This course will examine how social scientists have tried to understand political, economic and social variation during the Iraq conflict. The first classes discuss the evolution of the war and specify dependent variables of interest. The course then addresses how social scientists conceive of and study the following aspects of the conflict: 1) The relevant actors in the conflict  2) The nature of the strategic situation in which these actors have operated 3) The structural and institutional constraints on those actors 4) How the United States and coalition forces have tried to shape those constraints 5)  How actors have used various technologies in this struggle.