Syrian Case Research Articles

Towards an exclusionary social contract: Narratives of a revanchist city in (post)war Syria

ABSTRACT This article asks to what extent national narratives drive changes in social contracts on both national and local level. Societal and especially state actors can use narratives to underline or omit specific rights and duties in social contracts, or to privilege particular contracting parties. In the Syrian case, repression and foreign intervention triggered changes in the national social contract, yet the exclusionary narrative functioned as a catalyst for these changes and entrenched them on both, the national and the city level. We show that housing, land and property (HLP) policies in (post-)war Damascus have an urban scope but a national impact. Not only wartime destruction but also post-war demolition have been particularly high in selected neighbourhoods and (re-)construction favoured upscale urban mega projects. This approach to urban planning reflects an exclusionary national narrative, which stigmatizes parts of the population as ‘terrorists’ and suspects them of stirring up public disorder. In consequence, these groups are marginalized or even ‘evicted’ from the social contract. For those Syrians still covered by the social contract, the narrative seeks to offer a justification for the large-scale exclusion of fellow citizens. Our analysis is based on an extensive review of literature from human geography, with a focus on the physical and social urban fabric, and political science, on intra-societal power relations.

Подход ЕС к смягчению воздействия санкций на гуманитарную помощь: сирийский кейс

In times of a significant expansion sanctions practice, the problem of their humanitarian damage in general and their destructive impact on the provision of humanitarian assistance to population of target countries in particular becomes especially acute. As an active initiator of restrictive measures and a leading donor of humanitarian aid, the European Union pays significant attention to the negative impact of restrictive measures on fundamental human rights and on humanitarian action in sanctioned environments. This study identifies the essence, logic and goals of the EU’s efforts to mitigate the negative impact of restrictive measures on the provision of humanitarian assistance to those in need using the example of Brussels’ policy towards Syria before and after the devastating 2023 earthquake. The paper examines the architecture of the EU sanctions policy and humanitarian assistance, shows the role and significance of humanitarian exceptions from sanctions regimes in EU policy and rhetoric. The author focuses on the Syrian case. Its study allows to identify the dilemmas of the EU sanctions policy towards Syria, the motives and tools for mitigating the impact of sanctions on the humanitarian situation in a country located in close proximity to the European southern borders. Particular emphasis is placed on studying the approach of the European Union, as the largest donor of aid, to minimizing the negative impact of restrictions on the provision of humanitarian assistance to Syria. A study of the European Union’s efforts in Syria shows the role of humanitarian exceptions from sanctions to mitigate the impact of restrictive measures on the provision of assistance, as well as their importance for achieving the political goals of the European Union and its international positioning.

The politics around safe zones: a comparative perspective on return to Northern Syria

Safe zones, initially established as practical tools for refugee protection, have evolved into diplomatic instruments. Through the case of Northern Syria in a historical-comparative perspective, this article explains the link between border politics and host state-induced return to the safe zones; and questions the viability of return within this politicised environment. Considering the earlier experiences of six cases in Sri Lanka, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Afghanistan, it shows how safe zones and refugee return have become venues for power struggles, not only between the origin and host states but also amongst regional and global powers; established with respect to their economic, political and strategic interests. The Northern Syrian case is distinguished by Turkey’s pressure for returns during the conflict, which makes conditions for return dependent on Turkish military presence. Without international support or a UNSC decision, Turkey’s self-proclaimed safe zone lacks international legitimacy, and refugee returns remain dependent on unilateral efforts by the Turkish government. Lack of security, rule of law, access to basic services, reconstruction, and overall prospects undermine the feasibility of safe, voluntary and sustainable returns. And as all actors involved place their military objectives above civilian governance, conditions for security in the safe zone remain precarious.

Российская “матрица безопасности” в Сирии

The article reviews importance of seeking new formats and modalities (political-military, social, economic, and ideological) to achieve a long-term solution to the Syrian conflict. Until now, Russia remaining a major ally of official Damascus has not fully used its potential to create favorable conditions for the post-conflict recovery of Syria. By the Syrian case, the author puts forward a hypothesis about genesis of the “security matrix” which is embodied by regiments of the Russian military police deployed across the country. In addition to routine security functions, those people – often at risk to their lives – have been performing peacekeeping, humanitarian, economic, and diplomatic tasks. Such activities including facilitation of local reconciliations create new post-conflict realities of social life. Absence of a notion of the “security matrix” in political economy and diplomacy explains the novelty of the present research. The article also contains an attempt to present both a schematic image and description of the “security matrix” as a pattern of behavior whereas multiple functions carried out by the Russian military contribute to launching national mini-dialogues, strengthening public order and security as well as to improving the humanitarian and economic situation. A SWOT-analysis serves as the optimal proof of the mentioned hypothesis. In conclusion, the author outlines continued dependency of the “security matrix” on internal and external factors. At the same time, he speaks about perspective use of the Syrian experience in formulating Russian peace-building strategies to resolve other conflicts. This in turn might contribute to strengthening Russia’s role in international relations.

