Since the establishment of the Iraqi state in 1920, oil has been more than an economic resource. It has structured the relationship between state and society, creating an economy based on oil rent rather than industrial production. Throughout the transition to a republic and with the nationalist and Ba’athist coups, this pattern deepened. The state became the dominant economic actor. Independent economic development and class formation were virtually non-existent.
There is little incentive to strengthen democracy in a rentier state which already possesses sufficient revenue. There is no need to collect taxes or support industry and production. Consequently, there is little reason to encourage public participation in decision-making, except among those involved in generating rent. These are the people who are often the closest to power.
In Iraq, social class has emerged according to political elite power and control over the rentier economy rather than conventional wealth divisions. This pattern has prevented the emergence of a working class and limited the formation of an independent middle class capable of playing an active role within society. It has also marginalised the role of the private sector. The market remains subordinate to the state and dependent on its policies instead of offering a pathway for social mobility.
Rentierism has created an imbalanced relationship between state and society. Decision-making remains in the hands of those in power, and society revolves largely around individuals waiting government-allocated shares. This relationship is the foundation upon which political clientelism was built in post-2003 Iraq.
Iraq and the World
Contemporary globalisation and the digital revolution have connected the world to an unprecedented degree, changing the determinants of social class. After being limited to economy, culture, education, access to networks has now become a decisive factor in determining social status.
Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capital purports that class distinction is shaped not only by economic capital, but also by cultural, social, and symbolic capital. According to this theory, class advantage is reproduced across generations through the transmission of cultural, social, and symbolic capital, not only economic wealth.
While changes to class structure were taking place, Iraq under Saddam Hussein moved from a devastating war with Iran to the invasion of Kuwait, a decision that cost Iraq hundreds of thousands of deaths and led to widespread destruction.
Even prior to the Second Gulf War, the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 had pushed society towards militarisation. The army and security apparatus became pathways to social mobility and any social value that was seen in the education and civilian professions, already weakened since the state’s founding, declined further.
The middle class eroded under inflation and wage freezes. Poverty became widespread as oil revenues were spent on war rather than development. A wartime elite emerged, made up of military officers, the regime’s inner circle, and security officials, establishing an upper social class based on loyalty to Saddam Hussein rather than on productivity or competence.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the increasing dominance of the United States and capitalism, the world underwent profound structural changes. The impact extended beyond politics, reshaping concepts of justice, the state, and class; thereby upending many popular beliefs surrounding the role of the state in social protection and the centrality of the working class in social change.
The political model where the state managed the economy was less dominant. In Iraq, this occurred at a time of weakness and international isolation following repeated wars.
Social class in Iraq was redefined according to access to resources. Families lost both wealth and education opportunities, poverty was inherited, and the primary objective was survival of the fittest. This produced a generation that began from nothing: the generation of the 1990s, born during crippling sanctions.
The impact of the “Faith Campaign” in the mid-1990s and its creation of a social group that publicly displayed religious devotion became a form of symbolic capital. Social mobility increasingly depended on conformity to the discourse of clerics and mosques. The campaign entrenched religion in public life, laying the groundwork for the conflation of religious and political influence post-2003.
What occurred under Ba’ath Party rule can therefore be understood as a transformation from a sovereign rentier state into a weaker, more fragile state within a new unipolar global order. This transformation did not create new beneficial classes; rather, it produced internal chaos because of forced and unbalanced integration for which Iraq was unprepared.
Post-2003 Clientelism
The theory of political clientelism provides a useful framework for understanding class transformation in Iraq after 2003. According to this theory, the relationship between ruler and citizen is shaped by an unequal exchange of resources and services in return for loyalty and political support, rather than citizenship and rights. Social classes become ranks within patronage networks rather than independent economic, symbolic, or cultural groupings.
The US-led occupation of Iraq was accompanied by the disintegration of former class structures when the economic situation changed and sanctions ended. The social group fostered by the Faith Campaign expanded as religious freedoms widened. Religious institutions benefited, broadening their influence and developing economies of their own alongside their social networks. At the same time, the nominally democratic political system produced an unprecedented wealthy class, made up of ministers, members of parliament, party leaders, political blocs, and their families and relatives.
This class came to dominate state resources. Each political faction established its own patronage network and parallel economy that financed itself through companies that monopolised government-funded projects across various sectors. Its influence and acquired legitimacy were consolidated through wealth generated by corruption, which over the years became an entrenched political practice with little accountability. These factions also built their popularity by offering public-sector employment.
As a result, a middle class emerged made up of more than five million public-sector employees, receiving monthly salaries that provided a degree of material comfort, alongside millions benefiting from the social welfare network. Iraq acquired a middle class that drove the market, albeit one that is bloated, politically dependent, and stripped of agency. This dependency became deeply tied to political loyalties shaped by the post-2003 entrenchment of sectarianism and the legacy of successive wars and internal divisions.
The link to the rentier economy did not disappear after 2003. Instead, it fragmented. Rather than a single ruling party controlling a unified rentier economy, Iraq witnessed the rise of political factions, each creating its own. The state expanded public-sector employment to build loyalties, thereby dismantling what remained of the private sector and non-oil production to the benefit of neighbouring countries.
These internal conditions interacted with ready-made, externally imposed models of governance, producing a system based on political clientelism as a substitute for both the market and functioning institutions. Employment and social protection became privileges granted to those who gained proximity to a ruling authority or served its interests.
In this way, the definition of “class” became increasingly tied to proximity to authority, including religious institutions across different sects despite the fragmentation of authority. Since the founding of the Iraqi state more than a century ago, one principle has remained largely constant: there has been no influence or social advancement outside the orbit of power. There are no class strata that are independent from that power, but rather expanded layers of poor, illiterate, and unemployed people.
This article is published in partnership with the Iraqi Network for Investigative Journalism (NIRIJ). Adapted by Jummar from Arabic, available here.
