).

This wave of pragmatism is neither a new nor an isolated trend within the Kurdistan Region. The debate over the aims of education as being for its own sake or for the purpose of national development and social mobility is ongoing. For example, AUB has followed the liberal arts system for more than ten decades and still lives with similar kinds of resistance from various

22 More than 90% of the 3.3 million people who voted supported secession. Kurdistan Regional Government officials said the result gave them the mandate to start negotiations with Baghdad. The vote was opposed by the Iraqi central government, which insisted it was illegal. The following month Iraqi pro-government forces retook the disputed territory held by the Kurds. The loss of Kirkuk and its oil revenue was a major blow to Kurdish aspirations for their state. (BBC NEWS, 2019) 206

actors questioning the practical value of what defines AUB the most: its liberal education. A professor from AUB explained that this argument against the “value” of liberal arts relates to a:

prevailing pragmatism...[and] nationalism. Our student body are here for very pragmatic reasons. They don't have that kind of wide range of interests our generation had.... The recent generation is here for a degree which makes them employable. This is fine; there is nothing wrong with that. But you don't have the belief that the future could be better or different.... The four years they spend with us used to have other dimensions than it does now. (AUB6, Faculty Member, March 17, 2018)

An important source of resistance to maintaining a liberal arts agenda at AUB, is the administrators themselves. Their decisions are impacted by the requirements of international accreditation bodies, the trend toward professionalism, the reality of scarce resources, emerging new technologies and an emphasis on the link between university education and employment outcomes. These influences may have weakened liberal arts education as a guiding philosophy.

A professor of political sciences at AUB even argued that AUB and its liberal education have been eclipsed by the technical, skills-based and professional emphasis of its programs:

I am not sure now there is a strong commitment to the liberal arts model. In previous times the university may have emphasized it, but now there is more emphasis on education, medicine, and other professions. That’s the real challenge at the moment. Moving towards a more professional model. Different schools and faculties may think differently. In the past, there was a requirement that students take general education that was taught with sciences…and now some of the professional schools are more autonomous, so there is no one common liberal arts experience. (AUB5, Faculty Member, March 17, 2018)

But many other participants confirmed that liberal arts, as a guiding philosophy, is still strong at

AUIS and AUB. Arguably, the changing landscape of HE always presents a risk for the model, not only in Iraq or the Kurdistan Region. Thus, while liberal arts education is seen as much needed in the region, in times of change, it is an open question whether these new universities will survive and maintain their uniqueness, or to what extent there will be mission drift.

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Responsiveness to Ministry and International Accreditation Bodies

Many American universities abroad operate as liberal arts colleges. Accordingly, their missions place greater emphasis on teaching than research. However, the lack of understanding of the model on the part of the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, as a local accreditation body of the university, creates some tension between the university and the local authority, particularly with respect to being a teaching-focused institution. A teaching-stream faculty member noted:

There are always problems when dealing with the Ministry, which doesn't understand what kind of organization we are…. There is a tension because they are very concerned with research and keeping score on research achievement for ranking schemes…. In a liberal arts model where we write articles, and publish in small journals…we don’t see our publications as factory-style production (AUIS5, Faculty Member, November 20, 2017).

Indeed, those I interviewed at AUIS presented the institution as a teaching-intensive university, at least for the time being. This raises a crucial question: to what extent could an American liberal arts university be responsive to the local accreditation body requirements, and stay committed to its teaching mission? The AUIS president commented on this issue:

In private universities, which are supported by tuition, fewer and fewer students can afford tuition because of the economy. So, enrollment has been coming down for the last four years. How do you address this? These are crucial questions. Now in the Region, you don't hear a lot of discussion of them. Instead, the discussion is about can we publish more. That’s OK, that's an issue, but I would not rank that as a priority. The priority is how to survive right now, and how to make sure our students learn what they need to in an era of decreasing resources. These are fundamental issues that we need to talk about and solve. We are doing this within the university, and also, we need that discussion within the region. (AUIS12, Administrator, November 20, 2017)

This quote underscores a divergence between priorities and directions of the university and the

Ministry. The main priorities of AUIS are teaching excellence, program diversification, and community outreach. These priorities serve as tools to increase enrollment, respond to the local needs of the Region, and strengthen the university ties with the community. By contrast, the

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Ministry's priority is whether, in the Kurdistan Region or Baghdad, enough research and publications are being produced for international journals. Administrators and most academics at

AUIS agree that acknowledging research is important, and that focusing on research is a necessary step in the future; yet, they don’t see it as a priority for the time being, compared to their core teaching and learning mission, particularly in a region where there is a legacy of conflict, and tragedies still happen. With no shared goals, there is a lack of congruence between the university and the Ministry. Each has different priorities, which leads the university to distance itself from the Ministry and focus on its own mission. In general, this divergence isolates the university from integrating and aligning its strategies and growth plans with that of the state, particularly in relation to post-conflict developmental and social needs.

American-style universities are also subject to the requirements of international accreditation bodies.23 Some have argued that the accreditation process as it applies to

American-style universities in the region presents a risk to their liberal education component as a unique characteristic that differentiates them from the local technically-oriented education. A professor who joined AUB for many decades expressed his frustration in the following way:

Frankly, I find [liberal arts] a great thing as long as it is not influenced by modern trends in the U.S. The idea of trying what I call digitalized teaching or, putting teaching in compartments, is not really the kind of liberal arts I value. The liberal arts I value is liberal and not what is happening in the new trend in the US; what they are trying to force on us is not liberal, because they are forcing knowledge into certain pigeon holes [saying]

23 AUIS is accredited by the Commission on English Language Program Accreditation for the period April, 2020 through April, 2030 and agrees to uphold the CEA Standards for English Language Programs and Institutions. (AUIS, n.d.). AUIS is a member of the Association of American International Colleges and Universities (AAICU). According to the AUIB website, the university is in the process of becoming a member of AAICU and seeking the accreditation in the United States through the New England Commission on Higher Education (NECHE), as well as accreditation for specific programs from professional accrediting agencies recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. 209

this is social science, this is humanities [and] this is general education, this is ridiculous.... How can you see it as social science or humanities? It can be both.… I call quantifying. Quantifying knowledge is wrong and I don't accept it. This is not liberal arts to me. The liberal arts to me is the idea of free thinking. (AUB17, Faculty Member, March 20, 2018)

This observation is aligned with Noori and Anderson’s argument that American accreditation agencies influence the governance of higher education. They argue that these dynamics have forced American-style universities in the Region "to grapple with the shifting priorities of competing agents" (2013, p. 160). The authors found that the managers of accreditation agencies do not perceive liberal arts components as a critical part of their mission. Since getting accreditation is a critical aspect for American-style universities in the Region, they are in the position of abiding by the accreditation requirements, where the goal is to gain the status and global recognition that enable them to attract students and faculty from outside the nation's borders, and allow graduates of these institutions to pursue graduate studies in the US.

In Kurdistan Region and Central Iraq, accreditation is also presented as a tool to guard their institutional independence from the interference of the local and federal Ministries of HE.

According to the administrators at AUIB, the University gets exceptional treatment from the

Ministry to operate independently and manage its affairs, buttressed by being an American university and by being different, as reflected in the following:

They are (the Ministry) very supportive of this university. They are very excited about it…. They give me incredible support. They made the rules and regulations more easy to get around. For example, online education is not allowed in Iraq, [but] it will be in my university. They said “Oh yeah, that's different; the American university is different.” (AUIB1, Administrator, April 20, 2018)

Another administrator at AUIB confirmed that being an American-style institution assured special status and more relaxing monitoring from the Ministry, that makes operating independently much easier than for their state university counterparts. As such, this special status 210

allows American-style universities to negotiate with the Ministry of HE and get exceptional freedom to maintain their mission and their independence, which is opposite to the case of public and even local private universities that are completely under the control of the Ministry. For instance, AUIS and AUIB are very active in building partnerships with international universities, a privilege most presidents of Iraqi public universities are unable to enjoy, with the control by the state and scarce resources. The exceptions these American-style universities are getting assumes that a 'different' university model is urgently needed in Iraq to set an example of an innovative university which other public and private universities can follow. An administrator at

AUIB reflected this in the following way:

The Ministry understands that it is possible to make exceptions for a particular type of a university; it is in the interest of the country to make those exceptions. If they simply try to take these three universities, and maybe four or five or six in the future, if they try to squeeze them into the same mold that all of the historic state universities are, it's not going to help the country and they're not going to end up with anything new and different and valuable to the country. This is the point, to be independent and to be different. (AUIB, Administrator, December 3, 2019)

When an educational idea crosses national borders, it needs to comply with multiple governance bodies. To establish its legitimacy in both the Kurdistan Region and Central Iraq, AUIS also needed to comply with the bylaws of the two ministries of HE in both regions, and the American accreditation bodies. However, compliance with three different accreditation bodies creates some conflict in terms of maintaining its two main components: independence and a liberal education curriculum. AUIS gained its accreditation from the Ministry of HE in Central Iraq in 2017 and, according to an administrator at AUIS, it was a difficult negotiation process to balance between maintaining AUIS identity, autonomy and the Ministry requirements, and took a few years.

Being privileged and nationally and internationally accredited adds prestige to these universities. However, the more prestigious the university, the less inclusive and connected to the 211

community it becomes. For instance, among AUB graduates there were 19 of the delegates who signed the 1945 United Nations Charter in San Francisco; two prime ministers of Lebanon and two of Jordan; and two presidents. It becomes more exclusive as its tuition keeps rising. Having a reputation for quality and excellence makes it very selective when choosing its students and faculty. AUB differentiates itself from other public and private universities in Lebanon and the region. A professor in the Business School described her experience at AUB in the following way:

You don't feel like you are in Lebanon. In a sense, AUB doesn't compare to another model…. People here deliver high quality.... Our students are of high quality. Our degree is valued. We are more selective; it is not easy to get into AUB. (AUB4, Faculty Member, March 16, 2018)

A professor from AUB has argued in a Book Panel that AUB has entered a phase of 'individual success', stating that this success, although notable and important, should not preclude the involvement in society outside of the wider picture of Beirut and the region:

AUB deals with itself as a knowledge generator, comparing itself with universities abroad, missing the point that we are not in the US, where communities are advanced, but we're rather in Lebanon where the government doesn't properly function and basic human rights aren't applied…. We have to admit that we have failed on this level, and must start focusing on the role that AUB can play in the society, all while trying to overcome the obstacles and the hard circumstances the region is going through. (Abed, 2016)

The 'individual success' highlighted earlier was celebrated many times among participants from the three universities that demonstrated this through the comment that 'we are different'. Thus, this foreign affiliation brings the risk of having two tiers of universities, local private and public ones that teach the majority with low perceived quality, and the few supposedly with excellent quality, yet attracting a small number of students who are most probably from wealthy families or kids of the Iraqi elites and politicians. As AUIS and AUIB perceive themselves as different from the local public universities and build their legitimacy and prestige by associating 212

themselves with the US and getting American accreditation, how are they going to engage with, and play a role in, the current political structure?

Without Foreign Faculty, Are American-style Universities Less American?

Hiring faculty with western credentials, preferably American, is part of the attraction of

American-style universities. As an administrator at AUIS puts it "You can't have an American education and teach western values and education without westerners" (AUIS5, Faculty Member,

November 20, 2017). As I discussed in Chapter 5, many participants from Central Iraq agree that a foreign university should be managed and taught by foreigners. Yet the 'unsafe' tag that for the region, along with other economic and cultural factors, has reduced the ability of AUIS to recruit faculty who are American or Western with high qualifications. This has made AUIS, in the words of an American faculty member, "less American." The situation AUIS faces is evident in his comment:

We might lose the model; there are no Americans here. There were more when I started. In the humanities department, we have some. We also have a few in this department and some hyphenated Americans, Jordan-American, Bengali-American. But the technical majors are popular. Those professors are usually not Americans. How many [are there] in the Business department [or] IT department? That's becoming bigger and bigger. And so, we are in danger of forgetting or losing the prestige and meaning of this kind of a name (AUIS5, Faculty Member, November 20, 2017)

There is no doubt that hyphenated Americans are real Americans; however, the above comment raises a critical question—can an American-style university be American without Americans? To be socially responsive, most international universities hire local faculty with western credentials to reduce costs (Healey, 2018). The challenge for AUIS was retaining and attracting quality professors who are willing to work in a challenging environment, as well as being able to connect with the local community. This to some extent creates doubt among some participants about the brand of the university as an 'American-style' institution that is ‘less American’. 213

Another ideal of the American-style universities is community engagement. An

American faculty member reflected on whether AUIS is forcing its societal role on the community in the following words:

Yes and no. I guess as we become less American...we get people from around the Middle East [who] speak Arabic; that's been easier to [make workable].... The public becomes proud of having this institution in their city, and at least some of the [faculty] are experts in local politics and [appear] in the news when [they address a local] question. So there is some of that. I feel pretty isolated from the community around me because of the language; I don't know what we can offer. It does seem our students do get good jobs. (AUIS5, Faculty Member, November 20, 2017)

By comparison, faculty originally from the region are playing a better role in strengthening the university’s social role and building more connections with the community because of their fluency in the language and familiarity with the culture and political system of the region.

An interesting relevant case is AUB. The struggle for normal operation of AUB during the civil war in Lebanon of the 1970s and 1980s, and the disruptions associated with the

American University in Cairo (AUC) with the advent of Nasserism in the 1950s and1960s, are reflections of the relation between instability, quality of education and the American brand. As a result of the civil war in Lebanon, AUB ended up losing all of its American faculty and international student body; consequently, it was forced to rely solely on its Lebanese faculty.

One president, David S. Dodge, was kidnapped in 1982, and another president, Malcolm Kerr, was assassinated in1984. Since the 1990s, AUB has been able to revive and expand itself. The

American University in Cairo had to deal with the constant threat of being forced to become a nationalized, government-controlled institution. In the 1960s, its president, Thomas Bartlett, was required to obtain an annual exemption from the Nasser government. Today, AUC is obliged to hire 70 percent Egyptian and 30 percent international faculty (Ghabra & Arnold, 2007). The

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same has been true for Baghdad College that was nationalized with all the American teachers being forced to leave the country (Mohammed-Marzouk, 2012).