Russia’s Humanitarian Efforts and Its Distinctive Features: Syrian Conflict Case

Russia’s humanitarian aid is aimed at a wide range of countries and sometimes becomes a distinctive feature of Russia’s international activity. Russia has been giving assistance to the population of war-torn Syria for more than a decade, with the growing extent of engagement in the process of conflict settlement. The Donbass conflict is also characterized by progressive dynamics of Russian involvement. However, in the author’s view the Syrian case is more demonstrative for estimating Russia’s humanitarian work, first of all because Russia does not regard Syrians as compatriots, which is the case with Donbass. This allows to shape general view of the Russian approach to humanitarian assistance and to specify unique features of the country’s humanitarian experience, following the dynamics of Russia’s humanitarian aid depending on the depth of Russia’s engagement in the developments “on the ground”. Russia’s humanitarian work is strongly state-based; there is an inclination towards bilateral – rather than multilateral – interaction. Moreover, in many aspects Russia’s humanitarian activity is still mainly focused on Russian citizens who have found themselves in a dangerous situation. These are the reasons to consider that in its humanitarian efforts the Russian Federation is driven by the interest of strengthening its own positions. Such pattern falls into the Wilsonian approach to humanitarian aid. However, some Russian humanitarian initiatives (for example repatriation of children from Syria and Iraq) entail no evident practical benefit for the country and are allegedly motivated only by moral incentives. This is not typical of a state if analyzed within the realist concept.

Do asylum‐seekers respond to policy changes? Evidence from the Swedish–Syrian case*

AbstractDo asylum‐seekers respond to policy changes in their destination country, and to what extent? We approach this question by using high‐frequency data, and we focus on a sudden liberalization in Swedish policy toward Syrian asylum‐seekers, which implied permanent instead of temporary residence. We show a clear and fast, yet temporary, increase in Syrian asylum applications in Sweden after the policy change. Also, the policy caused a shift – not limited to the short term – in the share of individuals arriving without family, and consequently in the share applying for family reunification. Our study adds quasi‐experimental evidence to the literature on inter‐country asylum flows and migration policy.

Fear and Violence, Loyalty and Treason: Settlement of Status in Syria

Abstract This article examines the arbitrary and oftentimes violent nature of loyalty and belonging in the case of Syria but with applicability to other authoritarian or high-surveillance contexts. It shows how the new “settlement of status” process is an extension of the governmentality of violence used by the Syrian regime to delineate loyal citizens from traitors. However, the article argues that this process is Janus-faced and actually serves to undermine the regime in the long run by destabilizing its surety around who is considered loyal and who is a potential threat. This uncertainty has the potential to sow the seeds for greater dissent and with it, act as one possible catalyst for the regime's eventual collapse. The Syrian case offers broader insights into the various social and political permutations of a citizen's relationship to the state and how that relationship can be impacted over time by the state's use of fear and violence as mechanisms for social control.

How Homeland Experiences Shape Refugee Belonging: Rethinking Exile, Home, and Integration in the Syrian Case

Studies of refugee belonging, as a key facet of integration, primarily focus on post-flight processes. Adopting an approach to integration that is temporally and spatially broader, this article argues that refugees’ varied experiences of belonging or estrangement in origin countries fundamentally condition their subsequent experiences of belonging or estrangement in settlement countries. To explore this argument, the article develops a framework that distinguishes between the psychosocial and locational aspects of home, identifying five distinct categories of experience: home in the homeland, exile in the homeland, exile outside the homeland, home outside the homeland, or overlaps of exile and home across borders. The article illustrates these categories in the Syrian case, using original interviews with displaced Syrians and a range of texts by Syrian writers. In doing so, it demonstrates how knowing whether or how refugees found belonging inside their homelands before displacement enriches understandings of who refugees are, what they seek, and what home or exile means to them. While these pre-flight experiences cannot precisely predict integration outcomes, they shape the frame of reference that refugees carry into homemaking in refuge and, thus, the experiences of belonging that they develop there.

