Strategy of Survival: the Resilience of the Assad Regime

• Název práce v češtině: Strategie přežití: Rezilience Assadova režimu
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Strategy of Survival: the Resilience of the Assad Regime
• Klíčová slova anglicky: Syria; Civil War; Assad; Authoritarian Conflict Management; Reconstruction
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2019/2020
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Katedra politologie (23-KP)
• Vedoucí / školitel: Jaroslav Weinfurter, M.A., M.Sc., Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno vedoucím/školitelem
• Datum přihlášení: 07.06.2020
• Datum zadání: 07.06.2020
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 22.09.2021 08:00
• Místo konání obhajoby: Pekařská 16, JPEK312, 312, Malá učebna, 3.patro
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 27.07.2021
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 22.09.2021
• Oponenti: Mgr. Vojtěch Bahenský, Ph.D.

Zásady pro vypracování

Whilst edging to its conclusion, the Syrian Civil War has remained an ongoing conflict since 2011, resulting in mass displacement and significant numbers of non-combatant casualties. Throughout the years, however, the conflict has undergone a gradual process of transformation. Droz-Vincent (2020) argues that the conflict has progressed from war in Syria to war over Syria. This points to the significant dimension of regional and international actors present within the conflict. Despite the reasons for, and structural dynamics of, the Syrian Civil War; the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, has remained in power.

The continued rule of Assad is likely to pose as problematic to the majority of the Syrian civilian population. As the regime seeks to regain control over all of Syria, it faces once more the reasons for the initial uprising. Including the consistently high levels of government brutality. Furthermore, Syrian governance structures have been significantly impacted by the conflict, often having been explicitly corrupted and distorted by Assad to serve as strategic instruments throughout the conflict. Thus, the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent did not cease but has instead escalated.

The recently published United Nations General Assembly Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (2020) documents newly erupted protests in the south of Syria. Additionally, it provides an account of violations committed by pro-government forces outside of the context of hostilities, such as arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture, sexual violence and death in detention (reference). Patterns of cruelty continue to be carried out by the regime. Points of tension regarding the stability within Syria also include the deepening economic and currency crisis, which are further exacerbated by the global pandemic and increased sanctions. A high risk remains of refuelling the root causes of the conflict.

The conflict has significantly altered how the Assad regime exercises control and uses force. Whilst the state has lost its monopoly on the use of violence, it has nonetheless held onto remnants of governmental legitimacy through a variety of ways. The way in which Assad is performing the state of Syria has been severely impacted by the conflict and the regime’s reliance on external actors, who pursue their interests. This is in conjunction with the suppression of humanity occurring through, for example, the use of chemical weapons by the regime.

Therefore, the issue arises as to how the Assad regime has remained so resilient throughout the civil war. Furthermore, how has Assad prevented an alternative to the regime’s governance and diminished the majority of the population’s resistance to the regime (if at all)? The research project aims to explore how the Assad regime has selectively opted in and out of the use of force. This incorporates identifying who is at the receiving end of the use of force, and how sometimes the use of force has been delegated to other key actors within the conflict. It will consider patterns of continuity and patterns of change present since the Ba’ath Party gained power, particularly considering how the methods of governance compare and contrast under Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad.

Seznam odborné literatury

Abboud, S. (2014, January 9). Syria's War Economy. Carnegie Middle East Center. https://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/54131

Abboud, S. (2020). Imagining Localism in Post-Conflict Syria: Prefigurative Reconstruction Plans and the Clash Between Liberal Epistemology and Illiberal Conflict. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1-19.

Abboud, S. (2021). Making peace to sustain war: the Astana Process and Syria’s illiberal peace. Peacebuilding, 1-18.

Achcar, G. (2020). Morbid Symptoms. Stanford University Press.

al-Haj Saleh, Y. A. H. (2017). The impossible revolution: Making sense of the Syrian tragedy. Oxford University Press.

Al-Kahwati, A., & Mannergren Selimovic, J. (2021). Addressing Atrocity in Syria: New Challenges for Transitional Justice. (Report No. 2). The Swedish Institute of International Affairs. https://www.ui.se/globalassets/ui.se-eng/publications/ui-publications/2021/ui-paper-no.-2-2021.pdf

Al-Khalili, C. (2021, May 5). Rethinking the concept of revolution through the Syrian experience. Al-Jumhuriya. https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/content/rethinking-concept-revolution-through-syrian-experience

Aljasem, A. (2021, May 28). Syrian election: Bashar al-Assad wins with 95% of vots as world watches in disbelief. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/syrian-election-bashar-al-assad-wins-with-95-of-votes-as-world-watches-in-disbelief-161704

Almanasfi, N. (2019). State-led urban development in Syria and the prospects for effective post-conflict reconstruction. Syria Studies, 11(1), 58-99.