For AUIB, the biggest challenge currently is to recruit faculty with a Ph.D. and a

Bachelor's degree from the United States, since security is still a significant challenge and there are rising sentiments against an American and foreign presence in Iraq24. The question of how much AUIS AND AUIB can abide by the requirements and standards of an independent

American model is critical with recent escalation of anti-Americanism and anti-foreign sentiments in Central Iraq. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad and a few international companies in

Iraq have been targeted, which presents a challenge to attracting western professors and even puts AUIB itself at risk.

Western vs. Iraqi Values

One of the main concerns expressed about educational transfer and policy borrowing or transnational education is its cultural impact and distancing from the local culture, which may be traded off to achieve reputational or economic benefits. At AUIS, there was no concern about this cultural gap, and no participants in my study reported any incident challenging local values that raised any conflict. There was a sort of consensus that whatever western values and ethos would be transferred to the region through the University are positive. Nevertheless, while liberal arts education strengthens students’ critical thinking and arguments, according to participants from AUIS, discussion of many cultural issues opens room for examining them that brings

24 In September, 2020, the U.S. government threatened to shut down the American Embassy in Baghdad, one of the largest American diplomatic missions in the world, within weeks, if Iraqi leaders fail to prevent Iranian-backed militias from firing rockets at the compound. (Wong, Jakes and Schmitt, September, 2020) 215

confusion to some students and feeds into stereotypes about the University. A faculty member from AUIS reflected on this issue:

Lots of people here feel challenged by American values. There are lots of stereotypes here, and there is one assumption that you’re going to, more or less, help students or push students to give up their religious faith. That is the most common thing you hear. Really, we don’t have classes to say this is wrong or this is right, but the analytical abilities the students develop bring them to examine their own values, and then that’s the whole value of education. So, they may arrive at conclusions that make them not genuinely believe in local and traditional religious values. We notice this all the time. Most of us have lots of female students who write about honour and honour killing. In a public university, they can’t discuss this. Lots of students discuss feminism and patriarchy and they relate to it. (AUIS9, Faculty Member, November 19, 2017)

The professor quoted above thought that during this learning process, students went through a confusion phase or what he called it “individualizing affect” that set up the liberal arts education model to be seen with envy by public universities as well as one that challenges authority and traditions, and as such, could create disturbances in society.

Many studies have found that this liberal education model has been suppressed in other countries of the region such as the Arabian Gulf (Noori & Anderson, 2013). However, even with the cautionary approach some faculty members are adopting, many topics are discussed, analyzed, and criticized freely on campus and in the classroom, such as gender equity, arranged marriage, corruption, and other sensitive issues in the region. This is consistent with the rationale for establishing AUIS as a way for the region to transition towards democracy as discussed in

Chapter 6. However, in the era of post-2003 Iraq, as many participants from public universities in Central Iraq have confirmed, current political and social issues, government corruption, politicized Islam, political parties' conflicts, and obsolete traditions are debated, discussed and criticized freely on and outside the campus. Nevertheless, some general education courses are

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teaching students in a more structured and neutral way compared to the teaching in public institutions. A faculty member from AUIS noted that point:

I think…we managed to have students' politics without being party politics, so that may make a difference. In all public universities, students are linked to political parties, and are under these parties' control, but I think we have avoided that. But there may be a lot of stuff going on that I don't know about. And so that may make a difference too. (AUIS5, Faculty Member, November 20, 2017)

There has been no single incident that has emerged to indicate such a problem at AUIS. This could be attributed, partly, to the liberal culture of Sulaimani compared to other cities in the

Kurdistan Region and Central Iraq. This raises the question of how this liberal education and free discussion would play out in Baghdad.

Baghdad is a large city with a diverse population, not only in terms of different ethnicities and religious affiliations, but also in terms of their political ideologies and the strength of their religious beliefs, with some people being very liberal and others extremely orthodox. Many young students have a strong affection for political figures and see them as sacred. This makes the liberal education system more vulnerable to the risk of extremism and political resistance.

Generally, the local concern is not only with religion but any sensitive issue that might trigger a violent reaction. With political rivalry, this risk might not be high but is still possible, as a faculty member from the University of Baghdad stated:

However, those who are looking for money and basically, who are from the political parties, definitely they will interfere with the operation of this international university. And they may go to the Ministry and question these institutions as having missionary intentions in order to impede them from functioning properly. (UB3, Administrator, April 16, 2018)

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At AUIB, potential resistance comes from religious people or politicians who use religion as a political agenda. For example, consulting with individuals connected to Shiite clergy in Najaf

(Marja'aya or Hawza), a participant from the Ministry stated:

There was an idea to have a university in Najaf, but Al Hawza didn't give approval. Maybe because they think Americans will come here and will be kind of open. You know the atmosphere of Najaf is closed. And even when the Americans came in 2003, they didn't want them to be close to the Imam Ali shrine. (M4, Advisor, June 10, 2018)

Religious ideology and support for the American presence in Iraq are critical differences between the Kurdistan region and Central Iraq, where the influence of religious ideologies and political sectarianism is stronger. This raises the question of how AUIB could survive in this context.

In comparison, AUB has responded to the pluralistic nature of Beirut and the region by reshaping its identity from a missionary to a non-religious institution. Since its establishment,

AUB has been as diverse as Lebanon. Peter Dorman, a former president of AUB, stated:

The question of bridging perceived cultural gaps is, for AUB, therefore less of an urgent question than for those American institutions more recently established in transnational contexts. (Dorman, 2017, p. 58).

As noted earlier, Lebanon has historically welcomed American-style education. A low level of government interference has allowed these institutions to acquire institutional autonomy, develop an extensive variety of programs, and gain American accreditation (Ghabra & Arnold, 2007).

What has facilitated the transferability and the survival of the model in Lebanon, particularly

Beirut, is, partly, the liberal and westernized culture of the city. Beirut, is strikingly heterogeneous and sophisticated. Reed and Ajami describe it in the following way: "This was a city anxious to please and to mimic the ways of the West" (1988, p. 9) and "was being recast in the image of Europe” (p. 17). Placed in this cultural environment, AUB has created a democratic 218

culture to stimulate, in the words of an AUB professor, "courageous intellectuals who can stand up to the authority." (AUB17, Faculty Member, March 20, 2018) He also explained and agreed that this "courageous intellectuality" widely exists in Lebanese society and not only in western private universities. He stressed that there are many great liberal thinkers in other Lebanese universities; yet, it is more evident in practice at AUB than in other universities. Another participant from AUB confirmed this in the following words:

It needs more courage in the national universities to be liberal than in this university, because the education system at AUB protects them; it promotes liberal thinking. Nevertheless, it doesn't mean that we don't have some people who try to infringe on your freedom. It doesn't mean that some faculty members who are not courageous will not succumb to pressure. (AUB17, HSS, March 20, 2018)

Participants in my study from AUB have confirmed that regardless of the divide in the society, the political environment in Lebanon has helped AUB to survive and flourish in this difficult situation. This model of education, according to participants, would not be effective without the specific political environment of Lebanon that allows civic institutions like the press and universities to engage in the political process. An American professor reflected on this point as follows:

One thing about Lebanon is that, compared to most countries in the Arab world, there is a kind of openness. We have a crazy press. Lots of different voices are represented in this press, and it's more open than any other press. There is a reason why the BBC comes here, and why the UN and all the NGOs and other people are here—because it's open, and AUB could never be what it is if we weren't in Lebanon, for example, if you're living, in Syria or Saudi Arabia…where there is more government control. (AUB12, Faculty Member, March 19, 2018)

What significance does this AUB story have for Iraq? The political environment in some other

Arab countries arguably presents a challenge for this model where families and students are not able to freely express their ideas. Hence, adopting a liberal arts education in these countries presents a dilemma. A philosophy professor reflected on this in the following way: 219

How can you live in an environment where you are teaching students something and then you go out and find out that [what you have taught is] not allowed, or you are in prison because of your ideas, or you are kidnapped because of your ideas? I think the political environment is a major factor in the success of this type of education. (AUB6, Faculty Member, March 17, 2018)

This dilemma resonates with the current situation in Iraq as millions, most of them university students or graduates, have taken to the streets to decry corruption, poor services and a lack of jobs, calling for an end to the political system imposed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Many protesters have been killed, abducted, and forced to disappear by those described as "militia,"

"unknown third parties" and "armed entities". AUIB was established in the middle of a very difficult political situation that needs robust protection for it to survive.

In summary, the liberal arts, as a main exportable feature of an American-style university, is resisted by various actors such as students, faculty members or administrators, a situation that puts the model at risk. Since technical education is everywhere valued as pragmatic in leading to employment, local and, to some extent, international, accreditation bodies also carry this bias against liberal education. But there are conflicting priorities. Local accreditation confers regional legitimacy, while international accreditation gains the university recognition at the international level and protects its autonomy and critical teaching mission from local control, which is socially and academically important in post-conflict societies. On both counts, these universities are influenced by the wave of pragmatism and the perceived importance of technical education in the region. Within the challenging context of post-2003 Iraq, recruiting American faculty is also a challenge that creates a sense of seeing American-style universities as less American. Finally, positive liberal values could be resisted, particularly in Central Iraq as the anti-American sentiment is heightened, which might limit American-style universities strengthening their community engagement.

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7.2 Not-for-profit and Apolitical Autonomous Universities with External Funding

Most American universities abroad adopt a not-for-profit financial system and typically rely on four traditional sources to support their operations and activities–tuition fees, gifts, government research funding, and endowment income. This variety of resources helps these universities to maintain their autonomous not-for-profit ideal and attract students from various socioeconomic strata. Further, American-style universities are managed by an independent board of trustees.

These financial and governance structures are assumed to allow these institutions more autonomy and independence from political interference, locally and internationally.

The founder of AUIS envisioned establishing just such an educational institution that provides high-quality western education to all students regardless of their background. In a TV interview, the founder stated "this university is not for the elite, not for the rich people" (Salih,

2014). According to the AUIS website, 90 percent of students receive financial support from the

University, governments, or private donors, including support from the U.S. Government. This external financial support helped in changing AUIS's demographics to include students from all socio-economic backgrounds and refugees. However, as noted above, when a financial crisis hit the region in 2014, and the local government in Kurdistan Region stopped providing support to the university, according to my interviewees, this provoked an emergency in which even students from wealthy families were not able to pay the tuition fees. Many of them left the country, which led to a significant change in students' profiles, with increasingly fewer students of lower socioeconomic status able to join the university.

The concept of donation and fundraising external to the state are neither institutionalized nor understood in traditional Iraq HEIs. For example, public universities have relied on public funding for as long as they have existed. In contrast, the ideal of the American university is to be 221

financially independent. However, in reality, during the economic downturn in 2017 there was no fund-raising locally for AUIS which received a $5 million grant from the US Department of

State. Funds from the grant supported AUIS students and financed the University’s merit-based scholarship program (U.S. Department of State Issues Grant to the American University of Iraq in Sulaimania, 2017). Such financial support challenges the ‘apolitical’ ideal of an independent

American-style university abroad. As discussed in Chapter 6, U.S. government financing for

American-style universities outside the U.S. supports American influence in the region. Such

American backing or American linkage has created critical issues for other American-style universities in the region. For example, in 2009 the American University of Cairo had to fend off allegations from a popular Egyptian newspaper that it is a front for the U.S. Department of

Defense (Bradley, 2009). In 2019, the University's apparent political links aggravated the faculty after a speech by the U.S. Secretary of State (Long, 2019) which implied that the university was an extension of the U.S. Embassy. Such episodes hardly support the rationales of peacebuilding and unity or reforming local higher education as key rationales for establishing American-style universities abroad. How will this perception of political backing affect the operation of AUIB?

Would it be protected or seen as an extension to the U.S. presence in Iraq or, worse, linked to the corrupt local government?

AUIS is perceived by its community as a politically and financially backed university internationally and locally. As discussed in Chapter 6, being American and founded by a politician, coupled with the framing of the university as an instrument for peace and unity in post-2003 Iraq, have facilitated significant political and financial support for AUIS. However, this perception challenges the ideal of being independent and apolitical. In the early days of its establishment in its temporary campus, and when Iraq was still in conflict, with troops still on the

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ground, AUIS was financially better off, with more funding coming from the U.S. as well as from the Kurdistan Region government. Quoted in MacKinnon (2008), the former acting chancellor at AUIS stated that the U.S. government has contributed only $10.3 million of the university's $500 million budget. He was worried that AUIS would look like an "imperial venture" because of being built while Iraq was under U.S. military occupation (MacKinnon,

2008). While this level of support is not available any more, these resources helped the university to be more effective. Yet, at the same time, they created confusion about its governance and about its not-for-profit status. An administrator who joined AUIS at its early stages of establishment stated:

When AUIS was established in 2007, there was a lot of confusion about it, particularly seeing it as an American university versus an American-style university. Expectations were that we are an American university and we are private and not-for-profit and those two terms are difficult here. There were very few private institutions, and we are the only not-for-profit institution, and people do not understand that. So, they equate private school with profit. So, people assumed that because we are charging tuition, we have all this money and that we should charge lower tuition, [and] give more scholarships. Still to this day, we struggle with that…. It was always kind of difficult to explain what the name meant when one is not tied to the US government. (AUIS6, Administrator, November 15, 2017)

The assumption of the community is that AUIS is an American institution which is part of the plan that followed the 2003 invasion to free Iraq. But the assumption of such a political attachment suggests that education at AUIS should be free, which leads to a challenge for the university to justify the high tuition fees for student and parents.

As noted, while the liberal arts ideology is institutionalized by faculty at the AUIS, resistance comes from the lack of buy-in from some local members of the board of trustees.

Many faculty members in my study believed this put liberal arts at risk a few times because of that. A faculty member from Humanities and Social Sciences confirmed this:

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The problem we have is local members of the board of trustees who…are political appointees of the founder of the university and the chair of the board…. They have no idea what we are doing here, do not know what liberal arts education is all about. They literally don't know. (AUIS10, Faculty Member, November 11, 2017).

