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" Syria's civil war and the sectarian violence dilemma: A study on the development of the Sunni-Alawite struggle "
Tareq A. Hawari
Baldi, Gregory
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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804085
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| Doc. No
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TL48899
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| Call number
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1817029089; 10153504
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| Main Entry
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Balesh, Cristina
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| Title & Author
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Syria's civil war and the sectarian violence dilemma: A study on the development of the Sunni-Alawite struggle\ Tareq A. HawariBaldi, Gregory
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| College
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Western Illinois University
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| Date
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2016
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| Degree
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M.A.
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| field of study
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Political Science
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| student score
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2016
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| Page No
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66
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| Note
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Committee members: Auger, Vincent; Day, Jonathan
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| Note
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Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-369-08639-3
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| Abstract
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After nearly six years of its eruption, the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 have reshaped most of the region and unleashed a new decade of violence, instability, insecurity, and civil and proxy wars. The Syrian case has been the most shocking and dramatic in which the country was ripped apart and its future is seemingly a dreadful one. When mass peaceful protests broke out in Syria’s cities and towns in March 2011 onward, Bashar al-Assad’s regime responded with an outrageously brutal crackdown on the protestors. As the protests grew wider in terms of geography and masses, the regime intensified its military offensive; attacking cities and towns and indiscriminately killing civilians. The civilian uprising thereafter turned into a rebellion and insurgency, dragging the country toward a fierce armed struggle that has ended up in a full-blown civil war. What is more problematic and threatening beside the condition of a bloody civil war is the dominant forces and aspects of this conflict; ethno-sectarian violence and the salience of sectarianism. This paper provides an account of how the Syrian conflict shifted toward ethno-sectarian lines and witnessed a massive turn and resort to sectarian identities and sub-national ties. The research problem and dependent variable is the activation of the sectarian rivalry between Sunnis and Alawites in the Syrian conflict. In particular, this case study looks at the evolution and development of the Sunni-Alawite struggle in Syria and what explains its awakening and ascendency in the Syrian civil war. The research method adopts the arguments and assumptions of Stuart. J Kaufman’s symbolic politics theory of ethnic wars and extreme ethnic violence. The controlling variables of the research problem derives from the “process leading to extreme ethnic violence and ethnic war” found in the symbolic politics theory. These variables come in a causal chain of processes that begins with necessary conditions including group myths justifying hostility; ethnic fears of domination and persecution; and the political opportunity to mobilize and fight, and ends with dynamical variables including rising mass hostility, extremist chauvinist mobilization, and a predation-driven security dilemma. Kaufman’s theory of symbolic politics holds that extreme ethnic violence occurs only if all these six variables interact and work to promote it. Thus, the analysis finds that the activation and intensification of the sectarian rivalry between Sunnis and Shia-Alawites in the Syrian conflict were achieved by the causal chain of variables in Kaufman’s model. The three pre-conditions for sectarian violence (group myths, ethnic fears, and the opportunity to mobilize) were present at the time of conflict and laid the groundwork for the dynamical variables (mass hostility, chauvinist mobilization, and security dilemma) to take place and spiral the violent rivalry; accomplishing its massive activation.
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| Subject
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Middle Eastern Studies; Political science; Ethnic studies; Military history; Military studies
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| Descriptor
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Social sciences;Alawites;Ethnic conflict;Sectarian violence;Sunnis;Symbolic politics theory;The Syrian civil war
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| Added Entry
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Baldi, Gregory
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| Added Entry
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Political ScienceWestern Illinois University
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