The Process of collective obedience in Iraq: Analysing Saddam Hussien’s rhetoric of cohesion and the nation-building in Iraq through Milgram Stanely’s Paradigm of Agentic State

Abstract

     This paper aims to explore and understand the political and overall social and psychological impact of Saddam Hussein’s nation-building policy in Iraq. The Contemporary Iraqi political sphere had been under the profound consequential legacy of Saddam's rhetoric of imposing an authoritarian rule in every ambit of the Iraqi political and social milieu. The paper aims to understand the atmosphere in which the Iraqi individuals lived during the Saddam Hussein regime. Some of the questions the paper seeks to answer are (1) What are the psychological and social consequences of Saddam’s legacy in Iraq? and (2) How far has this legacy affected the political process and national building post-Saddam era? The paper adopts the Milgram Stanley paradigm of Agentic State in explaining and answering the questions. It seeks to use the method to explain the authoritarian policies and measures the regime utilized in ruling its people. Furthermore, this helps identify both the cultural and psychological room of Voluntary Obedience within the Iraqi character. Notwithstanding the objectives, Milgram’s mechanism is a significant tool for analysing the power structure and the institutional context that the regime established to strengthen its rule over the people. Additionally, Milgram’s theory studies the individual as the agent of this institutional context, which helps to examine the psychological and societal consequences of Saddam’s legacy in the post-2003 years.