This potential interference of local members of the AUIS board of trustees was also linked to the political affiliation of its founder which created an assumption that this university is politically backed by the regional political parties. While this political backing facilitates obtaining some financial resources, it also creates a sense of ownership, as well as interference from some local actors. An administrator from AUIS reflected on this issue:

Kurdistan, in general, is very political. Just [because of] the place where we're located, people assume that it means that we are politically backed or supported by one particular party. So, if we are based in Erbil 25, what does that mean? There is always that kind of question. Our founder, Salih, is a very good and brilliant man and really believes in education, empowerment of women, western values, and education, and he really tries very hard not to bring politics here (AUIS6, Administrator, November 15, 2017).

Since its establishment, then, AUIS was set to be outside of politics and it strives to continue to stay out of politics, as confirmed by the first chancellor of the university in 2007 (quoted in

Krieger, 2007). Yet, it seems political interference is part of the reality of HE in Iraq, whether private or public. As an administrator participant at AUIB stated, “everyone gets it” (AUIB2,

Administrator, December 13, 2019). However, some of my participants from AUIS and AUB were not very optimistic about the experiment of the American University in Baghdad, facing political conflicts, a centralized government, limited academic autonomy, and lack of understanding of the model.

25 Erbil is the capital of the Kurdistan Region and is dominated by Democratic Kurdistan Party (KDP) followers, the main rival of the PUK.

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Scanning the environment around the American University of Iraq-Baghdad (AUIB) in

Central Iraq shows similar political forces that could affect how AUIB will be perceived. Most private institutions in Iraq are owned by politicians and powerful people, and they are the main protectors of these universities and influence the Ministry to pass many ad hoc rules and regulations for their direct benefit. Consequently, their educational and social roles are questioned. Therefore, many participants from Central Iraq have concerns that AUIB will be vulnerable to the political interference that dominates Iraqi HE, particularly as it might present a real threat to the local private institutions. Further, the recent expansion of the private universities in Central Iraq is associated with profit and sufficient resources that make donations to these institutions a challenge, especially during the financial downturn and political uncertainty. Thus, the combination of a 'not-for-profit, 'private’ and 'American' institution as a new model in Iraqi higher education creates some confusion within the university community.

AUIB has adopted the not-for-profit model by relying, so far, on the investor's wealth with no financial support from any local or international organizations. However, the two participants in this study from AUIB stated that they would seek the U.S. or other international financial support in the future. According to the participants, the university offers a large number of scholarships and plans to make tuition very affordable. AUIB is part of a bigger project to establish a comprehensive education “city” that could help the university to be financially sustainable. This business project includes a hotel, conference centre, schools (kindergarten, primary and high schools), shopping malls, and a teaching hospital. The investor considers AUIB a philanthropic project. However, considering the University as part of these investment projects blurs the line between philanthropy and investment. An important question would be, how does this financial framework affect the sustainability of the project and the quality of its education?

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An advisor at the Ministry believes that local investments introduce another player and a potential risk threatening any new foreign university. He expressed concern that:

Here in Iraq, the investor has a crucial role in defining and determining the direction of the university. He can fire [everyone] overnight and change it. This is a risk. So, there is no stability in Iraq. (M4, Advisor, June 10, 2018)

While the model of the American-style university defines it as autonomous and apolitical, in this culture, there is no separation between the ownership, administration, and operation of the university where multiple powers are involved and affecting the university's independence.

While the secrecy about the investor in AUIB, as discussed in the previous chapter, may mean there is no affiliation with local political parties, the "American" brand could be another sensitive issue in Baghdad or Central Iraq where the society, at least at the time of writing, was less pro-

American than the Kurdistan Region. By comparison, the American University of Beirut (AUB) was established in a time when there was a perception that the U.S. had a limited geopolitical interest in the region, compared to the present. Despite many controversies around it since its beginnings in 1866, an AUB history professor reflected:

There are a lot of stories and narratives about this university. A lot of them are about what its role basically is to the U.S., what good it does for U.S. diplomacy…and the bridge between the two regions. So, you have this kind of story. It is good for the US, and makes the US look good in certain ways. But then there are other stories, about it being a very contested place, where people fight who controls it. Some people see it as implantation in a foreign soil of an American institution, that's one version of it. (AUB12, Faculty Member, March 19, 2018)

AUB started teaching in Arabic as the founders didn't want to be "denationalized". They chose to speak like Arabs and be culturally Arabic, and engage fully in their new environment. As such, there was always the idea to have an impact on this region and change it. However, as the political context of Lebanon become more divided and competitive, instead of engaging strongly with its community, AUB needed protection from the outside environment, particularly during 226

the civil war period when it sought isolation and elite protection. A philosophy professor reflects on the role of AUB during the civil war:

With the coming of the civil war, I think AUB didn't have much choice, just to protect itself from the outside, rather than engage in it. When the outside has become so divided, destructive, and militarized, you can't have a role in it. All you can do is to protect it from the influence of the outside.... So, AUB is kind of an elite in a country that wants to protect it because the elite in the country send their kids to it. If you have something like this in Iraq, the elite will not send their kids to public universities. (AUB14, Faculty Member, March 19, 2018)

AUB has also protected itself and made itself immune from unfavorable political and social conflicts outside the campus by institutionalizing a unique culture on campus and developing its own rules and regulations that separate it from the outside. The outside is perceived as "corrupt",

"failing", "fragmented", and "divided by sectarianism". The philosophy professor quoted above continues:

We have proper ways of recruiting people, systems of promotion, and tenure. So, to maintain a healthier institution compared to the rest of the country, we isolate ourselves from sectarian influences; [the intent is] not to shape the society, but not to allow the society to shape us. That has become more important. (AUB14, Faculty Member, March 19, 2018)

In summary, American-style universities are subject to local and geopolitical influences that challenge their key ideals of being not-for-profit and apolitical. However, these ideals, alongside with the ideal of liberal education itself, are countered by the lack of understanding and commitment to the model by some of the local actors.

7.3 A Democratic Campus

Promoting a Culture of Tolerance and Pluralism

A third ideal feature of American-style universities is the promise of a democratic campus to promote a culture of tolerance and pluralism by acting as a catalyst for political and

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social change. As I have argued in the two sections above, the reality on the ground is that challenges occur as these features are localized within the post-conflict context of Iraq, as I will explain in the next section. One of the rationales for establishing AUIS is to build peace and unity to align with the new Iraq as a democratic country. This raises a question about how the transition to democracy is to be carried out through the practices of an American-style university in a region that has historically been governed by an authoritarian regime.

Arguably, American-style universities offer a unique culture on their campuses that promotes respect and tolerance, and encourages democratic practices. This is technically maintained through a diverse student population coming from different religious and ethnic groups. Students come together, learn liberal values, and create a system to accommodate everybody in the future, as well as supporting democratic practices such as student union elections, voting, and running a newspaper. These various activities enable students to raise their voices about various concerns on campus as well as about outside social, cultural and political issues. Academics and administrators hope that students will carry this democratic culture with them once they enter public life.

One of the key dimensions of an imagined transition to democracy in Iraq is the view that it must be based on a shared national identity built around a political culture of tolerance, pluralism, and solutions to contested political issues that are negotiated, rather than violent

(Davis, 2015). This idea is also part of the guiding philosophy of the American liberal arts university that has attracted the founders of the American universities in post-conflict societies.

In the case of Iraq, both the AUIS and AUIB made clear their national affiliation by attaching

'Iraq' to their title, which underlines their responsibility for producing subjects for the nation-

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state. Al Adeeb, the former Minister of HE in Central Iraq, in his discussion about establishing an American liberal arts university in Baghdad, emphasized that by immersion in the educational culture of the West, Iraq could learn an important lesson from a truly democratic education. The lesson is "to value our differences and look for strength in diversity, to govern by consensus, not decree" (Al Adeeb, 2013, para. 12). In Iraq, the transition to democracy has proved so far, to be a shaky, if not a violent process, as it is governed by sectarian agendas and competition for resources and power. As such, many participants stated that students talk about democracy with a kind of mockery, looking at the current political reality where democratic practices such as elections are adopted in post-2003 Iraq, but it seems politicians are finding ways to maintain tribal and political affiliations to win their seats in the parliament. Nevertheless, participants at

AUIS insisted that the post-conflict framing implied in the rationale for establishing the university is manifested through various social and political practices on campus that promote a culture of tolerance, pluralism, and unity.

Since the formation of modern Iraq in 1921, the country has suffered from a variety of deep splits. First is the conflict between the politically dominant Sunni Arab minority in the centre of the country; Shiite Arabs, predominantly located in the South; and the Kurds in the

North.26 Iraqi diversity has been presented as a historical issue that the many governments in

Iraq have failed to embrace, equating Iraq's identity with a sense of Arab nationalism. Neither

26 Iraq is a multi-ethnic country with 75 percent of its population made up of the dominant ethnic group–the Iraqi or Mesopotamian Arabs. The second-largest cultural group is the Kurds (17 percent). Other major ethnic groups include Turks and Persians. Arabic and Kurdish are the official two languages in Iraq. Islam is the religion of the majority, 95 percent of the population. Non-Muslim minority religions include Christianity, Yazidism, Sabean Mandaeanism, and others. It is believed that 65 percent of Muslims are Shiites, while the remaining 35 percent are Sunnis (Central Intelligence Agency, 2020).

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has the local education system embraced Iraq's diversity (Bashkin, 2006). For example, for the first time in Iraqi history, the Diversity Institute developed a curriculum in 2019 to teach Iraqi students about religious minorities and Islamic seminaries (both Sunni and Shiite). This program is nevertheless offered at only few public colleges (Gilgamesh, 2020). This diversity, which could be seen as a form of cultural capital that uniquely describes Iraq, has not to this point been institutionalized or promoted as an instrument on which to build a common national identity.

Kurds specifically have lived through many tragedies impacted by this divide. While they have a strong Kurdish identity, the Kurds are politically divided between two parties in the region—the

Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). In this competitive environment, AUIS was challenged by its founder to play a civil and social role and integrate democratic values into its functions. To some extent, according to participants, this is paying off, as explained in this quote from a participant in my study:

There are larger clashes in the region, but our graduates are not part of these larger clashes. What we are teaching is accepting others and accepting differences and social cohesion, rather than creating new groups that create additional fragmentations. (AUIS1, Faculty Member, November 19, 2017)

Thus, AUIS presents itself as an Iraqi institution. Sustaining accreditation from the Ministry in

Baghdad increases the university's potential to maintain this identity. However, its geographic position in Kurdistan makes Kurdish students more broadly representative. There is a strategic need for emphasizing Iraqi identity to increase student enrolment, and it still plays a civic role and could be linked to the social and cultural rationale of the University discussed in the previous chapter. However, the tension between the Kurdistan Region and Central Iraq somewhat threatens the national identity of the university as well as its international identity. A quote from

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my interview with an AUIS participant refers to this point. He explained the situation in this way:

Depending on the political relations of the Kurdish region with the rest of Iraq, if there is more of a divide, enrolment from Arab students for this year goes right down, obviously because of the controversy. If that continues, we become more of a Kurdish type of a university. And again, that will erode the international nature of it. So, politics will obviously have a very big effect. (AUIS2, Faculty Member, November 19, 2017)

The ties between the Kurdistan Region and Central Iraq were actually cut temporarily after the referendum in 2017, and the University was not able to recruit students from Baghdad or other cities from Central Iraq; in addition, these political instabilities and geopolitical tensions provided few incentives for students from outside Kurdistan and Iraq to come and study at AUIS.

Being located in this political hot spot has reduced the potential of the University to attain one of its social and political objectives, which was to strengthen the unity of post-conflict Iraq.

Nevertheless, many participants have highlighted the sense of national unity among students during the critical time of the referendum and the Kirkuk battle in 2017.27 While all participants emphasized that the values of AUIS are accepted rather than questioned, the risk of division and lack of understanding is still present as long as tensions between the Region and Central Iraq continue.

In Baghdad, the Sunni and Shiite tension is strong and is maintained by centuries of division that emerges at some times and fades at other times. After 2003, sectarian identity became very strong and to some extent replaced other identities such as being Iraqi, Muslim, or

27 As noted previously, in September 2017, a referendum on independence was held in both the Kurdistan Region and the disputed areas seized by the Peshmerga in 2014, including Kirkuk. The vote was opposed by the Iraqi central government, which insisted it was illegal. (Nader et al., 2016) 231

Arab. When I interviewed him, the AUIB president was hopeful that Baghdad is diverse enough that it could attract students who are looking for a high-quality education. In his mind, "students and parents will fight to get a seat at the university." (AUIB1, Administrator, April 20, 2018) His assumption that Baghdad can harmoniously include liberals as well as conservatives and the in- between can be seen in the following quote by an administrator of the university:

But I think Baghdad has very conservative people, almost to the point of religious extremism. And then I have met some very liberal people. The people that are employing me to start this university are very liberal in their approach to education and their feelings about culture and religion...and they want me to promote unity at the university. (AUIB1, Administrator, April 20, 2018)

Baghdad's diversity, however, formerly a source of wealth and strength, is now a reason for fears of insecurity and radicalized division. In the current post-conflict period, Baghdad is faced with high rates of population displacement, poverty, illiteracy, corruption, violence and social fragmentation. This trend is part of what Saad Salloum, an Iraqi intellectual, has described as a thirst for 'cultural cleansing' and 'cultural uprooting' that emerged as part of the post-2003 conflict and part of the ISIS agenda (quoted in Gilgamesh, 2015). For example, after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the number of Christians in Iraq dropped by 83 percent, from around 1.5 million to just 250,000 (Gilgamesh, 2020). This raises the issue of how AUIB plans to promote

Iraq's diversity.

Acting as a Catalyst for Political and Social Change

As a place of supporting free speech, academic freedom, and autonomy, a university becomes a political institution as well. Advocates for expanding western universities across the Middle East argue that by broadening the public sphere, Western institutions will serve as a centre of civil society in an otherwise authoritarian political landscape (Noori & Anderson, 2013). AUIS has been trying to position itself as just this kind of progressive educational actor. For example, one 232

of the signature annual events at AUIS is 'The Sulaimani Forum' designed to establish a dialogue between senior government officials and international diplomats on the most complex issues facing Iraq and the region.

