Globalization and Generational Change: Syrian Foreign Policy between Regional Conflict and European Partnership

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Etel Solingen, Regional Orders at Century's Dawn: Global and Domestic Influence on Grand Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). Fred Halliday, ‘The Middle East and the Politics of Differential Integration’, in Toby Dodge and Richard Higgott (eds.), Globalization and the Middle East (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2002), pp. 36–56. Leon Carl Brown, International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Game (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 3–18. Specifically the autonomy of external constraints and internal pressures needed to adapt to the exigencies of the changing power balance in order to minimize costs and maximize benefits. See Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (Boulder CO and London: Lynne Rienner, 2002), pp. 10–11, 20. Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria (London and Oxford: RIIA, Oxford University Press, 1965). Raymond Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 52–7; Avner Yaniv, ‘Syria and Israel: The Politics of Escalation’, in Moshe Ma'oz and Avner Yaniv (eds.), Syria under Assad: Domestic Constraints and Regional Risks (London: Croom-Helm, 1986, pp. 157–78. Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above, pp. 67–88. Patrick Clawson, Unaffordable Ambitions: Syria's Military Buildup and Economic Crisis (Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1989). Patrick Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 226–66, 267–315, 344–9, 366–420; Moshe Ma'oz, Asad: the Sphinx of Damascus: a Political Biography (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1988), pp. 113–24, 135–48; Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above, pp. 151–5. Bashar's acceptance speech, The Syrian Arab News Agency website, July 21, 2000, ‘http://www:basharassad.org/english.htm’. The Middle East, March 1999, p. 35; Sept. 1999, p. 27. UNCTAD, World Investment Report (New York: UN, 1999); World Bank, The Little Data Book (New York: World Bank, 2001), pp. 9–12. Middle East International, April 6, 2001, pp. 7–8; 13 July 2001, p. 5; David Makovsky ‘Syria's Foreign Policy Challenges US Interests’, Policywatch, No. 513, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Jan. 19, 2001. Patrick Seale, lecture, London, 2001. Rachel Bronson, ‘Syria: Hanging Together or Hanging Separately’, The Washington Quarterly, v. 23, Autumn, 2000; Yotam Feldner, ‘Escalation Games: Syria's Deterrence Policy, Part I: Brinkmanship’, MEMRI. (Middle East Media Research Institute), May 24,2001 www.memri.org; Middle East International, July 13, 2001, pp. 10–11. Middle East International, June 16, 2000, pp. 21–2. Middle East International, July 28, 2000, p. 14; Stratfor.com, ‘Global Intelligence Update’, February 29, 2000. Gary C. Gambill, ‘Syria's Foreign Relations: Iraq’, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, March, 2001, www.meib.org; Ibrahim Hamidi, Daily Star, Dec., 14, 2001. Makovsky, ‘Syria's Foreign Policy Challenges US Interests’; Middle East International, Feb. 9, 2001, p. 12; Yotam Feldner, ‘Escalation Games: Part II: Regional and International Factors Between Washington and Damascus: Iraq’, MEMRI, May 25, 2001. Al-Hayat, Sept., 28, 2001. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Middle East and North Africa, Jan. 7, 2002. ‘Joining the European Trade Club’, in Oxford Business Group, Emerging Syria 2002, London, 2002, p. 45. Ayman Abdul Nour, ‘Syria: Economic Reform and European Partnership’, unpublished policy paper, Damascus, June 12, 2001. Middle East International, March 23, 2001, pp. 14–15. The EU claims that it is not demanding an end to support prices in agriculture or of subsidies to the public sector. Its insistence is on transparency of trade rules and suppression of charges and barriers that distort import and export prices and flows. However, subsidizing products which could not compete with imports would be very costly for Syria. Skeptics include Michael Mann (1997), ‘Has Globalization ended the rise and rise of the Nation-state?’ Review of International Political Economy, v. 4, n. 3, Autumn, 1997, pp. 472–96; see also Toby Dodge and Richard Higgott, ‘Globalization and its Discontents’, in Dodge and Higgott (eds.), Globalization and the Middle East, pp. 13–35. Enthusiasts include K. Ohmae, The Borderless World (London: Collins, 1990) and The end of the Nation-State (New York: Free Press, 1995).