| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Taking as a starting point the case of Iraq, it is argued that the administration of this country by the Coalition from May 2003 onward, is an American example of a culture-bound type of occupation. Already in the early eighteenth-century international differences in occupation regimes between France, England, and the Dutch Republic are discernable. Therefore, in all likelihood, the United States also developed in the course of their history a characteristic pattern of controlling foreign territories. This American modus occupandi could very well stem from the English style of occupying, but may differ in two important respects: it usually is a "short-winded affair," and it can either come down to a rather peaceful "laissez-faire" or to a war-like type of occupation. Finally, the question is discussed in how far such a style of occupation can result in a more or less "constructive" form of foreign domination. In the author's impression, occupational "success" or "failure" probably depends as much, if not more, on the state of the occupied system-to wit, the degree of unison between native elites-as on the strategy of the occupant.
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