Localizing the Responsibility to Protect in Civil Society: Paving the Road to Norm Degeneration?

AbstractThe Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is the relevant framework for state responses to mass atrocities, which are ongoing in Syria. This article examines how that framework has been localized by civil society and the effects of that localization. Using an empirical case study of the UK’s responses to Syrian refugees during 2014–16, the research demonstrates how state practice of a norm can affect civil society advocacy, which may have a deleterious effect on a norm’s life cycle. The research also revealed that civil society is resisting a link between R2P and refugee protection in practice, despite states’ international commitments to both and despite how both overlap in some cases. Two conclusions are reached. First, the research found a complex, iterative relationship between states and civil society. How the UK has understood and practiced R2P has directly affected how civil society contests and modifies R2P in response, despite the norm’s relevance to the Syrian case. Rather than using advocacy and engagement with states to reconceptualize the norm to fit its broader remit, some civil society actors have rejected or modified the norm instead. This has effectively helped entrap R2P within a narrow understanding and has made it politically expedient to show support for the norm’s aspirations implicitly rather than explicitly in the organizational discourse. Second, based on the results of this interdependent relationship, the political resistance against R2P is further entrenched, even when based upon the state’s narrow understandings, which serve to marginalize the norm.

The Right to Meaning: A Syrian Case Study

This article unsettles what the literature describes as the ‘central paradox’ of cultural trauma theory: the idea that while atrocities are most prevalent in the ‘non-western world’, successful cultural traumas have primarily emerged in western societies. Examining the engagement of exiled Syrian intellectuals with the traumatic events of the 2011 revolution-turned-war in their country, the author argues that it is not a failure in the ‘cultural trauma process’ itself that prevents horrific events in non-western contexts from becoming recognised as cultural traumas. Instead, it is the failure to translate narratives of wrongdoing into formal acknowledgements and material or symbolic reparations. This failure is articulated by Syrian intellectuals as a ‘denial of meaning’. Many Syrian intellectuals construed the emancipatory demands of the Syrian uprising as claims for a right to meaning, that is, demands to restore language and existential purpose through public engagement and the revival of politics and speech. Equally, they saw as ‘denial of meaning’ the reality that their trauma work did not prevent the endurance and gradual rehabilitation of the regime but was met instead with the relegation of the movement to the agenda of the War on Terror. Thus, building on the discourses of exiled Syrian intellectuals, the article presents the idea of the right to meaning as a framework for understanding global inequality. Such a framework rests on a perceived dichotomy between those entitled to ‘meaning’ and those whose lives are accepted and treated as devoid of it or denied it.

Design and Adoption of Low-Cost Point-of-Care Diagnostic Devices: Syrian Case.

Civil wars produce immense humanitarian crises, causing millions of individuals to seek refuge in other countries. The rate of disease prevalence has inclined among the refugees, increasing the cost of healthcare. Complex medical conditions and high numbers of patients at healthcare centers overwhelm the healthcare system and delay diagnosis and treatment. Point-of-care (PoC) testing can provide efficient solutions to high equipment cost, late diagnosis, and low accessibility of healthcare services. However, the development of PoC devices in developing countries is challenged by several barriers. Such PoC devices may not be adopted due to prejudices about new technologies and the need for special training to use some of these devices. Here, we investigated the concerns of end users regarding PoC devices by surveying healthcare workers and doctors. The tendency to adopt PoC device changes is based on demographic factors such as work sector, education, and technology experience. The most apparent concern about PoC devices was issues regarding low accuracy, according to the surveyed clinicians.

An episode of the revolution: Aleppo university protest movement 2011–2013

ABSTRACT Political Opportunity Structure (POS) theorists have paid attention to either the structural factors or to the agential ones while studying social movements. Through the nexus of structure and agency this article explains the collective action of the students of Aleppo University between 2011 and 2013 as one episode of the Syrian Revolution. I argue that structures alone are not enough to facilitate collective action. It is the agency of the social movement participants that mend the structures to open more opportunities. Through applying Tilly and Tarrow’s properties of a regime to the Syrian case I explore the opportunities that the challengers took to advance their claims to sustain their movement for three years. I argue, however, that the properties of the Syrian regime were not equally significant. By capitalising on their agency, I highlight the everyday micro practices of the students in challenging the regimes inside the campus. Finally, I look at the prominence of some properties over others and empirically show how these regime properties eventually led to the end of the movement inside the campus in 2013.

