Chapter 4 examines Wahhabism in the new period, showing how it emerged on the agenda of Ottoman ideological reactions in a way that differed from the previous period. I examine the impact of the printing press on the on-going ideological struggle, citing people who wrote about Wahhabism in the capital city as “men of the printing press” because of the diversity of the authors. Ulema, military men and intellectuals in Istanbul penned essays of various genres in which they discussed Wahhabi doctrines and promoted the Ottoman ideological stance over that “hazardous” creed. The writers wrote the essays in plain language that would have been accessible for the common people, including younger generations and students, and they were published in large numbers with the intention of protecting readers from the “bad” influence of Wahhabism. I show that Wahhabism became a concern for the centre as a result of the new technologies in the age of steam and print, and I explore those in reference to the circulation of Wahhabi ideas around the world through print media. I summarize this challenge in terms of an Ibn Khaldunian perspective versus the Ibn Taymiyyaism of the Wahhabi ideology.

Chapter 3 provides a comparison to show the differences between the new era and the previous period. This chapter discusses the centre–periphery relationship through Wahhabism in what I call “the age of caravans and manuscripts”. Accordingly, I constructed this chapter around three stories: the story of a person, a pamphlet and a land. The first is about a scholar from Istanbul who was sent to speak with the Wahhabis in 1803. It shows just how far away the capital city was from their location, as the journey to Mecca took about six months. The second is about a pamphlet that was penned by Ottoman ulema who had once served in the Hejaz. It demonstrates that one pamphlet could have provided more than enough information about the Wahhabi movement even during the peak of the rebellion. The third is about the Hejaz, and it shows how Wahhabism was perceived as an illegitimate faction by examining news about the Hejaz occupation as a key point. Through the detailed examples in these three stories, I argue that the Ottomans saw Wahhabism as a local problem before the age of steam and print, as the centre and periphery were very far from each other.

Chapter 2 introduces the Iraqi diasporas in the UK and Sweden, their migration waves, and the sociopolitical reasons for leaving Iraq and migrating to each hostland. It highlights the importance of the socioeconomic profile of each diaspora, which affected their transnational connections to Iraq, and how they could involve themselves rebuilding Iraq. In the United Kingdom, political and religious elites, and upper- and middle-class professionals contributed to London being an oppositional hub for Shi’a Islamist Parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Iraqi National Congress, and the Iraqi National Accord, as well as other liberal and leftist figures. The socioeconomic profiles of the UK diaspora also provided the diaspora with the material power and networks to influence hostland and international policymakers. Meanwhile in Sweden, the socioeconomic profile of the Swedish diaspora, made up of largely refugees and less-skilled individuals, affected its ability to contribute directly towards Iraq, redirecting mobilisation towards the diaspora in the formation years, and later, once settled, towards the hostland audience in the late 1990s. Mobilisation was channelled through Swedish civil society and in collaboration with civic groups and parties, reflecting Sweden’s tradition of politics through social movements.

Chapter 3 presents the political contexts of the United Kingdom (UK) and Sweden ahead of the Iraq war, demonstrating how the foreign policies of each host country affected diasporic state-building. While the UK’s involvement in the intervention opened the doors for the diaspora to join in the post-2003 governance and institution building of Iraq, Sweden’s anti-war stance and lack of involvement diverted mobilisation largely towards civil society building and transporting the tradition of democracy from the bottom-up. The chapter introduces the Iraqi opposition groups who mobilised and collaborated with the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency in the United States, and Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the UK. It explores the divergences between the groups and how they shaped the coalition’s thinking ahead of the intervention, as well as laying the foundations of the post-2003 state. It also investigates the diasporic groups and actors in Sweden and how they mobilised through civil society. Sweden’s anti-war movement and global protests against the Iraq War galvanised a very different locus of political activism and mobilisation towards preventing the war from taking place and curbing Sweden’s role in the intervention. It thus diverted involvement towards supporting Iraq’s civil society and its democratisation process.

Chapter 5 explores bottom-up diasporic state-building through the case study of the Swedish diaspora, which largely worked outside the structures of the state through civil society and grass-roots mobilisation. It firstly contextualises diasporic activity within Sweden’s foreign policy stance towards Iraq and how this shaped and limited mobilisation in 2003. The chapter later demonstrates how the Swedish diaspora organisations were able to influence Swedish policymakers and institute diaspora co-development projects in Iraq through Sweden’s development agency and Sweden’s democratic tradition. It also uncovers the challenges these endeavours faced in the context of conflict and insecurity in Iraq. In later years, the diaspora was able to initiate other initiatives such as the Diaspora Initiative for National Reconciliation and Dialogue, which attempted to reconcile Iraq’s fractious politics by bringing together opposing political factions in Iraq to talk and find common ground. Finally, the chapter reflects on how Iraq’s fragmented state-building has empowered majorities and disempowered minorities both in Iraq and in the diaspora, drawing attention to the way power is also distributed transnationally and how this has altered connections and mobilisation towards Iraq.

The book’s introduction draws the reader to the unique case study of the Iraqi diaspora and its involvement in state-building following military intervention in 2003. The chapter introduces the book’s puzzle, which questions why diasporas have thus far been ignored in analyses of state formation and state-building. Contextualising the book within the diaspora and state-building literature will also delineate the book’s unique contribution to both fields and its wider appeal to policymakers, the media, and thinktanks. The chapter then underlines the book’s original conceptual and empirical contribution to the study and understanding of the role of diasporas in state formation and state-building processes, which also includes the role of civil society in weak, postcolonial, post-conflict states. This is then followed by an outline and breakdown of the book to guide the reader.

Chapter 1 discusses the main concepts of the book, including diaspora and transnationalism, providing an understanding of the cross-border connections that link people and nations across time and space under modern processes of globalisation, facilitating diasporic political engagement. This is then followed by introducing the conceptual framework of diasporic state-building, which is drawn from three theoretical discussions related to the state, state-building, and civil society literature. The framework captures how diasporas are engaged in this process through an original conceptual and typological framework that operationally captures the two categories associated with building a state: firstly, diasporic mobilisation towards building the apparatus of the state and, secondly, supporting and challenging the state through civil society. This original conceptual approach to state-building captures the plethora of activity that is shaping the evolution of conflict, post-conflict, and post-colonial states. The framework guides the reader as well as demonstrating the multiple domains in which diasporas are influencing state formation under modern processes of globalisation.

Chapter 4 presents how diaspora elites and parties mobilised following the 2003 intervention and occupation of Iraq through top-down state-building. It traces how they manoeuvred to take advantage of the United States-led coalition and insert themselves in the corridors of power. It charts their involvement throughout Iraq’s political process from the Iraqi Governing Council to the transitional Administrative Law, Iraq’s first democratic elections in 2005, and beyond. It emphasises their transnational recruitment and role in building an ethno-sectarian governance system that would indelibly cast the die for the modern state of Iraq and its future politics. This chapter also discusses how elite diasporas also worked outside the structures of power, and the challenges of confronting an ethno-sectarian system in Iraq. It also highlights how diaspora initiatives in certain sectors were able to influence state practices by working transnationally through professional associations and transnational networks. Finally, it explores the agency of Iraq’s non-Muslim minorities and their transnational mobilisations towards the country, as they’ve attempted to protect their communities and heritage in Iraq and maintain their links to the country, albeit in limited ways.