Alnafrah, I., & Mouselli, S. (2020). Constructing the reconstruction process: a smooth transition towards knowledge society and economy in post-conflict Syria. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 11(3), 931-948.

Andersson, M. S., & Waage, H. H. (2021). The Geopolitics of Syria’s Reconstruction. Peace Research Institute Oslo. https://www.prio.org/utility/DownloadFile.ashx?id=2340&type=publicationfile

Bank, A. (2019). The “Victor’s Peace” in Syria and the Limits of Multilateral Policies. GIGA Focus Middle East, (7), 1-11.

Batrawi, S. (2018). Drivers of urban reconstruction in Syria: power, privilege and profit extraction. Clingendael Institute. https://www.clingendael.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/PB_Drivers_Urban_Reconstruction_Syria.pdf

Batrawi, S. (2020). Pandora’s Box in Syria: Anticipating negative externalities of a re-entrenching regime. Clingendael Institute. https://www.clingendael.org/sites/default/files/2020-05/pandoras-box-in-syria.pdf

Conduit, D. (2020). Authoritarian power in space, time and exile. Political Geography, 82, 102239.

Daher, J. (2018). The political economic context of Syria’s reconstruction: a prospective in light of a legacy of unequal development. Middle East Directions. https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/60112/MED_2018_05.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y

Daher, J. (2020). Syria After the Uprisings: The Political Economy of State Resilience. Haymarket Books.

Dahi, O. S., & Munif, Y. (2012). Revolts in Syria: Tracking the convergence between authoritarianism and neoliberalism. Journal of Asian and African studies, 47(4), 323-332.

de Juan, A., & Bank, A. (2015). The Ba ‘athist blackout? Selective goods provision and political violence in the Syrian civil war. Journal of Peace Research, 52(1), 91-104.

Devlin, J. F. (1991). The Baath party: rise and metamorphosis. The American Historical Review, 1396-1407.

Elmer, G., & Neville, S. J. (2021). The Resonate Prison: Earwitnessing the Panacoustic Affect. Surveillance & Society, 19(1), 11-21.

ESCWA. (2020). Syria at War: Eight Years On. ESCWA and Centre for Syrian Studies. http://www.unescwa.org/sites/default/files/pubs/pdf/syria-at-war-report-en.pdf

Friedman, U. (2011, June 21). The Arab Spring’s Three-Speech Rule and Syria. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/06/arab-springs-three-speech-rule-and-syria/351961/

Gaber, S. (2020). Political discourse of President Bashar Al-Assad after the Syrian revolution (analytical vision). Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences, vol. ahead-of-print. doi.org/10.1108/JHASS-01-2020-0010

Glasius, M. (2018). What authoritarianism is… and is not: a practice perspective. International Affairs, 94(3), 515-533.

Heydemann, S. (2018). Beyond fragility: Syria and the challenges of reconstruction in fierce states. Foreign Policy at Brookings: The New Geopolitics. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/FP_20180626_beyond_fragility.pdf

Heydemann, S., & Leenders, R. (Eds.). (2013). Middle East authoritarianisms: governance, contestation, and regime resilience in Syria and Iran. Stanford University Press.

Hinnebusch, R. (2011). The Ba'th Party in Post-Ba'thist Syria: President, Party and the Struggle for ‘Reform’. Middle East Critique, 20(2), 109-125.
Hinnebusch, R. (2020). The Battle over Syria's Reconstruction. Global Policy, 11(1), 113-123.

Hinnebusch, R., & Zintl, T. (2015). Syria from Reform to Revolt: Political Economy and International Relations. Syracuse University Press.

Human Rights Watch. (2019). Rigging the System: Government Policies Co-Opt Aid and Reconstruction Funding in Syria. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/syria0619_web3.pdf

Imady, O. (2019). The Weaponization of Syria’s Reconstruction. Syria Studies, 11(1), 6-21.

International Crisis Group (2019). Ways out of Europe’s Syria Reconstruction Conundrum (Report No. 209). International Crisis Group. https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/209-syria-reconstruction_1.pdf

Ismail, S. (2018). The rule of violence: Subjectivity, memory and government in Syria (Vol. 50). Cambridge University Press.

Itani, F. (2019). Geo-economics: Russia and Iran in Syria. Syria Studies, 11(1), 23-31.

Jabbour, S., Leaning, J., Nuwayhid, I., Ager, A., Cammett, M., Dewachi, O., ... & Yassin, N. (2021). 10 years of the Syrian conflict: a time to act and not merely to remember. The Lancet, 397(10281), 1245-1248.

Jacques, M. (2006, August 24). What the hell is the international community? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/aug/24/whatthehellistheinternati
Jahn, E. (2020). War and compromise between nations and states. Springer.

