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Fertile Ground for Establishing American-Style Universities in Post-conflict Societies: Historical Comparisons and Current Rationales

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Abstract

The US-led invasion in 2003 created opportunities for Iraq to establish American-style universities. Drawing on policy borrowing and educational transfer theory and using interviews as the primary method of data collection, this study examines how the American-style universities are rationalized and appropriated by various actors at national, sectoral, and institutional levels. The analysis shows that the rationales for establishing American-style universities in post-2003 Iraq differ by how each was funded and politically and financially supported. The new American-style universities in Iraq in this study represented something for both the USA and for Iraq. For the USA, they are a source of public diplomacy and soft power, and for Iraq, an instrument that promises peacebuilding, social cohesion, transition to democracy, reforming the local higher education system, legitimacy, and probably a tool to ‘revolutionize’ Iraq’s higher education and bring back its glory.

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  1. American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), Sulaymaniyah, Iraq

    Hayfa Jafar

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  1. Hayfa Jafar
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Correspondence to Hayfa Jafar.

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Jafar, H. Fertile Ground for Establishing American-Style Universities in Post-conflict Societies: Historical Comparisons and Current Rationales. High Educ Policy (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-023-00312-5

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