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Paper short abstract

The paper approaches reconstruction as a distinct modality of infrastructural power, using post-Gulf War Baghdad as a case study. Based on interviews and fieldwork, its shifts analysis from state narratives to the lived experiences of Iraqi experts involved in the reconstruction campaign.

Paper long abstract

The paper analyzes reconstruction as a specific modality of infrastructural power on the case study of Baghdad in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War. While the stated objective of the US-led coalition was to force Iraq out of Kuwait and destroy its military potential, the aerial campaign decimated much of the country’s industrial base and civilian infrastructure. In April 1991, the Iraqi regime launched a large-scale reconstruction campaign which, under comprehensive international sanctions imposed in 1990, relied on domestic expertise and locally available materials. Reconstruction became a key instrument through which the Iraqi state sought to reassert control over the country weakened by wartime destruction, international sanctions, and the 1991 uprisings in the Shi’a south and Kurdish north. Echoing earlier periods when infrastructure provision and development functioned as a central source of state legitimacy, the rapid restoration of services was intended to demonstrate the state’s continued capacity to act as the primary provider for the population, as well as to signal defiance toward the international community. Drawing on in-depth interviews, archival sources and extensive fieldwork in Baghdad, the paper examines the 1991-92 reconstruction campaign from the perspective of Iraqi engineers, architects and other technical experts involved in its implementation. The focus on their experiences allows to move beyond official narratives propagated in the Iraqi media and examine instead how “reconstruction power” was exercised in practice, revealing the challenges and constraints, as well as ingenuity and forms of agency that shaped the process on the ground.