Actuele vraagstukken van oorlog en vrede – Syria
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College 1 – Het Midden-Oosten vanuit een conflictstudie perspectief
Kalyvas – “New” and “old” civil wars: a valid distinction?
There is often a distinction made between new and old civil wars in which information on the new
civil wars is often incomplete and biased & knowledge gained from old civil wars is often disregarded.
Old civil wars: often seen as ideological, political, collective and sometimes even noble
New civil wars: often seen as criminal, depolitized, private and predatory
Dividing line often the Cold War
In most accounts old and new civil wars vary in three dimensions:
1. Collective grievances (old) vs private causes and motivations for looting (new) > wrong on
both sides:
o New: do people go for private gains because of war or does war cause them to go for
private gains
o Old: actors in old war also used criminal activities and do not just go for social justice,
the importance of ideologies was greatly overstated (more likely: regard for
comrades, respect for leaders, concern for reputation, urge to contribute to success
of the group)
2. Popular support (old) vs lack of support (new) > not true: depends on who you interview.
o Because the meaning of rebellions is often articulated by elites in the language of
national cleavages, many observers erroneously code them as actually mobilizing
popular support along those cleavages > cleavages could mislead.
o In old civil wars, popular support was shaped, won, and lost during the war, often by
means of coercion and violence and along lines of kinship and locality; it was not
purely consensual, immutable, fixed, and primarily ideological.
3. Limited, controlled & understandable violence (old) vs gratuitous, senseless and
uncontrolled violence (new) > both views fails to find support in the available evidence
Conclusion: there is no clear difference between civil wars before and after the Cold War but rather a
new way of interpretating (by removing political categories & classificatory devices) in which criminal
aspects are exaggerated & highly visible information can prove to be misleading
Abboud – introduction
What has shaped Syria before the conflict even started:
o Historical evolution of social elite: Ottoman empire > the Mandate period (politics
more in lives of citizens)> Ba’ath authoritarianism (repression, clientelism,
exchanging social welfare for political quietism)
o Regional role of Syria: involvement in Israel war (67 & 73), civil war in Lebanon (70s)
> Arab uprising might have inspired Syrians to do the same
o Decade of dramatic economic transformation that had ruptured the economic links
between state and society established from the 1960-1990s > mismanaging of
resources, unemployment, declining standards of living
, o The legacies of Syria’s historical evolution as a state, the transformation of its social
stratification and political economy & the changing geo-political situation in the
Middle East have all contributed to shaping the conflict today
History of the current conflict
o 2011 (March): protests against the 50-year rule of the Ba’ath Party started in
Southern city of Dar’a
o What started as a call for regime change ended in a political and military stalemate >
Russian involvement > authoritarian peace
o 2016 negotiations in Geneva between Syrian regime & opposition (lAlloush, leader of
the armed Islamist group Jaysh al-Islam > surprising choice for lead negotiator)
The conflict is often reduced to dichotomies (Sunni/Shi’a or regime/rebel) that don’t fully
encompass the complexity of the conflict > we should move back and forth between meta-
issues (regional rivalries, international involvement, ideological/secretarian calculations) and
micro-issues (intra-rebel cooperation and conflict, humanitarian crisis, administrative
fragmentation of the country)
This book talks about: the stalemate, Russian intervention, actors (incl ISIS), historical
analysis, structures of violence
College 2 – Bespreking van de documentaire For Sama
Abboud – Chapter 1: The rise and fall of the Ba’ath party
The social and economic transformation that made the rise of the Ba’ath party possible, are rooted in
3 seismic political shifts (Ottoman empire > French Mandate > Independence > United Arab republic)
Ottoman empire reforms in the 1800s:
o centralize the power and a stronger penetrative role of the state
o integration into the global capitalist system > more European penetration of the
provinces & economic pressures against traditional industries
o introducing private property and landownership > landlord-merchant class as the
Syrian political elite
Syrian political life since Ottoman empire: differential incorporation of Syria’s social forces
into political power + often destabilizing and revolutionary implications of political
peripheralization
French Mandate (1920):
o Active discouragement from industrialization by the French > Syrian society revolved
around landownership and the marketing and exchange of agriculture
o Resistance by French rule through elite > establishment of various institutions of
political representation that allowed them some autonomy from French overlords
o Peasants’ discontent over socio-economic plight > revolt in 1925-1927
o continuation of social composition > not surprising that after the fall of the mandate
the same landlord-merchant classes continued to rule > nobility continued to rule
Independence (1936: French began negotiations with National Bloc’s leaders > 1946: free)
o National Bloc elites took control but immediately disintegrated into different
factions: National Party (Damascus-based), Republic Party (Damascus-based),
People’s Party (Aleppo-based)
o Parties with ideology inimical to Arab Nationalism: Communist Party, Muslim
Brotherhood, Youth Party
, o Parties with transnational ideological interests: Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party
(integrating Syria in a bigger political entity with other countries) & Ba’ath Party
(Arab nationalism)
Post-independence period - decades of instability because of:
