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| 1 |
ID:
133711
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| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In 2013, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) recorded 33 armed conflicts with a minimum of 25 battle-related deaths, up by one from 2012. Seven of these were recorded as wars, that is conflicts leading to 1,000 or more battle-related deaths in a calendar year. There have been 144 armed conflicts (47 wars) since 1989 and 254 armed conflicts (114 wars) since 1946. For the past ten years the amount of active armed conflict has fluctuated between 31 and 37. Six peace agreements were signed during the year 2013, two more than in the previous year. For the first time, this article also provides data on trends in battle-related deaths since 1989. These data do not show a clear time-trend. However, there is a particular difficulty in mapping the conflict in Syria, for which no credible battle-related deaths in 2013 can yet be reported.
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| 2 |
ID:
144955
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The Caspian Sea has suddenly come into focus, drawing the attention of not only the five littoral states and oil and gas producers, but also the political and military actors involved in the Syrian conflict. On October 7, 2017, Russia's Caspian Flotilla fired Kalibr cruise missiles at Islamic State targets, demonstrating the high efficiency of its precision weapons, and ability to deliver strikes in remote areas using a limited task force that the West had not taken seriously before. The redeployment of troops to Syria and the use of Caspian Flotilla ships clearly showed that Russia could promptly come to consensus with its neighbors in the region-Azerbaijan, Iran, and Iraq.
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| 3 |
ID:
147034
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Mesopotamia ("between the rivers" in Greek), the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers and the Levant which embraces the current territories of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, vividly reveals the contradictions of the modern world. This region has highlighted the immediate consequences of the military conflict and absence of a full-fledged cooperative basis for the key states to maintain strategic interaction. Yet this does not rule out the possibility of certain, albeit limited, cooperation in military operations and in the political and socio-economic reconstruction of the region.
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| 4 |
ID:
184350
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China’s foreign policy toward the Middle East has traditionally been shaped by its national interests based on energy security, arms exports, and technology transfers. To complement its interest-driven regional policies, China has expanded its diplomatic contacts and promoted cultural ties. Over the last two decades, China has also engaged in conflict management in several regional issues, despite its declared commitment to nonintervention in other countries’ domestic affairs. This article aims to analyze China’s conflict management policies in the region, focusing on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Iran’s nuclear program and the Syrian conflict. Compared with other major external powers, prospects for China’s conflict management seem high given two significant advantages. First, unlike Western powers or Russia, China has not left any bitter taste in the region associated with colonialism, religious or historical engagement. Secondly, China has been careful not to take clear-cut sides in regional conflicts, making itself an ideal candidate to act as an honest broker. It is argued that despite these advantages, Chinese conflict management in the region has remained considerably modest and lacked any practical solutions to the critical problems.
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| 5 |
ID:
168729
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| 6 |
ID:
129317
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| 7 |
ID:
142971
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| 8 |
ID:
169372
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Based on research conducted between 2011 and 2014 on how Syrians experience, interpret, and redefine ethnic and religious-based differences, this article explores the dynamics that have made sectarianism such a salient feature of the Syrian conflict. Two distinct forms of sectarianism are simultaneously at work: a preexisting ethno-religious communitarianism and a more recent, dehumanizing sectarian outlook that emerged during the conflict. While the two are correlated, they are outcomes of different processes and conditions. As a byproduct of the Syrian conflict, sectarianism can thus neither be deemed the outcome of a process superseding the conflict nor the expression of preexisting conditions.
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| 9 |
ID:
157449
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| 10 |
ID:
142145
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| Summary/Abstract |
With major regional powers in disagreement over how to solve the Syrian conflict . . . military and political stalemate continues, along with the territorial fragmentation of the country, the proliferation of networks of violence, and a humanitarian catastrophe that will have generational consequences.”
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| 11 |
ID:
163351
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In response to the complexity of the Syrian conflict and in recognition of the uniqueness of the role of the Syrian White Helmets and their potential to deliver psychosocial support to their wider communities, Nicola Lester proposes a ‘trauma-informed’ framework as a way of structuring a training and support programme for the organisation.
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| 12 |
ID:
158227
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Over the last decade, a rift has emerged among Jihadi-salafis in Jordan between the “Zarqawiyyun”—who see Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi as their model and concentrate on combat—and the “Maqdisiyyun”—who want more scholarly guidance, emphasize the establishment of an Islamic State and follow Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. The conflict in Syria, however, offered options for both: a jihad against a reviled regime and the possibility to set up an Islamic state. It thus had the potential to unite the “Zarqawiyyun” and the “Maqdisiyyun.” This article analyzes why this did not happen.
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| 13 |
ID:
166639
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Since the escalation of the Syrian conflict and refugee crisis in 2011, almost a fifth of Syrian Armenians in Syria have fled to Armenia. Most of them are descendants of the Armenian Genocide (1915) victims, who found shelter in Syria a century ago. Contrary to expectations on ethnic repatriation, their displacement and attachment to Syria emerge. The study assesses this peculiar case of the origin and return of a ‘traditionally diasporic’ community by combining models offered by diaspora studies with analysis of qualitative research on Syrian Armenian returnees who fled war-torn Syria. Continuing on the pathway initiated with the ‘Great Repatriation’ of Armenian diasporans to Soviet Armenia of 1946, the return to Armenia is a prolonged trajectory of diasporic displacement. Syrian Armenians returning to Armenia experience a conflict-generated diaspora of diaspora in the supposed homeland of Armenia. Explanations include the dissociation between the imagined Armenian homeland and the legally constituted one in present-day Armenia, and between the latter and the motherland of Syria. This challenges the essentialist account of the Armenian diaspora and, ultimately, the hypothesis surrounding Syrian Armenian marginalization and gradual ‘exit strategy’ in Syrian society.
