2024-03-29T15:55:14Zhttps://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/oai/requestoai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/63532021-10-30T02:00:36Zcom_10023_808com_10023_39com_10023_86com_10023_26col_10023_809col_10023_88
The war of identities amidst the Syrian uprising : the continual reproduction of sub-state identities and the quest to reconstruct Syrian national identity
Rifai, Ola
Hinnebusch, Raymond A.
This thesis is about identity clashes during the first two years of the Syrian uprising (from 15th of March 2011 to 15th of March 2013). Chiefly, it attempts to answer the following questions: what roles do identities play in the construction of power among the various identity groups? What were the reasons for the identity clashes that occurred during the Syrian uprising?. How can we evaluate the reproduction of identity during the uprising?. The Alawite, Sunni, Kurdish and Syrian national identities are used to illustrate how in the course of the uprising, these identities were consistently being reproduced as each group vied for power. This thesis argues that during the Syrian uprising these identities were subject to an enduring process of reproduction and reinforcement by discourse directed from above and from below, in which symbolic and materialistic elements played a vital role. The mode of analysis for this thesis is framed by the modernist and symbolist approaches to theories of nationalism and is underpinned by the theory of communal violence.
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
2014-06-01
Thesis
Doctoral
MPhil Master of Philosophy
en
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6353
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/6353/6/OlaRifaiMPhilThesis.pdf
84a06dc3994fd13d08dd8e57d4a794af
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/6353/7/OlaRifaiMPhilThesis.pdf.txt
15789523a90525e7b95f65d8eb029f8e
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/6353/5/license.txt
640efec0e2404cd505c2580e38ee6d69
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Syrian uprising
Identity
DS98.6R5
Syria--History--Civil War, 2011- --Social aspects
Syria--Politics and government--2000-
Nationalism--Syria
Ethnicity--Syria
Communalism--Syria
Political violence--Syria
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/3542019-07-01T10:16:01Zcom_10023_808com_10023_39com_10023_86com_10023_26col_10023_809col_10023_88
Adapting authoritarianism: institutions and co-optation in Egypt and Syria
Stacher, Joshua A
Hinnebusch, Raymond A.
This PhD thesis compares Egypt and Syria’s authoritarian political systems. While the tendency in social science political research treats Egypt and Syria as similarly authoritarian, this research emphasizes differences between the two systems with special reference to institutions and co-optation. Rather than reducibly understanding Egypt and Syria as sharing similar histories, institutional arrangements, or ascribing to the oft-repeated convention that “Syria is Egypt but 10 years behind,” this thesis focuses on how events and individual histories shaped each states current institutional strengthens and weaknesses. Specifically, it explains the how varying institutional politicization or de-politicization affects each state’s capabilities for co-opting elite and non-elite individuals.
Beginning with a theoretical framework that considers the limited utility of democratization and transition theoretical approaches, the work underscores the persistence and durability of authoritarianism. Chapter two details the politicized institutional divergence between Egypt and Syria that began in the 1970s. Chapter three and four examines how institutional politicization or de-politicization affects elite and non-elite individual co-optation in Egypt and Syria. Chapter five discusses the study’s general conclusions and theoretical implications.
This thesis’s argument is that Egypt and Syria co-opt elites and non-elites differently because of the varying degrees of institutional politicization in each governance system. Rather than view one country as more politically developed than the other, this work argues that Syria’s political institutions are more politicized than their Egyptian counterparts. Syria’s political arena is, thus, described as politicized-patrimonialism. Syria’s politicized-patrimonial arena produces uneven co-optation of elites and non-elites as they are diffused through competing institutions. Conversely, the Egyptian political arena remains highly personalized as weak institutions and individuals are manipulated and molded according to the president’s ruling clique. This is referred to as personalized-patrimonialism. As a consequence, Egypt’s political establishment demonstrates more flexibility in ad hoc altering and adapting its arena depending on the emergence of crises.
This study’s theoretical implications suggest that, contrary to modernization and democratization theory’s adage that institutions lead to a political development, politicized institutions within a patrimonial order actually hinder regime adaptation because consensus is harder to achieve and maintain. It is within this context that Egypt’s de-politicized institutional framework advantages its top political elite. In this reading of Egyptian and Syrian politics, Egypt’s personalized political arena is more adaptable than Syria’s. These conclusions do not indicate that political reform is a process underway in either state.