o rapid social transformations wrought by integration into the global capitalist system
o expansion of state capacity and penetration of the state into society
o widespread discontent & mobilization > eventually destroy existing political structure
1950s: intense political debate, mobilization of different societal interests & radicalization of
politics > Ba’ath party dominated the army & formidable force in Syria’s emerging political
landscape > rise of peasant politics (Ba’ath merging with Arab Socialist Party)
United Arab Republic (1958): attempt to consolidate Syria’s political institutions (were very
factionalized) and end instability > fail because unable to incorporate social backgrounds &
basis of the Syrian political parties into the new system > major transformation in Ba’ath
party (ideology + social & sectarian composition of its supporters)
The rise of the Ba’ath Party:
Ba’ath supporters were split on whether or not to reunite with Egypt
o Pro-unionists: believe in Arab Union, largely members of urban Sunni Middle Class,
support Ba’athism as champions of Arab nationalism (pan-Arab ideals)
o Anti-unionists: committed to the party and re-establishing pre-1958 Ba’ath
Networks, largely from rural areas
Together with the rural activists + military committee + anti-unionists: rejection of traditional
Ba’ath party model & pre-UAR leadership (= to blame for dissolution of the party and failure
of the union) > became almost Marxist + radicalization of the Ba’ath Party + leadership of
minorities in provinces > no ideological coherency to the leadership
The party completely changed than it was before (Mandate & UAR era)
Coup (1963): purge members who did not share their radical vision for social transformation
The rule of the Ba’ath party
Pursuing a radical political agenda that reflected the leadership’s commitment to
comprehensive social transformation, uprooting nobility-based order (high costs & at the
expense of political democratization
Assad’s ideas on how to govern:
o no challenge to his rule + cultivate wide popular support
o 4 pillars of power: the party itself, corporatism, state bureaucracy, army & security
apparatus
1980s: conflict with Muslim Brotherhood (70-80s) & financial crisis (mid-80s) > Ba’athist
authoritarianism shows signs of exhaustion > needed economic reforms
The rise of Bashar al-Assad (reorientation of the Ba’athist model): liberalization & shift
toward a more marketized economy (00s), shift to thinking towards services or the urban
economy at the expense of the agricultural and rural economy, radical reorganization of the
country’s foreign relations
Circumcised civil society: prior to the uprising Syrian did not have an autonomous civil society, very
little room for dissent, later only religious/ charitable organizations (but never completely
autonomous from regime), mid-2000s CSOs were largely tolerated > but still not many to gather
when the uprising occurred
, Abboud – Chapter 2: The Syrian uprising (until militarization and the armed opposition)
Decade preceding the uprising: big economic changes & peripheralization of social forces> many did
no longer have an outlet to derive material benefits from the state > discontent with the regime grew
> remained contained because of repression and limited inclusion of social actors into the state
Syrian opposition:
suppressed party life, only Muslim Brotherhood > exiled
Damascus spring (2001): reformists failed because of structural weakness (plurality of the
opposition) & realities of the political opposition (no parties to mobilize for support)
2005: move to create a broad opposition coalition (by forming committees) > Damascus
Declaration (nonviolence, democracy, oppositional unity, democratic change) > never truly
translated in concrete pressured towards the regime: identity & citizenship issues + exile
Summer 2011: conflict became more militarized > opposition split into factions of competing
leadership
Beginnings of the uprising
Socioeconomic decline, political inertia, continued state of emergency > grievances > uprising
First months: regime repression while passing cosmetic political reforms > movement still
continued (still highly dispersed and decentralized)
Regional conflicts > Syria not immune to contagion effect & regional actors began intervening
Demand: dismantling security apparatus, resignation of president, peripheralization of elite
(political, security, economic) from the political sphere + repeal emergency laws
(independent judiciary + new constitution) & independent political institutions & laws
In the beginning the uprising rested on social networks rather than formal institutions
Background of the protestors (no common demographic): 1) Secular, educated, urban middle
class 2) Tribes (kinship based networks) 3) Political Islamists 4) Political activists (e.g. Kurds &
Arabs) 5) The unemployed, marginalized & urban subalterns
Problem of mobilization & a new civil society:
Local Coordination Committees (LCCs): first formation to emerge in protests
o crucial to sustaining the protests: organizers and citizen journalists, relief &
government roles in non-regime areas
o flaws: inability to evolve into a centralized structure, limited horizontal integration
Other CSOs (also) wanted to do administration and give provision and services to population
> struggled because of: hostile vision of armed groups, lack of goods, reliance on Syrian
National Council & private donors, hard to find space for political momentum with an
alternative to militarization > absence in negotiations
The Syrian National Council: first coalition of Syrian opposition, faces internal divisions >
2012: join other opposition groups in Syrian National Coalition > problems > 2014: SNC
withdrew from the Coalition > Today: SNC’s dream of government-in-exile & reality (regional
actors do not want it to succeed, armed groups active hostility, regime refuses negotiations)
Multiple leaderships: mistrust, lack of coordination (horizontal & vertical, e.g. decentralized
structure, hierarchy), legitimacy issues of opposition in exile (fear of sectarianism + unable to
provide material support), disputes over strategy > fragmentation
