Final Exam
This class will have an ex camera final exam. At 1:30 p.m. on the day of the exam, we provide you with the question via email and post it on the class website.
We do not expect you to do additional reading for the exam beyond the materials covered in class. Rather, you should leverage the general knowledge you have obtained over the semester—and the somewhat limited information you have acquired on Iraq—to address the topic.
The deadline for submitting your exam electronically is 7:30 p.m. No extensions will be given, and you will be penalized for lateness in a draconian fashion.
You are encouraged to collaborate with your fellow students in working through possible responses between now and the time the exam topic is revealed. At that point, you must halt collaboration. You must write the exam entirely by yourself.
The exam topic is as follows:
Eleven years after the U.S. invasion, Iraq is plagued by a weak state unable to guarantee the rule of law, anemic economic performance, and autocratic rule.
Drawing on the knowledge you have gained over the semester, think about the challenge of ________ (state capacity, economic development, and democracy). Then answer the following four questions with respect to ________:
- What recommendations would you have made to Coalition authorities at the beginning of the occupation to maximize the odds of a successful outcome?
- To the extent that they are different, what recommendations would you make now?
- How much of a difference do you think your recommendations would have made then or would make now?
- Would any of the recommendations you make have adverse impacts on other key objectives (i.e., are there tradeoffs between economic growth, state-building, and democracy)?
For the actual final exam, we will pick ONE of the three issues mentioned above (state capacity, economic development, and democracy) at random.
The length of your exam should be based on the amount a person could reasonably be expected to write in a six-hour period after having prepared well in advance (e.g., about five pages). You could, of course, prepare an answer to all three possible exam questions ahead of time.