Keen, M. (2021). Assessing authoritarian conflict management in the Middle East and Central Asia. Conflict, Security & Development, 1-27.

Kochanski, A., & Quinn, J. R. (2021). Letting the state off the hook? Dilemmas of holding the state to account in times of transition. Peacebuilding, 9(2), 103-113.

Lewis, D. (2017). The myopic Foucauldian gaze: discourse, knowledge and the authoritarian peace. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 11(1), 21-41.

Lewis, D., Heathershaw, J., & Megoran, N. (2018). Illiberal peace? Authoritarian modes of conflict management. Cooperation and Conflict, 53(4), 486-506.

Mardasov, A., & Korotayev, A. (2021). Russia-GCC Relations and the Future of Syria: Political Process and Prospects for the Economic Reconstruction. In Kozhanov, N. (Ed.), Russia’s Relations with the GCC and Iran (pp. 205-228). Springer.

Martínez, J. C., & Eng, B. (2017). Struggling to perform the state: The politics of bread in the Syrian civil war. International Political Sociology, 11(2), 130-147.

PAX. (2017). No Return to Homs: A case study on demographic engineering in Syria. PAX and The Syria Institute. https://paxforpeace.nl/media/download/pax-tsi-no-return-to-homs.pdf

Phillips, C. (2016). The battle for Syria. Yale University Press.

Rabinovich, I., & Valensi, C. (2021). Syrian Requiem: The Civil War and Its Aftermath. Princeton University Press.

Ristani, M. (2020). Sound prisoners: The case of the Saydnaya prison in Syria. Violence: An International Journal, 1(2), 273-284.

SC Res 2254, UNSC, 7588th Sess., UN Doc S/RES/2254 (2015, December 18)

Shama, N. (2021, April 15). The Arrogance of Power. Diwan. https://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/84329

Sosnowski, M. (2020a). Ceasefires as violent state-building: local truce and reconciliation agreements in the Syrian civil war. Conflict, Security & Development, 20(2), 273-292.

Sosnowski, M. (2020b). Reconciliation agreements as strangle contracts: ramifications for property and citizenship rights in the Syrian civil war. Peacebuilding, 8(4), 460-475.

Swilam, B. & El Dahan, M. (2021, May 28). Syria’s Assad hails vote, derided by opponents, as re-defining revolution. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/syrias-assad-tells-voters-they-have-re-defined-revolution-2021-05-28/

Synaps. (2019, September 30). War by other means: Syria’s economic struggle. Synaps. https://www.synaps.network/post/syria-conflict-economy-corruption-sanctions

Toft, M. D. (2010). Ending civil wars: a case for rebel victory?. International Security, 34(4), 7-36.

Turner, M., & Kühn, F. P. (2019). ‘The West’ and ‘the rest’ in international interventions: Eurocentrism and the competition for order. Conflict, Security & Development, 19(3), 237-243.

UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria. (2020, September 15). No clean hands – behind the frontlines and the headlines, armed actors continue to subject civilians to horrific and increasingly targeted abuse. HRC. 45th Sess., UN Doc A/HRC/45/31.

UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria. (2021, March 11). Arbitrary imprisonment and detention in the Syrian Arab Republic. HRC. 46th Sess, Supp No 55, UN Doc A/HRC/46/55

van Schaack, B. (2020). Imagining Justice for Syria. Oxford University Press.

van Veen, E. (2019). The Geopolitics Of Syria’s Reconstruction. Syria Studies, 11(1), 33-56.

Wedeen, L. (1999). Ambiguities of domination. University of Chicago Press.

Wedeen, L. (2019). Authoritarian Apprehensions. University of Chicago Press.

Předběžná náplň práce v anglickém jazyce

The case of Syria presents an example of a regime performing authoritarian norms of peacebuilding that is indicative of new forms of geographical power implementing alternative models of post-conflict order. Bashar al-Assad utilises authoritarian conflict management to intensify its strategy of binary othering on which to exercise sectarian- infused practices of discrimination and violence to consolidate its power and subsequent legitimacy. The process of authoritarian upgrading left the Assad regime with vulnerabilities that were exploited during the uprising in 2011. Unable to control the protests, Assad intensified authoritarian and illiberal practices as a means to manage the civil war that emerged. Through discursive, spatial and economic practices, Assad was able to retain his seat of power. For example, drawing upon sectarianism as a tool of control, Assad put into place a process of binary othering that classifies citizens as loyal or disloyal. Citizens deemed disloyal are punished through a variety of measures. The authoritarian practices have led to dire conditions for the Syrian people, and are becoming entrenched into very structure of society through the process of reconstruction. However, liberal forms of peacebuilding lack the leverage to counter these practices.