One size fits all? : the liberal empire mandate and the invasion and occupation of Iraq

Abstract

This thesis tests Niall Ferguson's idea of the United States as a potential liberal empire as a possible mandate for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Through using Ferguson's hypothesis as a mandate, the thesis touches on crucial aspects of the empire debate and points to the implications of the liberal empire hypothesis.

In order to reach a conclusion, the thesis discusses the ideological background of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, the transition from unipolarity to an empire discourse around the turn of the century, looks at one of the main responsibilities of an empire, namely state-building, and discusses both official and unofficial arguments for the invasion.

Although initially pessimistic towards any empire mandate, the thesis found that some of Ferguson's are fairly good, in theory. Nevertheless, the thesis also concludes that his hypothesis is impossible to implement and that there is no support for it in the case of the Iraq invasion.