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
2007-03-07
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
en
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/354
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/354/5/license.txt
6da6947ab37712d1c578e420a50041ea
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/354/6/JoshuaStacherPhDThesis.PDF
b17e1243195ea5fd2695c08b8a1f6aef
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/354/7/JoshuaStacherPhDThesis.PDF.txt
3cb2f4100b10c367e4c1557b969807d1
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
Authoritarianism
Egypt
Syria
Co-optation
Institutions
Elites
Comparative politics
Authoritarianism--Egypt
Authoritarianism--Syria
Politics and government--Egypt
Politics and government--Syria
Comparative government
Associations, institutions, etc.--Egypt
Associations, institutions, etc.--Syria
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/66002017-04-04T10:05:03Zcom_10023_808com_10023_39com_10023_86com_10023_26col_10023_809col_10023_88
Syria : why is the Arab Spring turning into a long winter
Alzamalkani, Munzer Eid
Hinnebusch, Raymond A.
Murer, Jeffrey Stevenson
This thesis analyses the problematic trajectory of the Syrian Revolution 2011, which
was inspired by the Arab Spring. It first evaluates the causes of the revolution during
Bashar al-Asad’s era. An era was aimed to be a transition from authoritarianism to
democracy and from suppression to fair openness. It second investigates the factors
behind turning the Arab Spring into a Syrian winter, plunging the country into internal
war and uncontrolled violence. The research is based on a qualitative approach that
includes interviews as a source of information and analysis. Factors covered are the
disintegration of Syrian society as the greatest challenge for the civil uprising and
mass mobilization as well as the regime’s coherent inner core accounting for the
regime’s violence and persistence. As violence breeds violence, the revolutionaries
decided to react violently towards the regime brutality descending the country into an
internal war. The formulation of the Free Syrian Army was formalized, but could not
transform into a proper military formation, and so could not control the spread of
violence in the country. The inclination towards Jihad was evident and common, and
associated with resorting to violence because the revolutionaries are Muslims, and
believed in Jihad as a way to defend themselves and their families. However, Jihad
became more formalized with the arrival of global Jihadists to Syria, forming Jihadist
groups and controlling parts of Syria. The stance of the international community was
another big obstacle helped escalating, but not terminating the conflict. A conflict
could develop into a devastating regional crisis changing the structure of the Middle
East and changing the international politics of this vital region.
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
2015-06-23
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
en
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6600
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/6600/2/license.txt
640efec0e2404cd505c2580e38ee6d69
2025-04-07
The Syria War
The Arab Spring in Syria
DS98.6A4
Syria--History--Civil War, 2011-
Arab Spring, 2010-
Syria--Social conditions
Political violence--Syria
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/37452019-04-01T08:18:40Zcom_10023_808com_10023_39com_10023_86com_10023_26col_10023_809col_10023_88
Syria's authoritarian upgrading, 2000-2010 : Bashar al-Asad's promotion of foreign-educated returnees as transnational agents of change
Zintl, Tina
Hinnebusch, Raymond A.
McCallum, Fiona
This thesis analyses the political role of highly-educated Syrian return migrants between 2000 and 2010 and their significance for the regime’s authoritarian upgrading. It
critically engages with the expectations raised by different bodies of literature, first, that returnees facilitate the development of their home country and, second, that, in the Syrian case, a foreign-trained president promoted the influence of highly-skilled technocrats. The study is based on qualitative interviews with foreign-educated returnees and conceptualizes their unique background as ‘transnationality’, which encompasses diverse foreign and local cultural, social, economic and symbolic capitals.
‘Transnationality’ can have a political impact only if it is linked up with the political status quo and, in Syria, this process was characterized by selectivity and elitism that coincided with strategies of authoritarian upgrading. Thus, there was a delicate balance between returnees’ modernizing influence and the pressure for them to re-adapt exerted by their environment. On the one hand, the socio-economic circumstances of migration
and return, the need to re-adapt as well as the logic of co-opting the most influential
parts of society led to a ‘bourgeois bias’ that privileged well-connected members of
society and hampered upward social mobility. On the other hand, although returnees
exerted a notable influence on some reforms areas, this influence was often weakened
by indirect and temporary agreements and confined to particular policy areas which the
authoritarian regime prioritized for reforms. By scrutinizing returnees’ influence in the areas of economy and finance, civil society, the media and tertiary education, it becomes clear that their political impact exemplifies and explains the Syrian regime’s outsourcing strategy to the private sector. The study concludes that Syrian returnees were mostly ‘agents of status quo’ who – whether consciously or not – helped to bolster
authoritarian politics and, especially, the legitimizing discourse that reinforced the
image of Bashar al-Asad as a modernizer struggling against ‘old guard’ hardliners.