In comparison, AUB was considered a centre for the nationalism movement that took place in the 1960’s and 1970’s in many Arab States. Many participants argued that liberal education and free thought have cultivated many social change movements and that liberal education stimulates the emergence of liberal thinking in this part of the world. A history professor argued as follows:

Naturally, you get communist thinking growing in the university, nationalist thinking, capitalist thinking—all kinds of thinking develop in this university. Not because AUB taught any of these kinds of thinking, but because it taught and encouraged free thinking where all kinds of views are discussed and debated. Because this part of the world was facing colonialism and other problems, so naturally nationalism would grow and develop in this university. (AUB12, Faculty Member, March 19, 2018)

This aligns with AUIS's intended civil role in its region as an educational institution that could contribute to the transition of Iraq to democracy. However, an administrator from AUIS insisted:

I don't see our mission at the university as promoting democracy, but I do see our mission as promoting clear thought—people who can think well and make a good decision and who care about each other. I don't see our mission as being to promote democracy or capitalism or English. We are promoting good thinking. (AUIS12, Administrator, November 18, 2017)

A professor in political science at AUB underscored the strength of the political role AUB has played, stating: "Lebanon and AUB, in particular, is a place where people dare to dream to change" (AUB6, Faculty Member, March 17, 2018). While this could mean that the political and social role of AUB has been reduced, compared to the 1960’s and 1970’s, it also underlines the point that the previous era was a revolutionary one in which most young people were influenced by the movement for independence from colonial powers that diffused through the entire Arab 233

region. While many AUB participants see their students and themselves as agents for social change, they feel that the complex political environment in the country pushes most students away from politics. As a faculty member stated, students

are very interested in politics and society and making changes, but they are not in a position to be able to do it, and you can see many students back up and leave. (AUB2, Faculty Member, March 16, 2017)

Lebanon continues to suffer under a weak government and economy, a situation that is further aggravated by a lack of social cohesion, with sectarianism remaining a major feature of modern

Lebanese society. The geopolitical conflicts and stability and security challenges that have struck the region are another layer that complicates the situation for this generation, in which this sense of disappointment is pervasive, as reflected in this quote from a participant in my study:

It is a sort of resignation. The hope for a better future seems to have expired. And also, it is a question of different interests now…. The AUB mission is far more needed in this century than it was needed before. I don't claim to fully understand what is happening in the region in general, but it is obvious that we are becoming far more closed-minded than before, and less willing to think critically in a way that makes AUB far more necessary than before. The liberal arts education and the culture it produces on campus give students, while they are at AUB, opportunities to consider alternatives to think critically or re-examine their lives (AUB6, Faculty Member, March 17, 2018).

Similarly, in the Kurdistan Region, this sense of resignation among students has emerged because of the political and economic situations in the region. A professor in political science has perceived the situation as a potential brain drain where the talents AUIS is developing might eventually leave the country. He put it in the following way:

We might be setting these kids up for disappointments.... These kids are growing up amidst great political and economic uncertainty. There is an excuse for them to get out of here. Not just out of Kurdistan, or Iraq but out of the Middle East…. And down the road, if they work hard enough, the Gulf…is not enough for them either. So, in training them to be the best version of themselves, and the best version of their peers from around the world, I wonder sometimes why we are basically spending precious resources on people who down the road will remember this place very fondly, but won’t be around to contribute to it. So that's the negative part. (AUIS4, Faculty, November 20, 2017) 234

Despite the fact that many public universities are affected by the political situation and swept along by the corruption in the country in general, there is a renewal of the social protest movements in Iraq and Lebanon. Beginning in mid-July 2015, the major cities of central and southern Iraq, including the capital Baghdad, were overtaken by one of the largest social protest movements in modern Iraqi history. Most activists are young university students looking for justice and jobs; an Iraqi sociologist sees it as a shift "From Identity Politics to Issue Politics"

(Jabar, 2017). The "# we want homeland" protest has grown against financial and administrative corruption and the system of biased political quota-sharing in the name of ethnic and communal identities. The movement opposes the Islamist elites, symbolizing the failure of political Islam in running state affairs (Jabar, 2017). The recurrent slogan chanted during demonstrations tells it all when it says “In the name of religion the thieves have robbed us.” The protesters are young students who have studied in public schools and universities in the fragmented and corrupt political system. They also oppose foreign interference such as that from the U.S. and Iran in the internal affairs of Iraq, which has created their political awareness; this can be seen as an indicator of a gradual transition to democracy in post-2003 Iraq. In this uncertain social and political context, could AUIB be seen as part of the American agenda for Iraq? I also wonder to what extent AUIB will be impacted by anti-American sentiments that have strengthened recently as the U.S uses Iraq as a battleground in its conflict with neighboring Iran. An administrator at

AUIB made the following comment:

We have to be very careful. Some people still believe that Saddam Hussain was great, but we see he was a brutal dictator. We can't—we don't say that. We don't pass judgment; it is not our right to, it is not our place. One thing I decided to do which I got a lot of opposition [for] relates to the main palace…was pointing out that Saddam Hussain had an ego, maybe bigger than Donald Trump. In the palace, all his names are engraved on marble. People want to erase them, but I said, “Absolutely not! This is a historic building in a historic place, and you cannot erase what happened…. His chair is still there, and his

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throne. His office is still there, all his stuff is still there, and so we are creating a museum, so the people can come and learn. Just like what you learn from the era of Hitler, what you don't want to happen in society…we are preserving the palace. Which is a real challenge from a university standpoint because a university is classrooms, and we don't want to take this magnificent palace, and divide it all up into classrooms, so that is one of the challenges we are having (AUIB1, Administrator, April 20, 2018).

Taking and renovating Saddam's palace to create a new American-style university symbolizes the new era of post-2003 Iraq and the transition from the authoritarian regime to a democratic society. The administrator from AUIB quoted above found transforming Saddam’s palace into a university, particularly one based on an American model, was appropriate; this was first because, in his words, "America doesn't do anything right anymore," except in education. Second, he felt there was an urgent need to transfer this model to Iraq. Will AUIB be the modern or the

American version of Baghdad's House of Wisdom?

7.4 Summary

This chapter examined the implementation and localization issues involved in transferring an

American-style university into Iraqi higher education. It also illuminated the role of actors, networks, economic factors, and political will to support or hinder the implementation of this university model in post-2003 Iraq. It examined how three specific ideals of the American-style university are implanted and localized within the context of post-2003 Iraq. As part of my analysis, I have shown how participants in my study weigh the value of these ideals against multiple cultural, economic, and political realities that may play out as resistance to these ideals.

Each issue addressed here has surfaced at some point as a real-world concern.

The liberal arts curriculum and pedagogy, as a main exportable feature of an American- style university, although defended by those who taught it, is also resisted by various actors such as students, faculty members, and some local members of the board of trustees—a dynamic that

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puts the model at risk. Local and international accreditation bodies which play down this “frill” of American-style education present another risk to the liberal arts curriculum ideal. Precarious funding also undercuts the ability to pay for anything but the basics of a technical education to address the immediate need for employment and the country’s need for rebuilding.

While local accreditation gives legitimacy to the university in the region, it also challenges it to maintain its current priority to be a teaching university and student-focused, despite the arguments of its professors that this focus is socially and academically important in post-conflict societies. The context of post-2003 Iraq makes recruiting qualified American or

Western faculty members a challenge that contributes to seeing American-style universities in the region as “less American”. I have provided a glimpse of the complex interplay of circumstances that are involved. For example, in addition to a basic lack of knowledge of what the liberal arts stand for among some actors, there has also been an erosion of the prestige of liberal values, particularly in Central Iraq as anti-American sentiment is heightened. This might limit the ability of American-style universities to strengthen their community engagement.

Potentially, an American or foreign institution established in a conflict or post-conflict society facilitates political and financial support from the U.S. and other international organizations. Such support could be motivated by the soft power of the U.S. in the region. Yet, within the context of the post-2003 invasion, it creates a sense that these institutions are politically and financially backed by the U.S. This perceived backing brings some challenges and confusion; yet, participants deny that there is significant resistance to the American-style university itself. In Central Iraq, this university model is privileged to receive political support from both the Iraqi and the U.S. governments. However, no financial support is expected so far

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from either government. AUIB is inspired to bring about change and to be a living example of a reputable, rigorous, and high-quality university for Iraq's public universities to learn from. Yet, in the challenging context of Iraq where founders have a great deal of influence, AUIB could simply build its own “individual success,” similar to AUB, rather than genuinely engaging in reforming Iraqi HE. I have identified the reality of a basic lack of understanding of the nature of the American-liberal arts university model, as well as how its funding is tied to its autonomy by various local and international actors as another challenge to adopting its ideals. Thus, while the promise of external funding is attractive, lack of awareness of how it will be perceived can be translated into resistance from students, parents, the local board of trustees, and even the Iraqi

Ministry of HE. Consequently, I have argued that these challenges may push the university to operate in a self-protective mode in isolation, turning away from post-conflict developmental and social needs.

On the positive side, as a centre of liberal thinking, those who teach in them defend

American-style universities, insisting that they provide an environment for cultural tolerance and unity and encourage positive social change. However, the chaotic transition to democracy in Iraq has yet to provide a safe environment for the university to fully realize its political and social agendas. Finally, lack of financial support could make the university more exclusive and isolated, rather than able to engage and positively shape its new society.

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Chapter 8 : Discussion and Conclusion

Prince Feisal: But you know, Lieutenant, in the Arab city of Cordoba were two miles of public lighting in the streets when London was a village? T.E. Lawrence: Yes, you were great. Prince Feisal: Nine centuries ago. T.E. Lawrence: Time to be great again, my lord. (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962)

After many years of conflicts, wars, sectarian divisions, corruption, political interference, economic hardships, Iraq’s higher education descended from being the best in the region to being in crisis and described by many Iraqis and the international community as a collapsed system, unable to play its social and economic role to rebuild the nation. After the 2003 invasion, connecting Iraq with the international community was seen by the Coalition Provisional

Authority (CPA) and other international organizations as a crucial first step for post-conflict Iraq recovery. As such, internationalization became accepted as a reform agenda and the solutions to reform the collapsed system through various activities such as study abroad, twinning programs, international university partnerships, investing in ranking, and establishing the American university model. The key objective of this study was to explore how and why internationalization and imported universities were adapted in Iraqi higher education. The study also examined how Iraqi higher education has adopted these educational activities within the context of the post-2003 period. These questions were analyzed based on the insights from local actors at the state, sectoral, university, and individual levels. The study also examined cross- national influences and impulses that created opportunities to adopt internationalization in Iraq's higher education. To do so, my analysis has addressed three contextual dimensions of higher education in post-2003 Iraq. These are 1) the legacy of pre-conflict context, 2) the conflict as a critical juncture that offered an opportunity for educational reform and policy borrowing, and 3) the post-conflict realities. Rapid political change and the systemic collapse of Iraqi higher

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education were the impulses that opened the space to integrate some internationalization activities into the system, including study abroad initiatives, university partnerships, twinning and franchising programs, and establishing foreign university models. International influences on

Iraqi higher education since 2003 have also included the legacy of economic sanctions, CPA destruction and reconstruction policies, and the capacity building and modernization programs of international organizations.

On the surface, it seems that all actors are keen to restore the reputation of Iraq's higher education and revive its golden age (during the '60s and '70s) by bridging the knowledge gap produced by years of conflict and isolation. The internationalization of higher education is seen as a key to reconnecting Iraq with the international community to facilitate the flow of western, modern, and advanced knowledge and culture that ultimately could reform and modernize its local system. Beyond these common rationales, this study has identified other interrelated rationales that have framed the imperatives of implementing internationalization in Iraqi higher education. These are as follows: finding a better alternative to the local system that seems resistant to change, bringing in financial aid, and the potential for revenue generation. The financial crisis and the lack of real reform in public higher education have affected how these rationales are understood by various actors. Further, the study has identified implied rationales related to the broader geopolitical interest of the U.S. in Iraq and the Middle East.

This closing chapter includes six sections. The first section provides a summary of the research findings on the rationales that supported the adoption of internationalization and imported universities in post-2003 Iraq. The second section discusses how the findings in this study contribute to the literature on internationalization and imported university models. The

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third section reflects on the challenges and paradoxes of adopting internationalization and importing foreign university models in Iraq. The fourth section reflects on the policy borrowing and education framework in Iraq. While the fifth discusses the implications for future research.

Finally, the sixth chapter ends the thesis with a final thought about the future of Iraq's higher.

8.1 Summary of Findings and Answers to the Research Questions

My research found that study abroad programs initiated by the Iraqi government were motivated by an economic rationale to develop the urgently needed human resources to participate in the economic and social development of a post-2003 democratic Iraq, as well as to develop the teaching and administration cadre for universities that had suffered from a constant brain drain for decades. I argued that the implied rationales for promoting internationalization at the state level is to demonstrate the government as a legitimate authority in Iraq’s society and the world against its self-interest for power and wealth.

The rationale for rebuilding the reputation of Iraq's higher education dominated my interviews with participants from the Ministry and university leaders about why internationalization is urgently needed. This reputational rationale translated into investing in entering the international university rankings as a reaction to the deteriorated reputation of Iraqi universities rather than as an action to strategically reform them. Similarly, decision-makers at the Ministry and university levels were attracted to the prestige and the reputation that twinning programs or foreign universities could bring to Iraq's higher education. At the institutional level, the dominant rationale among university leaders was economic as well. Most partnerships with international universities for curriculum development and training were established during the temporary period of financial prosperity between 2008 and 2014. However, after the 2014 economic downturn, there was an expectation that these partnerships could be a source of 241

financial aid or in-kind technical support. Further, the implied objective of building a reputation through ranking and developing twinning programs is to attract international students that could generate revenue for universities. By contrast, teaching faculty believe that internationalization activities have helped them to modernize their teaching practices; however, due to a combination of political and structural reasons, this new learning has stayed mostly at the individual level.

