American soft power in Iraqi Kurdistan : a qualitative case analysis

In: Reality of Politics, Band 24, Heft 2, S. 82-105

Abstract

A constructivist IR approach is blended with a Grounded Theory-based analysis of in-depth in interviews in an interpretive discussion of the US's 2003 invasion of Iraq, its later soft power approach in country, and the responses of young Kurdish participants in an American program in that sphere. The invasion of Iraq is argued to have been the outcome of ideational and cultural as well as realist factors within American society. Analysis of interviews with Kurdish students reveals a) strengths and weaknesses of the American soft power approach, and b) their thoughts on their homeland, its culture, and its future.