Understanding the Obama Administration’s Syria Policy

President Obama’s Syria policy and his decision not to intervene in Syria had long been criticized by the US political elites, scholars, and pundits. Most of the explanations of the US policy towards the Syrian civil war are based on realpolitik arguments. Realpolitik explanations of foreign policy analysis tend to overlook other key factors that play a vital role in foreign policy decision making processes. Therefore, these studies fail to explain Obama’s Syria policy adequately. This article aims to provide a more comprehensive explanation of Obama’s Syria policy. I argue that Obama’s Syria policy can be better explained by two other approaches: mass politics and psychological and cognitive approaches. After a thorough examination of relevant literature and President Obama’s interviews and speeches, I argue that President Obama chose not to intervene in Syria because US public opinion was extremely reluctant to send US troops to Syria, and there was not an effective interest group that could impact the public opinion and the administration’s policies. Further, President Obama’s beliefs and attitudes also played a vital role in determining his Syria policy. First, Obama’s fundamental beliefs shaped how he approached the Syrian crisis. Then, his interaction with several actors and crises affected his attitude towards Syria and how the situation should be handled. His speeches and interviews show that Libyan intervention affected his perceptions. Therefore, he did not implement the same option in the Syrian case. Likewise, Obama’s categorization of the Middle East leaders and threats affected his Syria policy. Last but not least, diplomatic encounters and his personal experience also played a role in determining his Syria policy.

“Syrian case of Vasily Akkarsky”: nationalist anti-Russian demarche(four letters of 1909 from the Russian embassy in Constantinople,Archive of the Russian Empire Foreign Policy)

“Syrian case of Vasily Akkarsky”: nationalist anti-Russian demarche(four letters of 1909 from the Russian embassy in Constantinople,Archive of the Russian Empire Foreign Policy)

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL VULNERABILITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE REFUGEE CRISIS 2011-2016: THE ARAB SPRING AND THE ROLE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

The issue of uncontrolled migration has produced an institutional transformation of the European Union, dictated by the need to find solutions to new challenges. The reform of migration and asylum policy had to enter the European public agenda at an accelerated pace and political leaders had to find the common will to create the right legislative framework to respond to the migration crisis. The most important migration route preferred by refugees and economic migrants, is the Mediterranean Sea which in recent years has experienced the most intense human trafficking but also the most deaths in such a short time. As a result of the popular riots in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011, the deteriorating political and social situation in the countries of origin, more and more citizens have left their native places in the hope of ensuring a better life in the European Union. In order to support the structural reforms needed by the two areas and even physical reconstruction if we refer to the Syrian case, the European Union must show active involvement and a coherent plan to curb the fluid sources of migration. Supporting the reconstruction of foundations or strengthening institutions, investment in aid programs to stimulate economies and strong agreements with the governments of the states of the Middle East and North Africa are just some of the measures that the European Union should take swiftly.

The Limits of Ideologically-Unlikely Partnerships: Syria’s Support for Jihadi Terrorist Groups

Why did Syria collaborate with al-Qaeda’s Iraqi branch after 2003 and with ISIS during the Syrian civil war? States’ support for terrorist groups is risky, but cooperation with jihadi actors who see the Syrian regime as an enemy and wish to impose a radical Islamic rule in its stead is particularly dangerous. This paper argues that such ideologically-unlikely partnerships reveal the workings of the instrumental logic behind state-sponsored terrorism. Collaborating with terrorist groups is a rational strategy. States such as Syria will partner with ideologically-incompatible terrorist groups when they judge there to be a greater and more urgent threat from a third actor; when they believe the partnership would give them unique capabilities or produce special, otherwise unattainable effects; and when they believe they can shield themselves from the relationship’s potential adverse effects. The Syrian case also shows that such a pairing is likely to have limited utility. In order to have meaningful impact, the terrorist group must have a significant role, but the greater this role is, the higher the direct danger the group poses to its ally and the greater the likelihood of international action against the sponsoring state.

Foreign sponsorship of pro-government militias fighting Syria’s insurgency: Whither proxy wars?

