Syrian Uprising Research Articles

Memory, fear, and manipulated sectarianism: Exploring Christian views and intercommunal dynamics in Al‐Hasakah amidst the Syrian uprising

AbstractThe Syrian uprising and subsequent civil war have been extensively studied with a predominant emphasis on sectarianism between the Sunni and Alawite sects. This narrow focus overlooks the profound influence of other religious and ethnic elements within Syrian society. This article aims to broaden the analytical lens by examining the position and attitudes of Christians in the Al‐Hasakah governorate regarding the Syrian uprising and opposition forces. The article addresses two key inquiries: first, the factors influencing Christians' position in Al‐Hasakah regarding the Syrian uprising, and second, the ramifications of these positions on intercommunal relationships in the region. The paper argues that the collective memory of fear experienced by Christians, manipulated by the Syrian regime, has contributed to the emergence of “sectarianism from below” and “sectarianism from above.” The former reflects the construction of sectarian identities by Christians in response to discrimination and marginalization, while the latter pertains to influential institutions perpetuating sectarian identities and divisions. The findings highlight the complex interplay of factors shaping communal attitudes and relations during times of upheaval and conflict.

Women’s engagement with the Syrian opposition: Pathways, perspectives, and participation

In its early months, the Syrian uprising included a diverse array of participants, including many from communities that the regime had previously assumed to be loyal, whether because of their sectarian identity, where they lived, or family ties to the military. The experiences of women from these communities can shed light on important aspects of the Syrian uprising, and test some of our key assumptions about women’s participation in contentious politics and the gendered aspects of political violence. Based on interviews, this article engages with the work on gender and conflict in examining family connections and political grievances that drew many women to the opposition, the specifically gendered risks that they faced, and the advantages that some women felt their gender and sectarian identities gave them as organizers and activists.

Neoliberal humanitarianism: Contradictory policy logics and Syrian refugee experiences in Japan

Abstract Since the 2011 beginning of the Syrian uprising, more than 800 Syrians have become registered residents of Japan. Japan is an unusual destination for these refugees due not only to its geographical and cultural distance from the Middle East and lack of Arab diasporic communities, but also to what we call neoliberal humanitarianism: an approach by which states adopt policies and programmes to reduce refugees’ suffering while also regarding refugees as potentially profitable workers responsible for their own economic survival and social integration. In Japan’s case, the driver of neoliberal humanitarianism is its interest in keeping par with G7 peers in ‘doing something’ in the face of a global ‘refugee crisis’ on the one hand, and its lack of political or social will to receive refugees, on the other. The contradictions inherent in these imperatives come to the fore in the ‘Japanese Initiative for the future of Syrian Refugees’ (JISR), which invites Syrian refugees to pursue graduate degrees at Japanese universities. Japan officially presents JISR participants as refugees, but legally regards them as students, provides limited financial support, and encourages them not to apply for asylum. This article investigates JISR as a case study of neoliberal humanitarianism and examines its contradictory logics and consequences, from the perspective of refugees’ experiences. Qualitative analysis of twenty-one original interviews shows that, though Syrians often choose Japan in search of stability after years of precarity in countries on Syria’s borders, neoliberal humanitarianism in this unusual destination generates a new chapter of uncertainty and disappointment.

“It gave us a thrill”: Emotions, exile, and narratives of (dis)engagement among activists from Syria

Building on qualitative interviews with Syrians who participated in the anti-regime movement of 2011 and now live in Berlin and Oslo, the article unpacks the ways that these contexts affected participants’ decision to continue or disrupt their activism in exile. By analyzing their activist trajectories from revolution to exile and drawing on the concept of emotional resonance, I reveal how Berlin and Oslo provided participants with different environments when dealing with their past experiences of participation. I show that while the mobilizing structures of Berlin provided spaces for activism that resonated with the emotional needs of activists, enabling them to continue activism on behalf of Syria, the mobilizing structures of Oslo failed to produce spaces that could respond to activists’ needs, playing a part in their disengagement there. The article extends the concept of emotional resonance and adds to the study of Syrian diasporas and emotions in the Syrian uprising.

Promoting defections through non-violent resistance tactics - the case of the Syrian uprising

ABSTRACT While the contribution of military defections to the success of non-violent struggles has received significant attention in Non-violent Resistance (NVR) literature, little has been said about the ethical challenges involved in promoting defection through non-violent tactics. Looking into the incidents of the Syrian uprising, this article examines the practical and ethical aspects of the tactics that NVR activists adopt to promote defections and argues that some of these tactics might raise challenges that undermine their contribution to NVR. The costs for defectors might undercut protesters’ ability to encourage defections, and the probability that defectors will resort to an armed revolt undermines the chances of success of NVR campaigns. This article suggests that promoting defections is more likely to be effective when NVR actionists mitigate the costs for defectors by protecting them and their families after they defect. In doing so, activists could reduce the chances of defectors turning to violence and improve NVR’s chances of success.

