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2. De-Urbanising the Syrian Revolt
- Author:
- Isam al Khafaji
- Publication Date:
- 03-2016
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
- Abstract:
- The Syrian revolt, which has disintegrated into a bloody attrition war, has been largely viewed as that of a majority Sunni population trying to depose a regime belonging to the minority Alawite sect. While this view may present a partially true explanation, it fails to explain why the involvement of different Sunni regions in the revolt varied to a large extent and the rising gap between the anti-Assad urbanites on the one hand and the armed militants on the other. It further fails to account for the wide diversity within the rebellion camp and the hostilities among the mushrooming opposition groups.
- Topic:
- International Affairs and Popular Revolt
- Political Geography:
- Syria
3. Reforming Syria’s Security Sector in the Post-Assad Era
- Author:
- Murhaf Jouejati
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
- Abstract:
- Under the Assad regime, Syria acquired a well-deserved reputation as a repressive mukhabarat state dominated by vast, overlapping internal security agencies that operated with near impunity, reporting directly to the president. Having presided over so much destruction and division, however, it is likely that the Assad regime will eventually be replaced by a government with a better claim to legitimacy. Security sector reform will be a key challenge for establishing the legitimacy of any post-Assad political order, but what would such a system look like and how could it be constructed?
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Syria
4. Implications of the 2011-13 Syrian Uprising for the Middle Eastern Regional Security Complex
- Author:
- Fred H. Lawson
- Publication Date:
- 12-2014
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), Georgetown University in Qatar
- Abstract:
- By the autumn of 2013, the Middle Eastern regional security complex (RSC) had taken on a new configuration, which was substantially different from—and much more explosive than—the one that existed prior to the large-scale popular uprisings that broke out across the Arab world in the winter of 2010-11. Foreign policies adopted between 2000 and 2010 by the Ba‘thi regime in Damascus, the leaderships of Hizbullah and HAMAS, and the Israeli government to parry overlapping internal and external threats created an unprecedented patchwork of strategic rivalries and alignments. Large-scale popular unrest in Iraq and Egypt in early 2011, along with the outbreak of full-scale civil war in Syria later that same year, generated an even more intricate web of interstate security dynamics. The reconfigured RSC that emerged out of the “Winter of Arab Discontent” is only beginning to be explicated, and can best be addressed by tracing the connection between domestic political conflicts and shifts in external belligerence and alignment across the region.
- Topic:
- International Relations and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Syria