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
2013
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
en
Russell Trust
Honeyman Foundation
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3745
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/3745/1/Thefulltextofthisdocumentisnotavailable.pdf
7efd53c15bbf17bad401ceb5376579ca
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/3745/2/license.txt
640efec0e2404cd505c2580e38ee6d69
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/3745/3/Thefulltextofthisdocumentisnotavailable.pdf.txt
9d767fedd3ee6d532b04273b8a09f49f
Electronic copy restricted until 23rd May 2018
JQ1826.A58Z56
Return migrants--Political aspects--Syria
Assad, Bashar, 1965-
Authoritarianism--Syria
Transnationalism
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/69482019-07-01T10:17:56Zcom_10023_808com_10023_39com_10023_86com_10023_26col_10023_809col_10023_88
The alliances of a regional power : the case of Syria, 1970-1989
Belcastro, Francesco
Hinnebusch, Raymond A.
The topic of this dissertation is the alliances of a regional power. The framework used to explain this central aspect of International Relations is the realist one, and particularly the work of the Classical Realist Arnold Wolfers. The regional, state and domestic dimension are integrated in order to provide an “updated realist” interpretation of alliances, why states form them, maintain them or break them. This dissertation seeks to recover the concept of state’s goals that was central to Classical Realism and then “abandoned” when Neorealism became the dominant Realist paradigm. The case studies used in this research is Syria during the 1970-1989 phase and particularly five pivotal relations: the Egypt 1973 war alliance, the 1978 failed détente with Iraq, the 1979 Damascus-Tehran alliance, the regional client-superpower alliance with the USSR and finally the relation with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. By analysing Syria’s foreign policy and particularly these five relations this dissertation show how a framework based on realism provides a coherent and insightful interpretation of a regional power’s foreign policy.
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
2015-06-23
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
en
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6948
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/6948/3/license.txt
640efec0e2404cd505c2580e38ee6d69
2020-06-01
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Alliances
Syria
Middle East
Regions
Realism
Wolfers
DS95.5B4
Alliances
Syria--Foreign relations
Syria--History--20th century
Political realism
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/155762021-09-21T14:33:45Zcom_10023_808com_10023_39com_10023_86com_10023_26col_10023_809col_10023_88
The tribes and the state: informal alliances and conflict patterns in contemporary Syria
Dukhan, Haian
Hinnebusch, Raymond A.
Throughout history and up to the present day, tribalism continues to influence many issues related to governance, conflict and stability in the Middle East and North Africa. While many civil society advocates argue that tribal affiliation in the middle East has diminished, as evidenced by the disappearance of intertribal conflicts, family loyalties continue to play a significant role in the everyday life of the Middle East from employment in the public sector to recruitment in the army and security apparatus to competition between families and clans for many of the government positions and other social services provided by the state. Most research has tended to focus on Islamism and Jihadism. Most recently, the Arab Spring was accompanied by the resurgence of sectarianism, extremism and other social phenomena which at the sub or trans-state levels have been empowered by the weakening of states yet, although tribes have also been empowered, the resurgence of tribalism was not studied deeply. Political scientists who focus their research on the political processes of the Middle East tend to focus their attention on state institutions, state policies and national parties. By contrast, anthropologists who are interested in politics limit their focus to segments of the communities and tribal affiliations. This dissertation will attempt to do both by relating the local patterns to the larger system of which they are part. The strategic objective of this research is to explore the policies of the successive Syrian governments towards the Arab tribes and their reactions to these policies and their consequences for the relationship between state and tribe from the fall of the Ottoman Empire and its withdrawal from Syria in 1916 until the eruption of the current Syrian civil war. The research will develop a new understanding of the linkages between environment, economy and government policies as the affect the tribes and their relationship with the state.
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
2017
Thesis
Doctoral
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
en
Asfari Foundation
University of St Andrews. Centre for Syrian Studies
University of Manchester. Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World
Association for the Study of Middle East and Africa (ASMEA)
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15576
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/15576/1/license.txt
a10becd7ef5358e42635fd6aa9fc69b6
2027-06-01
DS95.5D8
Syria--Social conditions--21st century
Syria--History--Civil War, 2011-
Syria--History--Civil War, 2011--Religious aspects
Syria--History--Civil War, 2011--Social aspects