Russian–Iranian–Turkish trilateral relations in the Syrian civil war

The Syrian uprisings in 2011 transformed into a fragmented, internationalized, and highly intensive civil war. The confrontation in Syria involved numerous local forces, regional stakeholders and outside powers. Among those various actors, Türkiye, Russia, and Iran played the key role in shaping the outcome of the conflict. Despite support by Russia/Iran and Turkey to the opposite sides in a civil war, the three powers successfully delineated their respective spheres of influence and established a modus vivendi to coexist and co-manage the conflict in Syria. The trio has worked as equals, checking and balancing each other in their actions in the Syrian Arab Republic. As the crisis in Ukraine escalated, a new geopolitical reality emerged, affecting the Syrian theater and the related balance between three leading external actors. Russia’s decreased focus on Syria led to an expanding Iran, disturbing the balance of power and pushing Israel to intervene more assertively. Erupting competition between Ankara and Tehran could also lead to escalation. This article attempts to provide a picture of the complex triangular interplay between the Islamic Republic of Iran, Russia, and Türkiye in Syria. It outlines the divergent and converging interests of the three as well as their actions and policies vis-à-vis Syria. The work explores whether antagonistic aspirations are bridged or not and investigates where the potential for escalation lies.

The Out-of-Flock Dissident: An Interview with Kurdish – Syrian Writer Jan Dost

AbstractThe recent Syrian uprisings have impacted all sectors of life and played a major role in redrawing internal boundaries among different groups in Syria, not only between Kurds and Arabs but also within the fabric of Kurdish life. Among Syrian Kurds, calls for militarization and separation based on national chauvinism (Qasad) are countered by more moderate voices warning of the dangers of escalation and calling for Kurdish civilian rights within the Syrian homeland. Jan Dost is a Syrian–Kurdish writer whose literary oeuvre includes poetry books, numerous translations from and to Kurdish, and twelve novels, some of which have been translated into Turkish, Arabic, Sorani, Persian, and Italian. His criticism of what he calls “Kurdish fascism” prompted this interview, which is part of my current doctoral research on internal dissent in modern Middle Eastern narratives that negotiate the failure of “nationalism” in building modern states. Dost was born in Kobani in 1966 and has been living in Germany since 2000. His novel Mokhatat Petersburg (Petersburg Manuscript, 2020) was longlisted for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award. The interview is my translation from Arabic. It has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.

From Shame to Pride

Abstract This article is about the word Shawaya. Before the Syrian uprising, many Syrians used the term Shawaya in a derogatory manner when referring to a class of people perceived as backward, uneducated and vulgar. However, during the course of the Syrian uprising and subsequent civil war, self-identification as a Shawi (the singular of Shawaya) became more prevalent among people belonging to this group of Syrian society. The Syrian uprising created a space for Shawaya to express their identity openly. As the Syrian uprising turned into a protracted conflict, the Shawi identity transformed into a political one as it became associated with the rural-urban divide characterizing the conflict. This article aims to explore the social and political implications of the word Shawaya in contemporary Syrian political culture by exploring the term and attempting to show how members of this group today express their Shawi identity both politically and socially.

Romancing the Nation

Abstract Spanning the era of the two Assads (father and son) up to 2007 (the referendum year confirming Bashar al-Assad’s continuation as president) and songs produced during the war, this study will explore the role of ‘love’ (hub) and its relation to ‘blood’ (dam) in the continuity and persistence of heroism in the national narrative. As a form of politics, love and blood have served the Baathist state in obtaining and using power and domination. This article investigates the various ways love as a political tool has been instrumentalized to legitimize the regime and construct national ties and unity. As such, this study interrogates the connection between the sacralization of the nation and the construction of love as a political and cultural tool to subject loyalty and subordination in political culture. Understanding discursive appropriations of love in this way offers a fresh perspective into the meaning—and most importantly, the politics—of love in modern Syria and its relation to Baathism, the Syrian uprising, and popular culture. In this context, the use of the term ‘love’ (hub) by the opposition has become a confirmatory tool of the regime’s illegitimacy. While ‘love’ as a political tool has been instrumentalized by the Syrian Baath regime to consolidate authority, the citizenry now faces many challenges. One of these is not only reversing this imposed ‘love’ with hate or anger towards the regime, but more importantly, rationalizing nationhood and national membership by focusing on establishing civic engagement and representation.

