Budgetary and financial discontinuities: Iraq 1920-32

At national level, arguably the most severe budgetary and financial discontinuities occur when states are created or recreated. The challenge then is to create viable financial systems which reduce the danger of state failure. Despite their importance, these processes are under-researched in the accounting and finance literatures. We examine these processes in relation to Iraq, the former Mesopotamia, which emerged as a fledgling state only after World War I, a process, occurring under British suzerainty, and complicated by existing and proposed financial obligations. Iraq's early history provides a case study of the role of financial management in state-creation.