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| 14 |
ID:
171103
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Although the Syrian conflict continues, local and global stakeholders have already begun to consider the return of the six million refugees, especially as neither the option of local integration in the countries of first asylum nor that of resettlement to third countries is seen as a realistic possibility. Elaborating on the return debates in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, we relate the politicisation of this question to the growing acceptance of the option of voluntary and involuntary repatriation in the international refugee regime as well as to policies and public opinion. We argue, based on empirical fieldwork, that any debate about the return of Syrian refugees is problematic, since the conditions of safety, voluntariness and sustainability are not fulfilled. Further, returns should not be left entirely to the individual hosting states and actors in the region but should be carried out in collaboration with representative authorities in Syria and the mediation of international organisations upon full resolution of conflict.
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| 15 |
ID:
178667
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The Syrian civil war has confounded all predictions on its end date and is still ongoing. Valuable explicative work has been done on civil war duration; however, scholars have failed to reliably predict the end of ongoing conflicts. This article argues that faulty predictions on termination date of the Syrian conflict did not necessarily result from statistical errors in modeling civil wars data and better models might not necessarily mitigate the prediction problem. Rather, three factors contributed to the misperceptions: the conflict’s cartography problem, the splintering of the opposition, and the multi-partner foreign intervention in the conflict. The last two factors can also be held accountable for prolonging the conflict. Incorrect predictions or descriptions in scholarly works on ongoing conflicts can have disastrous implications for the present and future of states and populations beset by protracted conflict. Had it been made clear that neither the insurgents nor the government had the capacity to win the war within the predicted timeframe, the international community may have taken a more decisive role in bringing belligerents to the negotiation table, improving prospects for a peaceful diplomatic settlement.
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| 16 |
ID:
160306
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This essay analyses the role of public opinion in the formation of US and Turkish policy toward the conflict in Syria. The United States and Turkey were chosen because they are key players in the Syrian conflict. In both countries, public opinion played a role in the formation of foreign policy. As North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, they could be expected to act along similar lines. Moreover, despite seemingly different contexts, public opinion in both the United States and Turkey was reluctant to support a more intense involvement in the Syrian conflict. However, there was a visible shift in public opinion after the involvement in Syria started to be framed as a fight against terrorism, mostly referring to the so-called Islamic State and, in Turkey's case, Kurdish groups.
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| 17 |
ID:
186070
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| Summary/Abstract |
As Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father Hafez in 2000, a new ‘state bourgeoisie’ was created in Syria through means of liberalization and neopatrimonial approaches. In addition to the Alawites who are directly related to al-Assad, this new bourgeoisie included Sunnis and Christians who have proved their utmost loyalty to al-Assad. When the conflict started in 2011, many expected the Sunni businesspeople to join the opposition and distance themselves from al-Assad regime. However, and with the exception of three cases which are discussed in the article; this did not happen. Throughout this article I try to explain how the behavior of the business elite has contributed to the survival of al-Assad regime and the longevity of the conflict. To do so, I discuss the various strategies adopted by the business elite to support the regime while also analyzing the various co-optation and oppression tools that the regime used to subdue and mobilize the business elite. By studying these tools and methods, which rely on a mix of class and neopatrimonial methods, I conclude this article by offering another perspective and a different understanding of authoritarian regimes and their structure while assessing the robustness of these regimes and forecasting their methods in case of uprisings.
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| 18 |
ID:
177271
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This article reviews and discusses the Russian foreign policy towards several countries in the Post-Soviet Space (Tajikistan, Ukraine and Georgia), and the Middle East (Syria). The Russian policy towards its near abroad shows elements of both (neo-)realism and constructivism. A realist perspective of Russian foreign policy seems evident as Russia pursues its own national (or imperial) geopolitical interest. However, it may not explain the Russian interventions satisfactorily. Analysing Russia’s intervention in these conflicts, it is important to look also at Russia’s own geopolitical vision; i.e. how Russia views the world, notably its near abroad, and Russia’s place, role or even mission in it. Russia has reacted to the NATO and European Union (EU) enlargements in its (former) geopolitical spheres of influence and has helped its ally Bashar Assad remain in power in Syria. The conflict in Ukraine is not irrelevant to that in Syria and the Russian experience in Chechnya and Tajikistan may have codetermined Russian intervention in Syria.
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| 19 |
ID:
155443
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Recent studies of civil war have problematized frameworks that rely on a strict binary between state-sanctioned order and anarchy. This paper extends these insights and combines them with theories of performativity to examine welfare practices during the Syrian conflict (2011–2015). Specifically, we argue that conceptualizing the state as a construct—as an effect of power—can expand the study of civil war beyond its quantifiable aspects and embrace the performative dimensions of political life. By means of everyday, iterative acts such as welfare provision, competing groups summon the state, and the political order it seeks to enshrine, into existence: they make it both tangible and thinkable. During civil war, the ability to perform these prosaic acts becomes a matter of pressing military and political concern. Through close scrutiny of various cases, we dissect the impact of subsidized bread provision by the Assad regime, the Free Syrian Army, and armed Islamist groups as they struggle to perform the state. Our aim is to bring attention to under-studied governance practices so as to analyze the otherwise opaque relations between welfare provision, military success, and civilian agency during Syria’s civil war.
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| 20 |
ID:
167974
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