The Positive-self and Negative-other Representation in Bashar Al-Assad’s First Political Speech After the Syrian Uprising

This study examines Positive-self and Negative-other representation expressed in the Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad’s first political speech in March 2011. This study investigates the way Al-Assad uses language as a tool to express his ideology and attitudes towards protests and the world’s leading countries, and thus to win conflicts and gain power. Therefore, this study scrutinises the negative-other representation of Al-Assad’s opponents and rival parties and what ideologies are reflected in this speech. It also examines the positive-self representation in relation to Al-Assad’s ruling party (Ba’ath) and the Syrian regime’s supporters. T. van Dijk (2002) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is utilised to highlight the way these representations are exhibited in the speech. An in-depth analysis is conducted to allow the identification of the strategies and techniques used in the speech analysed, following T. van Dijk (2002)ideological square.

How to Survive as an Armed Non-state Actor? An Assessment of the Syrian Democratic Union Party

This article examines the case of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat or PYD) to explain the survival strategies of the non-state armed actor (NSAA). Although the Middle Eastern State System remarkably remained stable after the end of Mandates, the legitimacy of states has been eroded by a combination of colonial legacy, neo-patrimonialism, and authoritarianism, laying the seeds for the rise of non-state challengers to states. At the beginning of the Syrian uprising, the PYD did not fight against the Syrian regime but established its autonomy in northern Syria by taking advantage of the chaos. Using the process-tracing method, the article explains the survival of the PYD until the territorial defeat of the so-called Islamic State and offers parameters of the territorial logic, its organizational structuring, and relations with the states to explain the survival strategies of the PYD. Finally, the study concludes that while the territorial and organizational structuring logics of the NSAA shape its strategies, its complex relationship with states determines its survival.

Daraa and the Altered Trajectory of the Syrian Crisis

Daraa City is widely known as the birthplace of the Syrian uprising. The uprising, which was initially motivated by high-minded ideas and opposition to the arbitrary violence of an authoritarian state, rapidly degenerated into a civil war orientated by external agendas and priorities. In this paper, I want to situate Daraa governorate at the centre of this development, with the intention of highlighting how the course of events in this small part of Syria had vital implications for the development of the Syrian Civil War. In seeking to develop an analysis of the interplay of internal dynamics and external influences, i seek to ‘reconcile’ the ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ dimensions of civil war, and also draw on contributions to the peacebuilding literature, and this enables me to reconceptualise the relationship between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ drivers of conflict.

The making of sects: Boundary making and the sectarianisation of the Syrian uprising, 2011–2013

Abstract‘Sectarianism’ has been frequently used by politicians, activists, journalists and even some academics to explain causes and dynamics of the Syrian uprising and the subsequent civil war. However, this state of affairs contrasts sharply with the kinds of symbols and rhetoric used by the predominantly peaceful protesters who took to the streets in Syria in 2011. Drawing on interpretivist approach and thick‐description, this article traces how local and supralocal activists' reactions to the regime's violence and its master narrative culminated in the activation and politicisation of the category of ‘sect’ as a residual sociality. I argue that the increasing visibility of sectarian frameworks and the demobilisation of non‐sectarian actors were parts of boundary‐making strategies pursued by local and supralocal actors who capitalised on regime violence and regional sectarian framing and sought to have a monopoly over the symbolic representation of the uprising. The effectiveness of the sectarianisation process was contingent on the escalation of violence, the militarisation and internationalisation of the uprising, and the transnationalisation of sectarian networks. Taking Syria as a case study, this article demonstrates how conflicts, or violence, become ‘ethnic’ or ‘sectarian‐coded’ and how macro social phenomenon influences microlevel behaviour, perspectives and strategies of boundary making.

Civil wars and international conflicts revisited: insights from the southern theatre of the Syrian uprising, 2011–2017

ABSTRACT Recent scholarship reports a strong statistical correlation between civil wars and international conflicts, yet the process whereby internal warfare generates external military confrontations remains understudied and obscure. Insight into the linkage can be gained from a detailed exploration of the southern theatre of the Syrian uprising. From 2011 to 2013, sporadic skirmishes took place between anti-government forces and defenders of the Ba’thi regime in Syria’s southern provinces, with little impact on interstate conflict. As fighting in the south grew more severe and more complex during 2014–2015, however, there was a sharp increase in the level and frequency of cross-border military confrontations. Explicating how the escalation of internal warfare generated heightened external clashes in this particular case improves our general understanding of the circumstances in which civil wars generate international conflicts.

