Crown Center for Middle East Studies

Survival Politics: Baghdad’s Citizens from Saddam Hussein to the 2025 Elections

A Crown Seminar with Alissa Walter

 

November 12, 2025
11 a.m.–12:15 p.m.
Register for virtual attendance

 

Iraq’s parliamentary elections will take place on November 11, 2025. Join us the following day for a Crown Seminar that situates the elections within the context of Iraq’s modern history with Alissa Walter, author of the 2025 book Contested City: Citizen Advocacy and Survival in Modern Baghdad, and Prof. Marsin Alshamary. Their conversation will examine the ongoing struggle over state power and political order in Iraq—and how ordinary citizens have long negotiated with state officials, militias, and political parties to survive and assert their rights.

 

Alissa Walter is associate professor of history at Seattle Pacific University

Marsin Alshamary is assistant professor of political science at Boston College.