Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
The security of the 2008-2009 period is assessed through editorials and annual security analysis. The narrative continues both ‘live’, as events are recounted through the editorials, and reflective. It looks at the consequences of state collapse, at the impact of enforcing a neoliberal system on Iraq, in terms of exploitation and economic insecurity, but also in terms of leading to deepening socio-economic divisions which have marginalised, alienated and angered millions of people, thus increasing instability and insecurity, nationally and regionally. Iraq’s economic transformation that has led to low standards of living, dismal economic and employment conditions, energy and food shortages, all of which plague Iraq today, is discussed within the context of power, leadership and hegemony. Causes and weapons of war, nation-building ‘military style’, community trauma, energy security and state vulnerability are also discussed within the framework of a discussion on threats, risks and impact.
Lily Hamourtziadou’s investigation into civilian victims during the conflicts that followed the US-led coalition’s 2003 invasion of Iraq provides important new perspectives on the human cost of the War on Terror.
From early fighting to the withdrawal and return of coalition troops, the Arab Spring and the rise of ISIS, the book explores the scale and causes of deaths and places them in the contexts of power struggles, US foreign policy and radicalisation. Casting fresh light on not just the conflict but international geopolitics and the history of Iraq, it constructs a unique and insightful human security approach to war.
The book covers the 2003-2017 period, but what has happened in Iraq since 2017? After nearly two decades of war, Iraq has experienced its least violent year; seventeen years after the invasion, during 2019 2,392 civilian deaths were recorded by Iraq Body Count. In its worst year, 2006, Iraq had witnessed the violent deaths of more than 29,500 civilians. The monthly and yearly totals, assembled after the painstaking daily task of extracting the data from hundreds of reports, betray the true magnitude and impact of the war on Iraqi civilians. The controversy surrounding the precise figures, the counts, or the estimates ultimately leads to the realisation that we do not need for millions to have been killed for the world to be outraged by the catastrophic impact of the War on Terror on the Iraqis. The number of certain civilian deaths that has been documented to a basic standard of corroboration by passive surveillance methods, in an ongoing war and through ongoing casualty recording, provides enough evidence to deem this invasion and occupation a security failure.
How do we understand human security and casualty recording in the 21-century, our fundamental human rights and the importance of recording their violation? Human security and human rights are mutually reinforcing, as they identify the rights that need to be protected and recognise the ethical and political importance of securing the holders of those rights. Protecting human rights and upholding humanitarian law are essential to human security, which makes imperative the need to highlight the insecurity caused by armed conflict through assessing the impact on civilian life. Casualty recording bodies like Iraq Body Count have emerged, in order to record the toll the War on Terror took on those the Geneva Conventions called protected persons. The recognition of the importance of the right to life, security and liberty has placed great demands on governments and organisations to closely monitor and record human deaths from armed violence, and, by documenting those deaths in as much detail as possible, to give a human face to victims of war.
The chapter narrates the 2010-2013 period, discussing the new American Presidency and the use of drones; the release of the Iraq War Logs by WikiLeaks, which enabled IBC to conduct further research into civilian deaths and add thousands more victims to its database; the Human Terrain System, a strategy to manage the far enemy; finally, it provides the context in which we can understand the emergence of the Awakening Councils, which appeared to change the course of the war, by reducing the casualties and by reflecting the power and the influence of a hegemon. By 2010 British forces had left Iraq and US forces were preparing to do the same. President Obama promised a new direction in domestic and foreign policy, defining the struggle as a battle against terrorist organisations. His rejection of neo-conservatism was a rejection of Bush’s policies in the Middle East, which included the occupation of Iraq. Iraq’s human security would be affected by the Human Terrain System, the Awakening Councils and the Arab Uprisings, all of which demonstrated America’s tactics, power and influence; all of which caused further violence and the spillover of wars fought in the Middle East and North Africa.
The 2014-2017 period is explored through discussions on the nature and role of the Islamic State, notions of war and peace, tyranny and democracy, captivity and liberation, in the context of political and security developments. The chapter raises questions regarding the impact of the Islamic State, as well as the impact of the way the coalition has countered the terror. Precision bombing, the Arab Spring, the Islamic State and the rise in civilian deaths are presented as factors contributing to the state of human security in Iraq. As a generation of Iraqis had, by 2017, grown up in occupation, terrorism, insurgency and western support, as the body count rose and national, regional and global security in this War on Terror once again took top position on our security agenda, how was the human security of Iraqis assured by this support?
The devastating loss of life in a war still fought and grown in size requires an answer to the question: what is this War on Terror? Other than to find, stop and defeat terrorist groups, why are men, women and children killed daily, or live in poverty and fear, without home or country? How can we come to understand this human insecurity, its context and its consequences? The chapter explores the journey to the War on Terror and four narratives around it: clashing civilisations, the battle between good and evil, the politics of a hegemon and a hegemonic shift. The securitisation of Iraq is traced back to the Gulf War and links are made between the two wars, in terms of how issues around Iraq became part of the West’s security agenda and in terms of how ‘speaking security’ resulted in the deaths of thousands. The chapter concludes by introducing the first publication of Iraq Body Count, the Dossier on Civilian Casualties, compiled by IBC in the 2003-2005 period. The Dossier provided an initial assessment of the War on Terror, by revealing the recorded impact of the invasion and of the violence it triggered on civilians.
The chapter covers the 2006-2007 period, presenting security and political developments. It contains editorials with information about weekly deaths and the author’s commentary, written as the violence occurred, providing a ‘live’ narrative of the human devastation in its context. The price of civilian life in Iraq is discussed through compensation claims that reveal the monetary value of a human life lost as collateral damage, notions of victory and the legal obligation of states to record the casualties of armed conflict. It examines regime security in weak states and its role in growing insecurity and in contributing to the creation of sectarian identities. The roots of Iraq’s current anti-government protests and general discontent are traced to the events of those early years of democracy under occupation. The chapter ends by assessing the American Surge of 2007 as part of a Western security culture where force is the solution or method of control, by applying Paul Rogers’ control paradigm that centres on the military-industrial complex and the use of military force in responding to threats. In Iraq this strategy has been proven to be, at times, insufficient in ensuring peace and stability, and, at times, the cause of further insurgency and insecurity.