This study also examined and compared the rationales for establishing American-style universities in post-conflict settings taking the historical American University of Beirut (AUB) and the two young American universities of Iraq in Sulaimani (AUIS) and Baghdad (AUIB) as case studies. Peace and unity, a civilizational mission and enlightenment were key objectives for the founder of AUB more than 150 years ago. This political rationale also dominated the interest of the AUIS founder in this university model, as he was influenced by the dramatic history of the

Kurdistan region. These rationales demonstrate mostly what Jones (1998) considers the ideology of internationalization that promotes peace and advocates understanding democratic values and human well-being; these values are seen as particularly important for societies that have been impacted by conflict.

Establishing AUIS as compared to AUB, involved an educational rationale to build an advanced and modern higher education in the Kurdistan region; however, it also had an implicit political rationale. The political elite in the Kurdistan region had the vision of seeing it as an independent jurisdiction from Central Iraq, and this required developing and strengthening its local higher education system. By contrast, AUIB differs from the other two American-style universities, AUB and AUIS, in putting the emphases more on a marketing approach to

'revolutionize' education and higher education along with Iraq’s health systems. Specifically, evidence from this study showed that the policymakers' rationale for establishing AUIB was part

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of a new trend of engaging the private sector to respond to the high demand for higher education by establishing a more reputable and prestigious, also private, university model. The analysis showed that participants overestimated the positive outcomes of internationalization and imported universities. Such tendency was indicative of losing Iraq’s universities their legitimacy and capacity to play their social and economic role in the development of post-2003 amidst a pervasive political corruption and the limited capacity of some actors at the Ministry and university levels.

At the global level, the other finding from my study was seeing Iraq as a profitable market for some western universities. From the cross-national context, both internationalization and imported university models are presented as just another business opportunity provided by the war for many western universities, an opportunity not available before 2003. This was particularly the case during the temporary financial upturn between 2008 and 2014, where the state generously funded scholarships and public universities to rebuild their infrastructure and capacities.

Another rationale from the cross-national perspective was soft power. The literature has pointed to soft power as a political rationale for internationalization and transnational education

(Bertelsen, 2012, 2014; de Wit, 1999). This aspect was obvious in the analysis as the relationship between Iraq and the U.S. was being reshaped toward public diplomacy to replace American hard power, but at the same time to maintain its political interest in Iraq and the region. The analysis showed that the attempt of CPA and the U.S. government to reconnect Iraq with the international community is part of the process to legitimate their authority as an occupation power, as well as to legitimate the appointed local authority that proved to be corrupt and

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fighting for power and wealth. The other motivation for these reconnection efforts is to reconstruct Iraq’s economy into a liberal market where private U.S. corporations will profit as well. For Britain, as a previous colonial power, it seemed that support for internationalization and an imported university model for Iraq was an opportunity to maintain its historical relationship with Iraq while sustaining its soft power.

8.2 Contribution to the Literature on the Internationalization of Higher Education

This study offers four contributions to the study of higher education internationalization. First, elaborating on the insights of local actors demonstrates how higher education reform–in this case, internationalization and an imported university model–plays out in a post-conflict setting.

This adds to previous studies that have primarily focused on the role of higher education in reconstructing and stabilizing post-conflict societies. Second, this study contributes to the limited literature on Iraqi higher education. While many studies have looked at the phenomenon of internationalization in Europe, America, Asia, and other contexts, there has been little or nothing done on the impact of this phenomenon in an Iraqi context. Iraq is a unique case with its complex modern history of war, sanctions, and reconstruction measures imposed by the Coalition

Provisional Authority (CPA) after the 2003 invasion. Recently there has been a debate about the

'end of internationalization' (Altbach & de Wit, 2018), especially in Europe and North America; however, the findings of my study show that contemporary internationalization has just begun in

Iraq. After years of isolation, Iraq and its education systems are increasingly affected by globalization and internationalization. Over the past 30 years, internationalization has become a possible source of revenue and a means to attain enhanced reputation. These benefits have been demonstrated through academic and program mobility, reputation and branding that is manifested by global and regional rankings, and a shift in paradigm from cooperation to

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competition (Van Der Wende, 2001). While Iraq may be a late adopter of internationalization practices as a result of conflict, how internationalization is practiced and interpreted appears to be similar to other countries without a history of conflict. For instance, the importance of building relationships and links with the international community through student mobility, joint research, and other internationalization activities falls in line with how internationalization is defined in the Arabic academic landscape (Khater, 2015). In the contexts of Asian and emerging economies, internationalizing higher education is also perceived as a way to catch up, to

(re)connect with the world and to establish a position in the international academic realm (Xie,

2018); to achieve both academic excellence and global reputation (Palmer & Cho, 2012); and to copy Western models of higher education through adopting their criteria and practice (Wang et al., 2019). The desire to catch up with a global trend and meet international standards also was a rationale for some countries in Africa (Eta, 2018). In these studies, the imperatives for internationalization are presented as a response to the pressure of globalization where it is increasingly based on competition. rather than on collaboration. as its traditional model. While the motives are different, they have led to the same idea of importing prestige and adopting western practices in post-conflict as well as in non-conflict societies. In countries impacted by conflict, this reliance on the prestige of the Western institutions or imported curriculum could be attributed to the long-lasting impact of conflict and post-conflict realities that continue to be challenged by emerging priorities, lack of resources, and conflicting political agendas.

In the literature, a few studies show that internationalization of higher education in conflict-impacted countries led to brain drain (Barclay, 2002), exploitation (Stella, 2006), and the reproduction of aid-dependency (Samoff & Carrol, 2004, p. 115). These negative consequences were also noted by a few participants of this study. However, a positive attitude

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toward internationalization was more dominant, which aligns with Brandenburg and de Wit’s

(2011) argument that internationalization "has become a synonym of 'doing good' and an instrument to improve the quality of education or research with less tendency to question its effectiveness or impact” (p. 15). Some participants in this study even believe twinning programs and foreign university models could be a healthier substitute for the low quality of private institutions, and maybe even for public universities that are resistant to change. Even most of the participants did not refer to any potential risk of low quality or exploitation. There is no doubt that Iraq needs to build the local higher education system with an international outlook; however, exchanging a collapsed system for transnational activities that suit the interests of western or other institutions cannot be a rational objective.

Third, not many studies have explored the early stages of development of a new higher education institution and its rationales comparatively. This is another contribution of my study, as it provides some insight into and understanding of the early stages of development of

American-style universities in Iraq and the challenges of launching a new university in a post- conflict setting. The study shows that the rationale for establishing a new university is different depending on how a university is funded. For example, AUIB is funded by a wealthy entrepreneur while AUIS's founder built political alliances to fund and support the institution; both approaches have a significant impact on how these universities are perceived in their respective communities. AUIS and AUIB were established amidst conflict and occupation, which creates a sense that these institutions are politically and financially backed by the U.S.

This perceived backing brings some challenges and confusion. Nevertheless, there is no significant resistance to the American-style university itself. This indicates that, regardless of the

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foreign policies of the U.S. or the West, the admiration for western education has never faded in

Iraq and the region.

Finally, the study suggests a conceptual framework28 to understand internationalization in post-conflict settings. The conceptual framework consists of three parts that focus on pre-conflict history, conflict as a critical juncture, and post-conflict political and economic challenges. Each part is explained in the following section. This conceptual framework could support the interpretation, analysis, and comparison of higher education internationalization in post-conflict settings.

8.3 Internationalization and Imported Universities in Iraq: Challenges and Paradoxes

Internationalization and imported universities consist of a wide array of activities, and ensuring that these activities fulfill their stated rationales and externalizing potential is a critical aspect. In borrowing a policy from other cultures, a gap between the rhetoric of the rationales and the reality at the implementation and adaptation stages often exists. Both internationalization and imported universities are subject to this issue, given their potential to reform the local higher education system and the involvement of many actors, each having different objectives. Often many contextual factors present a barrier to translating the rationales of a borrowed policy to strategies and actions. Most participants of this study have perceived internationalization and imported universities as the panacea for the tremendous challenges that Iraq's higher education is facing. However, as the analysis in this study has shown, they also have revealed tremendous obstacles and contextual factors which suggest that the rationales for internationalization remain

28 This framework is part of an unpublished article co-authored with Emma Sabzalieva, an OISE PhD graduate. 247

at the level of political rhetoric. These challenges are critical to the success of implementing and localizing a borrowed educational idea. This section reflects on the challenges and paradoxes of implementing internationalization and establishing foreign universities in Iraq. Many of these issues are interrelated and have reinforced each other. Whereas the act of conflict often forms the focal point for analysis as a critical juncture for post-conflict higher education, this study has shown the importance of also accounting for path dependence, in terms of the pre-conflict norms and values brought forward to higher education in Iraq today. The discussion will focus on how the pre-conflict, conflict, and post-conflict contextual factors affect the implementation of internationalization.

Pre-conflict Legacy

The core idea of 'path dependence' is that once established, some institutions tend to become increasingly difficult to change over time, and so small choices early on can have significant long-term impacts (Sorensen, 2014). The effect of history means that following a time of major change, such as organizational change and conflict, organizations and structures retain their pre- major change configuration (Steinmo, 2008). The legacy of the pre-conflict events and the policies of the Ba'ath regime had a dramatic impact on how Iraqi higher education operates and has been restructured. There is no doubt that the Ba'ath Socialist Party had adopted secular and modern approaches, particularly during the early years of its rule, and had a significant role in the development of the education sector in Iraq. However, the educational system seriously deteriorated due to overall negligence in large part by the government as a consequence of Iraq's engagement in the Iran-Iraq war, the Kuwait invasion in 1991 that led to the sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council, and finally by the American invasion in 2003.

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The impact of this pre-conflict legacy is twofold. First, the level of damage affects how internationalization is interpreted as a positive solution and a panacea to solve the crises of Iraqi higher education. Second, the Iraqi higher education system after 2003 has inherited and even strengthened many structural, cultural and political characteristics from the previous regime, such as the lack of institutional independence, a politicized academic culture, demotivated faculty members, and as discussed in Chapter 4, the culture of grade gifting and rentalism behavior. All these legacies create many barriers against the implementation of internationalization and the translation of its rationales into actions and strategies. The big challenge is seeing the university as a public organization that is governed by bureaucratic processes and mindset rather than by innovation and agility to change. Such perception has diminished the legitimacy of Iraq’ public universities and their capacity to engage in the urgently needed post-conflict reform.

Conflict as a Critical Turning Point

The fall of the authoritarian one-party regime after the 2003 US-led invasion appeared to mark the beginning of a transition to a democratic society and an opportunity for educational reforms; however, it gave way to a disastrous sectarian conflict. Two critical aspects have shaped the context of Iraq because of the 2003 invasion: political change and reconstruction measures. Both have had a dramatic impact on Iraqi higher education and, consequently, on the implementation of internationalization activities, including establishing foreign universities.

The political context of post-2003 has impacted higher education tremendously, which limits opportunities to reform higher education. Iraq's political system that is based on sectarian appointments by a quota system was created in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion. The system's legitimation was based on fair representation of all ethnicities and sects (Dodge & Mansour, 249

2020). The distribution of ministries and oil revenues across the country are based on this quota system. This ethno-sectarian quota system did not lead to either democracy or inclusivity, but rather to an elite seeking to use identity to ensure their power, wealth, and legitimacy (Jabar,

2017) and political parties where each "exerted different political threats to exert control" (Al-

Behadili, 2018, p. 5). Public higher education is subject to this quota, which makes the sector subject to political interference and corruption and consequently constitutes a barrier to development and limits the capacity for reform as well as the transfer of new knowledge and skills through internationalization. This presents a significant contextual challenge, particularly for imported universities, and could explain why few foreign universities have been established in Iraq, even with much local and international interest. The other critical aspect of the post-2003 period is the reconstruction of Iraq's economy along neoliberal lines. The human development objectives put forward as one of the Iraqi government rationales for internationalization fit well with the argument of world society theory. This theory emphasizes that a range of common education policies have been adopted around the world as the result of both the international dissemination of the values of western modernity as well as the legitimation pressures that governments receive–especially in postcolonial settings– to demonstrate to the international community that they are building a 'modern state' (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). In that sense, the reputational rationale is not unique to Iraq; in the global context, many governments are investing heavily to secure a position on international academic maps. What is unique in the case of Iraq is the idea of re-building and once again emerging from years of isolation. Verger talks about 'the role of ideas' in global education policy (2014, p. 16). The new changes that came to

Iraqi higher education such as privatization, decentralization, and internationalization are typical global reform agendas; Iraq is just a late adopter. Once Iraq opened its door after years of

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isolation, these reform agendas have been transferred quickly. These global ideas are tools for rebuilding Iraq, not for returning to its golden age. Instead, it is being reconstructed to fit with the neoliberal agenda of the global economy. However, bringing these new ideas and the transition to a fully liberalized economy was implemented by CPA officials with little regard for how decades of war and sanctions had shaped the Iraqi economy and the consequences this would have on the post-invasion economic policy (Abboud, 2009). It impossible to ignore that the liberation of Iraq’s economy is part of the broader political agenda and the ideological interest in

Iraq and the region. While the motivation for US military action in the region was widely debated, the Iraq war was arguably less about Iraq than about the global role of the US.

Particularly reshaping its influence from “hegemony to empire” (Hinnebusch, 2007, p. 213) while contemporary ‘empire’ is a product of global capitalism, the world market and transnational corporations, and the US strategic position in the Middle East. (Hinnebusch, 2007;

O’Meara, 2006)

Post-conflict Political and Economic Challenges

The contextual factors related to the post-conflict political and economic challenges faced in Iraq also have affected how internationalization and imported universities were implemented. This is important as it has implications for the extent to which the governments enable or constrain higher education internationalization. As in many other post-conflict settings, Iraq is characterized as a fragile state dominated by instability, sectarian division, corruption, and economic uncertainty (Milton, 2018). Higher education institutions in Iraq have experienced a range of challenges as a result of conflict, including the immediate need to address physical damage. Reconstruction was particularly urgent in Iraq, where it was estimated that 84 percent of the higher education institution infrastructure was burnt, looted, or severely destroyed in some

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form (Milton & Barakat, 2016). The politicization of higher education intensified following the

De-Baathification policy after 2003 that removed all qualified and experienced academics and administrative staff who had links with the previous regime, creating a vacuum in terms of skills relevant to reforming and managing higher education (Harb, 2008). After 2003, neither the occupying forces nor the political parties they imposed on Iraq showed any real interest in developing the HE sector (Jawad & Al-Assaf, 2014). Also, because of their conservative religious attitudes, the ruling parties have isolated the technocrats, fearing that their role in strengthening civil society could be a real threat to their narrow-minded ideologies. The result has been a severe deterioration in education in general, and in the higher education sector in particular. Therefore, it can be concluded that internationalization in Iraqi higher education is fragmented amidst significant other institutional and organizational changes after 2003. Also, as the local context of Iraq continues to be challenging and problematic, it seems that the international dimensions of Iraqi higher education are disconnected from that context.