The end of the dialectical symbiosis of national and tribal identities in Syria

AbstractSince the 1970s, the Syrian regime has been attempting to build a ‘Syrian national identity’ to promote identification with the Syrian state (al hawiyya al‐wataniyya) while concurrently following policies of survival and legitimisation, to preclude suppressing tribal identity (al hawiyya al‐asha'rya). The regime instead fostered tribal identity and relied on it when confronting internal and external challenges. The Syrian regime's policies aimed to empower tribal identity, while seeking to manipulate this perception for its own ends. As a result, tribal and national identities have been integrated in a relatively harmonious way for three decades. The economic liberalisation project that Bashar al‐Assad pursued, however, disturbed the delicate balance that Hafez al‐Assad had constructed between the national and tribal identities. In the wake of the Syrian uprising, it has become clear that tribal identity was a significant element in the conflict that engulfed the country, shaping local politics and influencing social dynamics in north eastern Syria and parts of the south. Over the past few years, tribal identity has become a powerful form of expression in Syria, which is increasingly evolving to replace its national counterpart. This paper will use a constructivist approach, which argues that tribal identity has its roots in the origins of the tribes but has been subject to external manipulation by political actors in their struggles for power. In Syria, as in other states, such actions carry the risk of civil war, precipitating degrees of state failure (Hashemi, 2015) in which the tribal and national identities clash.

New Media and Revolution: Resistance and Dissent in Pre-Uprising Syria

New Media and Revolution: Resistance and Dissent in Pre-Uprising Syria

The Origins of the Syrian Conflicts

The Origins of the Syrian Conflicts

“Formalizing rights: The case for linking legal rights to noncitizen statuses in Jordan”

AbstractHow can Jordan's experiences hosting Palestinian refugees inform policymaking toward Syrian refugees? As the 10‐year anniversary of the Syrian uprisings approaches, Syrian refugees remain displaced with limited opportunities for repatriation, resettlement, or naturalization. Although there are many important differences between Syrian and Palestinian refugees—particularly Syrians' right to a sovereign state's nationality—there are increasing similarities between these two protracted refugee groups. One of the most critical among these similarities is holding ambiguous membership statuses in Jordan, where groups hold more rights than other non‐Jordanians but fewer rights than Jordanian citizens. The experiences of noncitizen Palestinian refugees, such as those who fled to Jordan from the Gaza Strip after the 1967 war, highlight the destructive precarities that accompany an absence of legal rights, including insecure access to work, education, and healthcare. These experiences suggest that securing some Syrian rights in law can help mitigate the precarity of sustained refugee status. Further, Jordan has expressed a willingness to provide legal rights to some noncitizen groups, including investors and the children of Jordanian women and non‐Jordanian men. Overall, formalizing critical, less politicized rights in law is one tangible way to improve the daily lives of Syrian, as well as other, protracted refugees.

Education and alienation: The case of displaced Syrians and refugees

AbstractBefore the Syrian uprising (2011) and the subsequent war, Syria's literacy rates were among the highest in the Middle East and North Africa region. However, after a decade‐long humanitarian crisis and devastating war, all aspects of life, including education, have been fundamentally transformed. Building on ethnographic fieldwork (2014–2019) that includes 76 interviews with Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in the United States and six remote interviews with displaced families inside Syria, this contribution examines the impact of the Syrian conflict on education by showing the challenges that contribute to the alienation of displaced Syrian children and youth inside Syria as well as in the United States. Inside Syria, I discuss the institutionalization of violence and the construction of internal “othering” through the implementation of different and competing educational curriculums that invest in identity politics. Outside Syria, I examine how educational gaps affected asylum seekers and refugees in the United States. I show the ways in which the lack of systematic and sustainable support to address linguistic, cultural, and financial challenges that displaced Syrians face sustained this gap. I conclude by proposing policy recommendations that address these challenges which, I argue are key determinants to any future efforts of peacebuilding and reconciliation in Syria.

Oral history as a method of promoting inclusive and gender-sensitive justice

In a context in which Syrians are divided by conflict lines and information wars with no clear pathway towards comprehensive justice and peace, oral history projects that are community based, gender sensitive, and victim centred can provide an avenue for justice and empowerment. In a conflict where women�s voices and those of other marginalised groups are ignored or silenced, oral history can re-centre these experiences and voices, and provide a new perspective on the conflict and avenues for a solution. The Syrian Oral History Archive program powered by Dawlaty encompasses the voices of ordinary Syrians�with a focus on women and youth�and acts to recount both individual and collective recollections of the 2011 Syrian Uprising and the Syrian conflict thereafter. From its inception in 2016, the Archive has sought to create a mechanism and process which empowered Syrian communities and marginalised groups to tell their stories, influence the dominant narrative about the conflict, and shape the agenda around justice.