ABSTRACT
Political economy is an appropriate conceptual approach for understanding not only Iraqi politics but also political processes generally. A political economy approach not only illuminates developments in the Iraqi political system that are often ignored, but it also can help us better comprehend critical processes that have significant consequences for the larger Middle East. Political economy has been accused in both its macroanalytic and microanalytic approaches of reducing politics to economics. Iraq's integration into the world market during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was part of a long-term process of European economic and ultimately political encroachment on the Middle East. Drawing upon political economy, the most important concept for understanding major political, social, and economic change in Iraq is its integration into the world market and that of the larger Middle East. Iraq had become not only economically important to the British but also strategically important as a conduit to India, the crown jewel of the British Empire.
