ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the preliminary effort to delineate modern historical aspects of class and state formation in Iraq. Iraq presents a considerable challenge to anyone wishing to comprehend the intersection of class and state formation in post-colonial societies. It was the first major oil-producing state to undergo a far-reaching political revolution, but the legacy of that revolution today appears extremely ambiguous. Nevertheless the economic structure of the country emerging in the late 1970s shares many features with other oil-producing states. A discussion of Iraq's post-revolutionary economic structure suggests certain interpretations of the character of the Iraqi state and its relationship to the society's evolving class forces. Iraq's historically imposed relationship to the world economy has fostered and financed a margin of autonomy of the state and political apparatus in relation to the economic structure of the society.