These three interrelated dimensions related to conflict have provided a lens that helped identify the structural, cultural, political, economic and global reform agendas that came to Iraq, which collectively present challenges and paradoxes in adopting internationalization in Iraqi higher education. Further, the three dimensions (of pre-conflict history, conflict as a critical juncture, and post-conflict political and economic challenges) brought the specific context of

Iraq and its historical perspectives to the fore, and put forward a framework to better understand how these contextual factors are influencing actors' perceptions of internationalization. In particular, they may explain the positive attitude toward internationalization and imported universities in terms of the original values of collaboration and quality. It seems that Iraq is not alone in how internationalization is understood. De Wit (2020) has recently noted:

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Universities have always had international dimensions in their research, teaching, and service to society, but those dimensions were in general more ad hoc, fragmented, and implicit than explicit and comprehensive. (de Wit, 2020, p.i)

One clear example from the context of Iraq was study abroad programs, widely recognized by interviewees as a tool to transfer knowledge and culture, providing students with the opportunity to obtain an education abroad and later return home to help the development of their home country. In this way, student and faculty mobility serves to bridge the gap created by conflict and to reconnect with the world. Internationalization is also seen as a way to import prestige into the local setting while integrating into the international academic community for the purpose of restoring Iraqi higher education system to its former glory. Yet despite the importance of history, contemporary issues in the post-conflict setting also affect perceptions of internationalization.

The political and economic context, a fragile state in Iraq, and an authoritarian and economically poor government lead to internationalization being seen as a way to divert fragmented national governance to external, supposedly, prestigious institutions or as a reason for new universities to be imported. Finally, my analysis brings up the issue of readiness and whether Iraq is prepared politically, economically, and culturally for transferring advanced knowledge and skills, modernizing its system, and implementing and localizing advanced technology and teaching methods. Iraq's HE system was proclaimed to have recovered and moved into a development and internationalization phase by 2010 (Lindsey, 2012). However, changes in the aftermath of the

2003 invasion arguably came to Iraq abruptly, which didn't allow for the ownership of that change, nor for a gradual improvement to the system and its actors’ skills and knowledge.

8.4 Policy Borrowing Framework

In this section, I will reflect on Phillips and Ochs' four-stage model of policy borrowing (2004) as the main analytical tool in this study. This model serves as an analytical framework to

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examine the processes of educational policy borrowing and the context of educational reform.

The authors acknowledged that the model could be improved to take into account various contexts. Phillips and Ochs also identified issues that pose challenges in policy borrowing research, which would fundamentally undermine the applicability of any theoretical model that attempted to describe the process (2004). They grouped these issues into three major categories: the difficulties manifest in questions of definition (determining the parameters), analysis

(identifying the processes), and assessment (judging the outcomes). The problem of definition raises an immediate question as to whether the policy is intentionally and deliberately borrowed or imposed by others, such as during occupation, with limited free decision-making of the occupied. There is also the complex issue of influence, which does not always have positive effects and is difficult to measure. Influence, however, can also be deliberate and purposive in ways which are more or less irresistible, as with conditions imposed by the World Bank and other aid agencies, the role of occupying forces, and the advice given by specialists called in to help in other types of post-conflict situation. These concerns are all applicable to the case of Iraq.

Similarly, identifying borrowing processes and assessing borrowing outcomes have also come to be "the most difficult task policy borrowing researchers face" (Phillips & Ochs, 2004, p. 782).

Furthermore, the Phillips and Ochs model was not specifically developed in consideration of the newly emerging transnational education trend where the definition of 'borrowing' is confusing because many educational transfer activities are based on partnership and sponsorship or competition. To my knowledge, no study has adopted the policy borrowing framework to examine imported universities as a policy. So, I found that educational transfer such as imported universities might not fit perfectly the traditional definition of policy borrowing, although it might indicate transferring multiple policies.

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Despite its strengths, the Phillips and Ochs four-stage policy borrowing model has not escaped criticism from scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. Nevertheless, I found the framework very useful in this study, as it pays attention to the ideas of adoption, adaptation or localization of a new educational transfer, and most importantly "the context of educational reforms' (Phillips & Ochs, 2004, p. 781). It provides "clear stages for analysis, suggests 'factors to be investigated within each stage'...and underlines 'the importance of context' in such studies”

(Phillips, 2005, p. 313). In other words, it places an emphasis on the process (policy borrowing), the policy content, the time, the agency, and the impact of context on borrowing the educational ideas. All are critical aspects to consider in the policy borrowing process, as Steiner-Khamsi stated:

If we choose to bring the local context to the fore, direct our attention to agencies of lending and borrowing, and ask why some ideas or discourse have been transferred, we gain a completely different understanding of transfer (2009, p.158).

As Hayhoe (2011) has suggested, the application of assumingly universal theories in an exploratory and critical way is a useful exercise and they might be seen as ideal types that are

“made to be broken” (p. 91). To fit the framework for the case of Iraq, I suggest a modified framework that I have implanted to examine the adoption of an American-style university in post-conflict Iraq. Figure 5 shows a modified theoretical framework that is essentially based on the four stages of the policy borrowing model developed by Phillips and Ochs (2004). In the following section, I will explain the components of the modified framework.

One of the criticisms of Phillips and Ochs’ framework is its logical and sequential structure that is built on an assumption that the policy process is linear, rational, and top-down.

Black (2001) argues that this approach tends to overlook the fact that the policy process can be random, and decisions are often made in ambiguous environments involving multiple actors with

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different viewpoints and incentives (as cited in Chow, 2014, p. 119). Ochs also reflected on this aspect and stated:

It is unclear when one stage begins and another one ends, or that there might be a "reserve" direction, where a later phase of the borrowing process could be a catalyst for the cross-national attraction (2006, p. 612).

In the application of the framework in this dissertation, I observed this challenge as well. For example, the focus of the first section in Chapter 4 was on the first stage of the framework, which is to consider the impulses and the cross-national influences when examining the reasons for adopting and externalizing the borrowing potential; yet, aspects of decision and implantation stages also were considered.

In Chapter 7, although the focus was on the implementation stage, which examines the local adaptation of the borrowed model, aspects of the internalization stage were also examined with some emphasis on the impact of establishing an American-style university in Iraq. Another criticism of the Phillips and Ochs framework is the fact that the reasons for policy borrowing and the processes involved might be different in other contexts from the processes described by

Phillips and Ochs' original model. In the case of Iraq, for instance, while the reasons for borrowing reflect the urgent need to reform the collapsed local system, the motivation to borrow was also sparked by political and economic factors that were externally influenced.

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Figure 5: Policy Borrowing (American-style University) in Iraqi Higher Education.

Adapted from Phillips & Ochs (2004).

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For this reason, the borrowing did not follow the linear sequence of the model. For example, the decision to establish AUIB was made even before finding the investor. It could be argued that the policy borrowing might follow the sequence of Phillips and Ochs's framework if the process was purposefully sparked by a local need. Otherwise, in practice, the policy process can be random (Chow, 2014). To consider the randomness of the policy borrowing process, these four stages could be combined into two main stages—adoption and adaptation,, as categorized by Phillips and Schweisfurth (2008) (cited in Eta, 2018, p. 7), as presented in the centre of Figure

5. Adoption is the first stage of policy borrowing that includes cross-national attraction and decision-making stages. Adoption implied the impulses and externalizing potential or the ideals of the American-style university model and the decision. In the case of AUIS and AUIB, the decision was made through an advocacy network of various actors with the support of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Adaptation is the second stage of policy borrowing, which includes the implementation and internalization stages in Phillips and Ochs's model. In the case of Iraq, the implementation process was interrupted by emerging priorities and conflict—particularly in the case of AUIB. Embedded in the adaptation stage is examining of the role of significant actors and institutions. Finally, I use ‘localization’ instead of ‘internalization’, particularly for the

American-style university, to examine how the ideals of this imported university are adapted in the local context of Iraq. While foreign universities could be considered in the categories of international universities, branch campuses, or joint universities (Knight, 2015), the American- style university is a local private university; however, it adopts an international structure and curriculum that is different from the typical local universities’.

Phillips and Ochs have acknowledged the limitations of their model with respect to considering the influence of globalization and other emerging trends such as regionalization. 258

Nowadays, educationalists face a world of widespread and rapid dissemination of educational ideas and the model didn't discuss the policy borrowing within the context of this kind of globalization and its impact on the education systems. In the case of Iraq, the influence of globalization was manifested through the decentralization and privatization policies imposed by the CPA after the 2003 invasion. National education systems are influenced by external forces through various kinds of interactions such as cross-national, regional or global. Such influences lead national education systems to adopt policies and educational ideas from elsewhere. For example, in the case of the AUIB, decision-makers at the Ministry of higher education were attracted to a similar university model in the region such as the AUB and AUIS as well as influenced by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Miller-Idriss and Hanauer suggest that a regional approach is thus important to explain the emerging trend of transnational education reforms, particularly in the Middle East region (2011). The authors argue that the classic debate between global and local explanations for educational reforms does not do justice to the regional nature of the transnational educational phenomena in the Middle East today. Thus, policy borrowing can be examined through a comparative lens by understanding the local context against the larger transnational and global influences and trends (Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012). As Verger

(2014) suggests, due to transnational influences, education reforms are more and more often externally initiated and a 'national optique' would not be enough to understand how multiple scales interact in the dynamics of policy borrowing. As discussed earlier, one of the shortcomings with the policy cycle theory in general is, in the words of Steiner-Khamsi (2010), a

“paradox” where “often the decision is already made (stage 2) before the phase of “agenda setting” takes place (stage 1).” (p. 336). And she argues that a “globalization optique” takes into account the global reform packages, transnational best practices, and traveling policies and helps

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in detecting this paradox. Therefore, I added the outer circle, labeled as ‘cross-national influences,’ in the modified framework in Figure 5 to reflect this important aspect to be considered in identifying the process of policy borrowing. Cross-national influences could be explored vertically to identify the influence of multiple agencies and actors in the policy borrowing process.

Finally, I found that the model also overemphasizes the cross-national attraction stage, while there is not as much depth of research on the other three stages, particularly on the stage of internalization and indigenization processes and how the borrowed policy impacts the local educational system and other aspects within the context of the home country. To take this aspect into account, I integrate critical analytical dimensions in the fourth stage to examine the challenges arising in adopting and localizing the American-style university in the context of Iraq.

These dimensions were grounded primarily in participants' perception of, and reflection on, how

American-style universities are adapted and integrated into their respective communities in comparison with their ideals identified in the first stage. Finally, the modified framework also explains the process involved in the adoption and localization of an imported university in post-

2003 Iraq, integrating the pre-conflict legacies, the conflict that brought new actors into the Iraqi

HE landscapes such as the CPA and international organizations, and post-conflict political and economic challenges described earlier in this chapter. Integrating these three contextual factors is critical to understanding the policy borrowing process and the rationales of various actors. These three conflict-related dimensions are presented in the inner circle in the modified framework as shown in Figure 5.

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I agree with Dolowitz and March (2000) that educational borrowing denotes a narrow range of partners and mechanisms opposite to the ‘educational transfer’ that occurs through a variety of paths and mechanisms. As such, the policy borrowing framework could be a useful entry point to provide an overall view of the borrowing process and the accounts of broader complicated political processes. Therefore, I hope the suggested modified model may be useful to expand the analysis beyond the national optique and to look at the network of actors within and outside the local context. Integrating the thinking of Steiner Khamsi (2004; 2006; 2010;

2012; 2016), Rappley (2006; 2011), and other scholars in policy borrowing into the framework allowed to go outside the limitation of the policy-borrowing framework.

The policy borrowing framework was useful in exploring the networks of external and internal actors and their agency to impose, advocate, negotiate internationalization as a policy regime. Further, the ‘externalizing potentials’ component of the cross-national attraction stage helped me understand how internationalization of HE and the imported university were idealized against the complicated reality of Iraq’s HE. Nevertheless, the framework fell short in providing an in-depth analysis of the everyday meaning-making, negotiation, resistance, and other powerful aspects embedded in the narratives of my participants. To overcome the limitation of this aspect in the policy borrowing framework and to explore the complexity of internationalization and imported universities in the post-conflict context, I would suggest to use a constructivist approach in future research to bring further the voice and the powerful stories from the lived experiences of local actors.

In conclusion, this section shows that policy borrowing in education needs careful attention to the aspects of context—past and present—and should not to be limited to a ‘national

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optique’. Also, policy borrowing should not be seen as a cycle, but rather a random process that is often influenced by multiple actors, agencies, and aspects of ownership.

8.5 Implications and Future Research

The findings of this study have implications for six areas of policymaking and research in post- conflict settings: assessing the value of internationalization of higher education, international partnerships and university linkage programs, cross-national influence, American-style universities in post-conflict contexts, the policy making and governance context in Iraqi higher education, and system diversification.

The Value of Internationalization of Higher Education- Internationalism

This study has implications for the theories of internationalization. Many scholars have debated the lack of a value-oriented definition of internationalization (de Wit et al., 2015; Hudzik, 2011) and have warned that internationalization is increasingly economically motivated and based an ethos of competition rather than cooperation (Altbach & Knight, 2007; Van Der Wende, 2001).

Internationalization has changed from its fundamental values about peace education and international development and aid to its current preoccupation with rankings, commercialization, and building status. My study has shown this trend to some extent, which questions the value of implementing internationalization in societies impacted by conflict. Iraqi public universities are trying to attract international students, hoping that security will be improved, trying to fulfill the rankings requirements, and also generate some revenue to make up for the decreasing financial support of the Iraqi government. Despite this situation, some collaborative programs and support continue. On the other hand, many international university partnerships stopped after Iraq

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experienced another financial crisis that made financial aid another rationale for internationalization in Iraqi higher education.