ABSTRACT Exploring the role of foreign-sponsored pro-government militias in counter-insurgency efforts, this article shows how the proxy war concept maps onto the Syrian conflict as we demonstrate both its contributions and limitations. Drawing on rare access to Syrian and foreign security actors inside Syria, we argue that the Syrian war, while rightly labelled a proxy war, sits uneasily with and at times even contradicts a set of scholarly assumptions and emphases on proxy wars when looked at from a counter-insurgency perspective. Accordingly, proxies were relevant not just as rebels but also as counter-insurgents. Sponsors included state and non-state actors alike, were manifold, and did not necessarily have exclusive relations to their proxies. They were also much more intensely involved with their proxies than generally expected from a war at arm’s length. Principal–agent relations this way ceased to be dyadic and hierarchical. What emerged was a heterarchical order, with parallel hierarchies tying proxies to their sponsors fiercely in competition with one another. This allowed and encouraged proxies to carve out leverage and agency of their own just as it fed into the Syrian regime’s resilience in averting a ‘double crisis of sovereignty’. Given the scale and success of its counter-insurgency efforts, the Syrian case calls for reconsidering proxy wars of the past while it may constitute a watershed development for how proxy wars are to be waged in the future.

The Origins of the Syrian Conflict: Climate Change and Human Security

The Origins of the Syrian Conflict: Climate Change and Human Security

An acquired stable variant of a dicentric dic(9;20) and complex karyotype in a Syrian childhood B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia case

BackgroundAbout 25 years ago, the acquired chromosome abnormality dicentric dic(9;20)(p11 ~ 13;q11) was seen described as a non-random aberration in B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL). Yet, about 200 cases were reported. However, dicentric dic(9;20) is a subtle abnormality which easily may be mixed up with monosomy 20 and/or del(9p). The dicentric dic(9;20) can be found as a sole chromosomal abnormality or can be masked within complex rearrangements; also, a dicentric dic(9;20) is often associated with mono- or biallelic loss of CDKN2A gene.Case presentationHere we report a case of 16-year-old male diagnosed with a de novo pre-B-ALL. Molecular approaches (array-based multicolor banding (aMCB) and array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH)) were applied, and a unique complex karyotype involving six chromosomes was identified. It included three previously unreported chromosomal aberrations: dicentric dic(9;20;X), deletion del(7)(p22.2p15.2) and dicentric dic(7;13). The dicentric dic(9;20;X) also led to monoallelic loss of tumor suppressor gene CDKN2A. After successful chemotherapeutic treatment the patient experienced a relapse with a secondary ALL without complex karyotype but a deletion del(19)(p13). Unfortunately, the patient died after 17 months of the initial diagnosis.ConclusionsTo the best of our knowledge, a comparable childhood ALL associated with such complex karyotype and deletion del(19)(p13) in secondary ALL was not previously reported. Thus, the complex karyotype with dicentrc dic(9;20;X) seems to indicate for a poor prognosis.

The Theory and Practice of New Generation Warfare: The Case of Ukraine and Syria

ABSTRACT By employing well-known methods of warfare, but in innovative ways and with the help of new technologies, Russia’s concept of operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine took many in the West by surprise. Almost immediately, Western analysts embarked on a search for definitions for this ‘new’ approach, most of them within the West’s own theoretical framework. These have included the Gerasimov Doctrine, hybrid warfare and hybrid threat, non-linear warfare, fourth-generation warfare, and most recently ‘gray zone’ conflict. Nevertheless, a vast volume of Russian theoretical debates about new ways of warfare has remained under-studied. This has resulted in misconceptions in the characterization of Russian strategy, through molding it to fit Western theoretical constructs as opposed to those within which it was developed. Rather than helping assess the real options open to Russia, each of the aforementioned terms has tended to be unhelpful, as none reflects Russia’s doctrine or assumptions about the nature of war in the 21st century. This article’s main aim is to describe the Russian way of ‘sub-threshold warfare’ as defined by Russia itself. This was done by researching more than 30 years of Russian military literature, case studies from Crimea and Eastern Ukraine built from interviews with Ukrainian military and security personnel, and information on the Syrian case based on Russian sources. An analysis of the Russian military literature when compared to the empirical evidence of Russian tactics in Ukraine and Syria shows that its strategy is multi-layered and comprehensive. It is counterproductive to frame the Russian strategy within artificial frameworks established outside of the threat context, such as Hybrid Warfare. The Russians have their own framework that, although influenced by Western military doctrine, is the result of their own theoretical developments.