The study of internationalization in higher education within Iraq's context showed it as a complex process that involves several internal and external actors with various challenges to be considered. Among these challenges are the limited capacity of the policymakers and their self- interest in advocating for and legitimizing internationalization. This aspect has influenced participants' perception about some internationalization activities to be seen as the best alternative to the local system.

Another factor that complicates our understanding of internationalization is the structural and cultural readiness required to effectively implementing it as a reform agenda. Other challenges to effective internationalization were the emerging priorities and the risk of emerging conflict.

Overlooking these challenges and the conditions of Iraq as a post-conflict, in-transition society presented a clear gap when internationalization was invoked by the CPA as a policy regime to reform Iraqi HE, advocated by the international organizations, or appropriated by local actors.

Finally, this study extended our understanding of why certain internationalization activities are selected over others. For example, the urgency to fill the knowledge gap and rebuilding the reputation of higher education have guided Iraq's decision-makers toward investing in international ranking rather than in real reform. It is known in the literature that macro-environmental factors are likely to determine how internationalization of higher education is interpreted, implemented, and negotiated. The case study of Iraq confirmed that. It also showed that macro-level pressure not only invokes which internationalization strategies are to be adopted but will likely shift priorities from investing in locally-made reform agendas toward

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borrowing external policies that do not necessarily lead to real reform. Such a direction contradicts the assumption that internationalization will do good as a reform instrument.

International Partnerships and University Linkage Programs

Transnational activities such as twinning programs or through a soft power approach require collaboration between two institutions to achieve mutual benefits. However, when money is actually spent on higher education in post-conflict nations, it often benefits other countries.

About 70% of aid to higher education is intended for scholarships to study in donor countries

(UNESCO, 2015). This means that little money and effort are spent directly to improve local higher education systems. Thus, one important future research question is to examine the rationales of the university-linkage programs that were established between international and

Iraq universities since 2003. Research in this area could explore what impacts these partnerships have had on Iraqi higher education and could study the experience of Iraqi universities in engaging in these partnerships to understand to what extent these partnerships function based on mutual benefit and collaboration. Also, it would be important to explore the partnership policies in their relationships with Iraqi universities and what their respective national interests are in post-2003 Iraq. As discussed in Chapters 4 and 6, Iraq has been perceived as a “profitable market,” or a target for the U.S. and Britain in terms of soft power. In recent years, economic motivation has increasingly become one of the common factors influencing governments in many developed countries to get involved, directly and indirectly, in higher education internationalization, including support for international university partnerships. At the global as well as the institutional level, there is a wide range of rationales for developed countries to engage in international educational activities. University partnerships between Iraqi universities

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and their counterparts in the US and the UK are influenced by the geopolitical interests of these countries in Iraq and the region. It is therefore important to understand the impact and the future of these partnerships, and the issue of power relationships between Iraq universities and other western universities.

Cross-national Influence

Many international organizations such as UNESCO, IRIX, and USAID have been involved in the rehabilitation of Iraq's higher education. They have provided training for curriculum development, governance, and teaching and learning. However, according to most participants in this study, the impact was limited. There is no doubt that the context of Iraq continues to be complex; yet, it is crucial to investigate the perceptions held by both Iraqi universities and these international organizations on their engagement and the challenges they have faced that hinder educational reforms. McDonald notes that "aid projects focusing on training have the potential to create a disconnection between policy import and implementation, and the need to consider local ownership is required if a sustained change is to be achieved" (2012, p. 1818). A faculty member from the University of Kufa reflected on the training offered by the World Bank and UNESCO in the following way:

They delivered excellent training. This was part of the World Bank's contributions to rehabilitate Iraqi universities. They left after the end of the project.… The same with UNESCO, they support us with the eLearning program; we participated in this project and we went to Jordan and other countries. They supervised us for four years and trained many staff members. After they left, everything vanished. I call it sustainability. Our society is still not ready, and the government has priorities other than this. This is the problem. (Academic, STEM, December 12, 2017)

This comment about “vanishing” interventions raises a number of questions. Is the problem a sustainability issue, lack of commitment, or lack of ownership? Millions of dollars are annually devoted to projects, but evaluations are project-based, summative approaches with little regard 265

given to the quality of the processes and training. The goals and objectives of the international organization or donors seem to be missing important educational dimensions, such as how effective is the training in terms of its impact, and how can it promote sustained local ownership of the reform? Sustained local empowerment can only be obtained if there is ownership of the reform, which in turn can be adapted to meet the ongoing and changing needs of the context.

Thus, assessing the impact of these rehabilitation and training programs offered by many international organizations and donors is critical to the success of capacity building of Iraqi academics and administrators, and to the efforts to reform Iraq’s higher education system.

American-style Universities in Post-conflict Contexts

There is a long tradition of American-style universities in the Middle East that reaches back into the 1860s when American missionaries first established the American University of Beirut

(AUB). These universities are dynamic institutions with distinctive cultures that emerged as a result of the processes of integration, adaptation and responding to local needs. In modern history, the founders of new American-style universities are attracted to their liberal arts curriculum as well as to their prestige. Decision-makers, as well as participants in my study, have recognized the challenges Iraqi higher education institutions face that have diminished their social and educational roles. Hence, one of the rationales for establishing foreign universities in post-conflict Iraq was to provide a living example of a high-quality and rigorous institution that ultimately could inspire local universities to change. However, Miller-Idriss and Hanauer (2011) argued that such models were typically absorbed into existing university frameworks and did not fundamentally alter the nature of higher education within any given nation-state. These institutions are separate organizations in every way in terms of accreditation, policies and practices, and also student bodies. There is little opportunity available to them to improve the

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local university or system. Despite the fact that such institutions are "gaining legitimacy, resources, stability, and enhanced survival prospects” ( Meyer & Rowan, 1977, p. 340), as shown in chapter 7, operating in post-conflict Iraq as a fragile state, influenced by the complex and interconnected drivers of conflict, underdevelopment, low economic growth, and state weakness, requires both internal and external political protection to ensure sustainability of these privileges.

Borrowed policies are not value-free (Phillips & Ochs, 2004) and, because they are externally driven, contradictions could happen during implementation in the local context. This is also true for imported universities. There is potential for local adaptation, resources, and ownership to be overlooked, and this may encourage rejection of the new institution, opposition, or questioning of it. Establishing a new institution can hold promise for building domestic capacity and providing citizens with opportunities to access education of the highest quality.

However, such an imported university has the potential to disrupt the effort and resources needed to change local higher education institutions. Further, the promising opportunities of imported universities are likely to be unevenly distributed at the individual level, disadvantaging poorer students. This study’s analysis showed that the recent financial crisis in Iraq has affected the democratic dimension of AUIS as it becomes less able to offer financial aid to potential students from a low socio-economic status, and this has made the university more elite and isolated.

Hosting a high-quality university in a country with less-developed higher education could create a system with two competing tiers. Nevertheless, Birnbaum (1983) noted that this sort of institution could give the higher education system greater diversity that facilitates accessibility, and accommodates both elite and mass higher education. Birnbaum argued that a higher education system must balance these two dimensions. Without mass education, a system might

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not be socially or politically viable. However, without elite education, the system will not facilitate the development of the highest levels of excellence (Birnbaum, 1983).

Education systems in any country are strongly affected by the national culture. Chapter 7 discussed some of the cultural factors that affect how American-style universities in post-conflict

Iraq are operating with a high risk of mission drift toward technical rather than liberal education, political interference, and financial unsustainability. These potential risks were also discussed in the literature. For instance, Rostron (2009) has argued that education in the Gulf State of Qatar is perceived mainly in terms of practical, tangible outcomes (certificates, vocational or professional skills) and predominantly extrinsic motivational forces (performing to avoid punishment; to obtain a reward; to improve one's social position, thus strengthening the position of one's family, clan or tribe). This may harm the overall attitude to education, where the real purpose of education and its content, standards and quality become less important to students, and of less concern to educators, teachers, and parents (Al-Misnad, 1985, as cited in Rostron, 2009).

The political environment also has a significant impact on imported universities and probably on their existence. As discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, the national movements in Iraq in the 1960s had led to all western educational institutions in Iraq being nationalized. With the rising negative sentiment against the U.S. presence in Iraq and its foreign policies in the region,

American-style universities are at risk of being perceived as an extension of the U.S. embassy in

Iraq, or serving U.S interests in the region. American-style universities are more effective and accepted when they are perceived as detached from U.S. foreign policy. However, the interference may be inevitable.

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As a centre of liberal thinking, American-style universities provide an environment for cultural tolerance and unity and encourage positive social change. However, the chaotic transition to democracy in Iraq has yet to provide a safe environment for the university to fully realize its political and social agendas. Besides, lack of financial support could make the university more exclusive and isolated, rather than able to engage and positively shape Iraq’s new society. As such, future research should examine how these universities survive in an uncertain and changing environment and whether they lose their identity of being student- centred, independent, and committed to a liberal education philosophy.

The policy-making and Governance Context in Iraqi Higher Education

As highlighted earlier in Chapter 4, an advisor at the Ministry stated that the big problem Iraqi higher education faces is 'lack of knowledge'. Further, Chapter 5 shows that the capacity of the decision-makers and administrators at the Ministry and university levels was a critical factor that made participants of this study look outward for an ideal university. Part of this ‘lack of knowledge’ is also the absence of policy research, and a policy community.

Iraqi higher education is a state-controlled model with several other institutions interfering in its affairs. Regardless of the calls for decentralization as a fundamental step toward reforming the system, most participants of this study found this reform agenda to not be an ideal governance structure for Iraqi higher education for the time being. As the sole decision-maker in

Iraq's higher education, the government has focused on access rather than quality, which gives the latter less priority. With the lack of shared governance, quality is further compromised.

Institutional autonomy in Iraqi higher education is also very limited, since faculty voices are not heard and there is a lack of trust among different actors at the institutional and sectoral levels. As shown in this study, many ad hoc policies, mostly politically motivated, have a tremendous 269

impact on the quality of teaching and learning. Arguably, these irrational policies have negatively affected academics' agency as educators to fully engage in their teaching practices and their will to build a healthy relationship with their students, as well as to advance their teaching skills. The Iraqi higher education sector is impacted by many historical and contemporary forces that make it struggle to perform in the presence of these forces. These forces include the legacy of post-conflict realities, the deconstruction measures and neo-liberalism imposed by the CPA, and more recently, the economic downturn because of the coronavirus pandemic and decrease in oil prices. Further, as I have discussed, civil society has been repressed and isolated from advocating for quality education, holding the Ministry or the state accountable for their actions, or engaging with the local and national governance. In this complex context of Iraq, internationalization, and importing universities as promising instruments to reform the system might seem a useless debate. But also, it reflects the absence of local policy experts, and ideas that seem to be derived mostly from external organizations. These international organizations have much more knowledge and expertise than local policymakers, and that gives them more power to interfere in the reconstruction of Iraqi higher education. Although they offer standardized reform agendas that do not fit Iraq's challenging context and priorities, these are nevertheless very compelling to local actors. For example, the idea of twinning programs and imported universities was attractive to all participants of this study. These programs were perceived as ideal policies and ready-made reform agendas, while the challenging context of Iraq was either absent from this idealization, or not seen as capable of change.

Despite the positive values and quality improvements that internationalization or imported universities might bring to Iraqi higher education, it can be argued that reforming the public sector is more critical and would have a much more significant impact on a wide range of

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actors and institutions in Iraq. Local universities would in all likelihood have more impact than transplanted institutions that worked well in one context, but might not in the Iraqi context.

Decision-makers in Iraqi higher education defined the problem of the sector as a matter of the accountability of faculty members and their teaching qualifications; yet they made no reference to the lack of resources and infrastructure available to them. Academics' interpretation of internationalization as 'learning' and modernization efforts that stay at the individual level and their perception of foreign universities as institutions that are governed by rigorous practices, academic culture, and empowered faculty members signal two critical aspects. First, it underscores an obvious gap between the rhetorical rationales for building the reputation of Iraq's higher education and the available resources and infrastructure to do so. Second, there is a significant trust issue among people at the three levels of Iraq's higher education system. Hence, building an academic culture that is based on trust should be a fundamental first step toward reforming the system. Iraq needs qualified academics to build the reputation of its universities.

Without investing in training faculty members and advancing their knowledge and empowering them, reforms stay at the level of political rhetoric that takes the system nowhere and keeps the status quo.

More effective reform needs the greater engagement of local actors in policy development; otherwise, quantitative expansion, in terms of access and establishing new universities, remains the major reform agenda, which obviously will not lead to any quality improvement. The Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research has a Studies and

Planning department; however, it doesn’t focus on policy research. Most universities worldwide are implementing evidence-based policy planning and developing. Therefore, the Ministry needs to consider establishing an independent centre for policy research in higher education that

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focuses on policy planning and development, instead of enacting ad hoc policies that negatively affect the quality and the reputation of Iraqi higher education. Such a research body could utilize knowledge for the formulation of policies, plans and programs designed for development of higher education in Iraq. Further, involving local actors such as faculty members, students, parents, and others is crucial to building a local policy community that would bring locally oriented solutions and ideas to reform the sector. It is a matter of creating ownership of the problems and solutions that include training, skills development, and nurturing policymaking experts.

System Diversification and Differentiation

The Ministry discourses around reforming Iraq's higher education as revealed in my research were focused mainly on access expansion, rather than qualitative transformation such as improving the curriculum, adopting modern teaching methods, embracing institutional autonomy, and improving research infrastructure and skills. Although financial resources are not available to the existing public universities, the Ministry insists on this approach. New universities need to be filled with qualified teaching staff and trusted and strategic administrators. They need to be supported by transparent and consistent processes. Otherwise, this quantitative expansion creates more of the same type of universities and reproduces the same issue of quality that doesn't help Iraq bring back its “golden age” reputation. Iraqi decision- makers need to consider diversity and differentiation as a policy to reform the system. AUIB and

AUIS are helping in diversifying the system by including a new institutional type; however, there are other types of diversity that the Ministry could consider in the attempt to rebuild and modernize Iraqi higher education. Some of these other forms of diversity might mean among the students, faculty and staff; reputational, that is measured by the quality of programs; and

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programmatic, where universities can be distinguished based on degree level, comprehensiveness, mission and emphasis (Birnbaum, 1983). Differentiation, defined as a process in which new entities emerge in a system (van Vught, 2007, p. 51), is not a new process in Iraqi higher education. For example, Nahrain University is one of the Iraqi universities that was established in Baghdad in 1987; it was originally named Saddam University, and changed to

Nahrain University after the fall of the ruling regime in 2003. The main purpose of establishing this university was to prepare qualified scientific cadres who were to support the economic and social development of the country. Therefore, the university received special government support, both financially and politically. To protect its different style, the university was affiliated with the presidential office instead of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific

Research. Nahrain University was considered the best Iraqi university, in terms of scientific level, methodology, rigorous discipline, and special admission policies requiring a specific admission test. In 2006, the university was required to follow the regulations of the rest of the universities in terms of being included in the central admission process, and lost its differential status. However, the legacy of its history still counts in the quality of its programs. To achieve this differentiation policy, decision-makers and national authorities could explore the policy of competitive funding. It was seen as a powerful incentive to encourage existing universities to transform themselves as they sought to achieve excellence in teaching and research. To encourage economies of scale and create more influential universities, a few countries such as

Denmark, Finland, and France have also supported mergers by providing financial incentives

(Altbach et al., 2018).

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8.6 Prospects for Iraqi Higher Education

This thesis was a journey that explored higher education in Iraq; it began with a period of glory and its fall, and the hope to start a new chapter of reconnection and reintegration with the Iraqi community and the world. Quality higher education is crucial for recovery, peacebuilding, economic development, and stronger governance in post-conflict societies. As the case of Iraq has shown, the end of the conflict has brought new challenges. Specifically, not making reform of the local higher education system a priority has had a long-term negative effect on the economic and social development of Iraq.

Internationalization is at the top of the reform agenda and is considered a key change agent in many countries' higher education systems around the world. In Iraq, internationalization has the potential to gradually revive academic culture through the transfer of knowledge and skills. With a clear vision and democratic governance, Iraqi academics would be able to localize the transferred knowledge and rebuild Iraqi academia.

Iraqi higher education infrastructure is limited after decades of conflict and parochialism.

Thus, the study abroad initiatives referred to in this thesis are challenged by many political and economic difficulties that led to limited outcomes and impacts on the system. The number of funded opportunities to study abroad has been reduced dramatically because of a lack of financial resources. Further, most of the interested students are at graduate levels and generally in STEM programs. Having imported universities at home, particularly liberal arts university models, could provide ‘different’ educational opportunities and a distinctive learning style for

Iraqi students without their going abroad. Studying in a liberal education university, students could grow into critical thinkers and responsible global citizens, equipped with a multidisciplinary mindset, and strong technical skills as well as much-needed soft skills. 274

Needless to say, for this to be realized, these imported universities need to commit to their liberal arts education model and not turn themselves into isolated and elite institutions. An imported university with high academic standards could be an impactful partner of the local institutions.

Regardless of the challenges that liberal arts education is facing in a traditionally vocationally focused environment, I think the value of a liberal arts university in Iraq as a post- conflict society equals the value of a liberal arts education in any setting. Rather than a total focus on vocation and skills-based learning, this model provides an opportunity to offer a different form of education. In a region agitated by violence and turmoil, where religious and ethnic differences have divided its societies, education is the hope for a better future. Universities such as AUB and AUIS are much needed, as they have succeeded in offering a democratic campus environment and bringing people together across identity differences. Having similar institutions in Central Iraq, hopefully, would also give them the tools to work towards a peaceful future for Iraq and the entire region. I believe that liberal arts education is particularly needed in

Iraq as it offers a safe space to discuss the challenging context of Iraq and its history with a hope to build the agency of Iraqi youth, who deserve a quality education and have the will to rebuild their homeland and lead it to a better future.

Iraq is a country rich in resources and history. It may currently lack sufficient resources and capacity, but what it does not lack is willpower, particularly at the institutional and individual levels. Iraq has lived in conflict for decades while it struggles to rebuild itself as a strong and independent nation-state. Thus, the process of reforming its higher education will naturally take time. Looking into the future, the decades of turmoil need to be seen as building potential for a new era of development, opportunity, educational reform, and hope for Iraq and

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its higher education institutions to rise again. Turning Saddam's’ palace into a university, particularly one with a liberal education agenda, symbolizes change in which education is pivotal in bringing back the glory of Baghdad as a capital of cultural diversity, and as a centre of knowledge production. It signifies hope for establishing a reputable institution that can respond to the burning needs of Iraqi youth, who have occupied the streets for months since November

2019 protesting for their rights, and for their homeland to rise again.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Profile of key informants – participants ID Institution Study area Position Gender Credential Credential's country

M1 MHESR SSH Associate Director Male PhD Public university - Iraq M2 MHESR STEM Associate Director Male PhD Europe M3 MHESR STEM Advisor Male PhD Europe M4 MHESR STEM Advisor Male PhD Europe M5 MHESR STEM Consultant Male PhD US M6 MHESR STEM Former Minister Male PhD Europe UB1 UB SSH Acting Dean Male PhD NA UB2 UB SSH Faculty member Male PhD NA UB3 UB SSH Dean Male PhD Public university - Iraq UB4 UB SSH President Male PhD Europe UB5 UB STEM Faculty member Female PhD Europe UB6 UB STEM Faculty member Male PhD Europe UB7 UB STEM Faculty member Male PhD Public university - Iraq UB8 UB STEM Faculty member Female PhD Europe UB9 UB STEM Faculty member Female PhD Public university - Iraq UB10 UB STEM Dean Male PhD Europe UBA1 UBA SSH President Male PhD Public university - Iraq UBA2 UBA SSH VP cultural Relationships Male PhD Europe UBA3 UBA SSH Dean of Graduate Studies Male PhD Public university - Iraq UBA4 UBA SSH Dean Male PhD Public university - Iraq UK1 UK SSH Faculty member Male PhD Public university - Iraq UK2 UK SSH Dean Male PhD Public university - Iraq UK3 UK SSH Dean Male PhD Public university - Iraq UK4 UK SSH President Male PhD Public university - Iraq UK5 UK STEM Faculty member Male PhD Europe UK6 UK STEM VP Academic Male PhD Europe UK7 UK SSH Faculty member Female PhD Public university - Iraq UT1 UT STEM Faculty member Male PhD Public university - Iraq UT2 UT STEM VP cultural Relationships Male PhD Europe UT3 UT STEM Faculty member Male PhD Public university - Iraq UT4 UT STEM Faculty member Female PhD Asia UT5 UT STEM VP Academic Male PhD Public university - Iraq UT6 UT STEM Faculty member Female PhD Europe AUB1 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD Europe AUB2 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD AUB 312

AUB3 AUB SSH Chair of Department Male PhD US AUB4 AUB SSH Faculty member Female PhD Europe AUB5 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUB6 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUB7 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD Europe AUB8 AUB STEM VP International Relations Male PhD US AUB9 AUB STEM Faculty member Male PhD US AUB10 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUB11 AUB SSH Provost Male PhD Europe AUB12 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUB13 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUB14 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUB15 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUB16 AUB SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUIS1 AUIS SSH Faculty member Male PhD Europe AUIS2 AUIS SSH Faculty member Male PhD Europe AUIS3 AUIS SSH Instructor Male Masters North America AUIS4 AUIS SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUIS5 AUIS SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUIS6 AUIS SSH Administrator Female Masters US AUIS7 AUIS SSH Dean of Students Male Masters US AUIS8 AUIS SSH Staff Female Masters Europe AUIS9 AUIS SSH Faculty member Male PhD Europe AUIS10 AUIS SSH Faculty member Male PhD US AUIS11 AUIS STEM Dean of Faculty Male PhD Europe AUIS12 AUIS SSH President Male PhD Europe AUIB1 AUIB SSH Founding president Male PhD US AUIB2 AUIB SSH Director of communication & Male PhD US Marketing AUIB3 AUIB NA Investor Male NA NA

* SSH: Social Science and Humanities **: STEM: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,

Appendix B: Interview Protocol–Ministry Level

313

1. What reforms have you implemented to improve and modernize HE in Iraq since 2003? Can you share with me any relevant documents, reports or policies? 2. What is your focus / priorities to improve the quality of HE in Iraq, considering the local, regional and global challenges and opportunities? 3. How the HEIs (public and private) are engaging in: (any policies, curriculum reforms) 4. The Ministry has sent hundreds of Iraqi graduate students to western universities. What are the rationales, benefits, challenges and risks of study abroad? 5. Many public universities in Iraq have established partnerships with international universities in Europe, US, UK and elsewhere, what are the rationales of these partnerships and how Iraqi universities and colleges have benefited from these partnerships? 6. Many countries in the region have hosted foreign universities (FU), do you think there is a need for similar foreign universities in in Iraq? Why yes/not? 7. Was there any support from organizations such as the WB, UNESCO, donors, or Iraqi scholars in the diaspora to partner with foreign institutions to open a new FU? If yes, how did you respond to this support? 8. HE in Iraq has been affected dramatically by consecutive wars, economic sanctions, and the unchecked looting and destruction after the 2003 invasion. What specific contribution would you like a FU to achieve in the HE system in Iraq? 9. What policies or regulations you would consider to support or restrict private investment in HE in Iraq? 10. In case a FU is opened in Iraq, what conditions would you negotiate to start the partnership? 11. Do you think a FU will be accepted and seen as legitimate by students, parents, and the wider academic community? Why? Do you think there might be a resistance from conservative families, religious leaders, political parties, and the community toward the idea of having an international university in Iraq? If yes, what do you think would be the reasons for that? 12. Do you think having a FU would facilitate cultural exchange, build bridges and understanding with the west and other parts of the world? To what extent these aspects are important for Iraq? 13. Do you think a FU would present a threat or compete with the national universities, especially in the private sector? Why? 14. Do you think FU would fit within the cultural and social dynamics of Iraq? Why? How? What possible difficulties would be associated with establishing a new FU in Iraq, considering the differences in culture, values, systems, policies, etc. between Iraq and a potential sending country?

Appendix C: Interview Protocol–University Level

314

1. What is your focus / priorities to improve the quality of HE in Iraq, considering the local, regional and global challenges and opportunities? 2. What are the urgent needs of Iraq’s youth and how do you address these needs in the university programs or extracurricular activity? 3. What strategies, policies or programs have you developed or adopted to internationalize the university? 4. Many public universities in Iraq have established partnerships with international universities in Europe, US, UK and elsewhere, what kinds of partnerships have you developed with international universities? How Iraqi universities and colleges have benefited from these partnerships? 5. Many countries in the region have hosted FU (American Liberal Art & Bi-national German Model), what is your perception about the idea of hosting a FBU in other Arab States? 6. Do you think there is a need for a similar FBU in some regions in Iraq such as Baghdad, Najaf, or Basra in the South? Why yes/not? 7. Was there any support from organizations such as the WB, UNESCO, donors, or Iraqi scholars in the diaspora to partner with foreign institutions to open a new international university? If yes, how did you respond to this support? 8. HE in Iraq has been affected dramatically by consecutive wars, economic sanctions, and the unchecked looting and destruction after the 2003 invasion. What specific contribution would you like a FU to achieve in the HE system in Iraq? 9. What is your opinion about private investment to establish a FBU in Iraq? 10. What policies or regulations you would consider to support or restrict private investment in HE in Iraq? 11. In case a FU is opened in Iraq, what conditions would you negotiate to start the partnership? 12. Do you think there might be a resistance from conservative families, religious leaders, political parties, and the community toward the idea of having an international university in Iraq? If yes, what do you think would be the reasons for that? 13. It is known that FU could facilitate cultural exchange, build bridges and understanding with the west and other parts of the world, to what extent these aspects are important for Iraq? 14. Do you think FU would present a threat or compete with the national universities, especially in the private sector? Why? 15. Do you think an international university would fit within the cultural and social dynamics of Iraq? Why? How? 16. What is your perception about internationalization of higher education? 17. What are the expected benefits and possible challenges from internationalizing the university?

Appendix D: Interview Protocol–Imported Universities 315

1. What elements of the AUB model were attractive to be adopted from the American model of a university? Why do you think they were borrowable and would fit in your country? 2. At certain time of its history, AUB perceived as irrelevant to the country and the region, how this aspect was deliberated? 3. What factors (educational, systemic, cultural, economic, and political) support/ or challenge the integration of AUB within the national higher education system. 4. Was there any resistance to the idea of the university during its early history? What kind of resistance and from whom? How this resistance was handled? 5. How do you perceive the partnership with other national and foreign institutions in terms of equality of power (mutuality, autonomy and participation)? 6. How have the instability and conflicts in the region affected the successful operation of AUB? 7. How AUB have transformed over its extended history to be a national university? 8. What makes AUB a local, Lebanese institution? 9. What kind of collaborative activities exist between your university and the home university/country (research collaboration, exchange programs, curriculum development, etc.)? What are the benefits and the challenges of these partnerships? 10. What qualities has this university model added to the higher education system in the country? 11. What is the role AUB is playing in shaping and reforming the higher education in the country and the region? 12. How are students’ educational and social experiences different from those produced locally? 13. AUB attracts students to norms such as academic freedom, religious tolerance, and gender equality; familiarizing them with Western educational traditions; and promoting fluency in English; to what extent have these aspects challenged the local conservative culture or created social or political problems? 14. What is your approach to fostering transcultural understanding and produce graduates with intercultural skills? 15. Peace building, reconciliation, understanding are important aspects that are needed in the region due to the political and security instability; how has AUB helped in developing these skills for its students and faculty? 16. What kind of support (financial & academic) does the university receive to maintain its presence? (National, regional and international) 17. Faculty and student are perceived as agents for social change in the local community and the region, what enablers the AUB has to facilities this social role? 18. What was the role of the university during the civil war in the country 1970s? 19. What is the identity of AUB? 20. The main idea of AUB was to build men character, how this idea has changed over its long history?

Appendix E: AUB’s Institutional Review Board approval

316

Appendix F: University of Toronto REB Approval

317

318