The Ba'th and the Creation of Modern Syria (RLE Syria)

The Ba'th and the Creation of Modern Syria (RLE Syria)
Author: David Roberts
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2013-11-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317818547

This book traces the development of modern Syria focusing on the contribution of the Ba’th party and Ba’thist ideology. It examines the roots of the Ba’th in the intellectual ferment of the 1940s and charts its growing influence on Syrian politics. Special attention is devoted to the crucial Sixth Congress of the Ba’th Party in 1963 and the key ideological document, the Muntalaqat, produced by Michel Aflaq. After 1963 the military became increasingly dominant until Hafiz al-Asad came to power in 1970. Since then the Party has been less dominant internally but Syria itself has established a pivotal position in regional affairs. The book concludes by reviewing the prospects for Syria after Asad and the potential for a Ba’thist revival.

The Alawis of Syria

The Alawis of Syria
Author: Michael Kerr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190458119

A wide-ranging exploration of the cultural and historical hinterland of Syria's powerful Shia minority.

Human Rights in Syria

Human Rights in Syria
Author: James A. Paul
Publisher: Human Rights Watch
Total Pages: 198
Release: 1990
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780929692692

In the early 1980's, Syria's powerful army and prevasive security apparatus crushed opposition to the regime of Hafez Asad with great violence, killing at least 10,000 citizens and jailing thousands more. This report charges that in the intervening years, the government's respect for fundamental human rights has barely improved.

Syria and the Middle East Peace Process

Syria and the Middle East Peace Process
Author: Alasdair Drysdale
Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1991
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780876091050

In Syria and the Middle East Peace Process, Alasdair Drysdale and Raymond A. Hinnebusch, two noted Middle East scholars, present the first detailed examination of Syria's role in the long struggle for an Arab-Israeli peace. They paint a surprising portrait of a county whose power is out of proportion to its size, economy, and resources. They explore the reasons behind this phenomeno most importantly, the Machiavellian brilliance of its leader, Hafez al-Asad. The authors address the origins of the Asad regime, Syrias strategy toward its Arab neighbors, its conflict with Israel, and the history of its relationships with the Soviet Union and the United States. The authors argue forcefully that Syrian involvement is vital in an effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Creating Consent in Ba‘thist Syria

Creating Consent in Ba‘thist Syria
Author: Esther Meininghaus
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2016-03-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857727788

The challenge of maintaining dictatorial regimes through control, co-option and coercion while upholding a facade of legitimacy is something that has concerned leaders throughout the Middle East and beyond. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Syria ruled by the Asads, both Hafiz and his son Bashar. Drawing on the example of the General Union of Syrian Women (founded in 1967), Esther Meininghaus offers new insights into how the Syrian Ba'thist regimes attempted to move beyond mere satisfaction with the compliance of the citizenry and to consolidate their rule amongst the local population. Meininghaus argues that this was partially achieved through providing welfare services delivered by the Union as one of the state-led mass organisations. In this way, she suggests, these regimes did not only aim to undermine opposition and to create the illusion of consent, but they factually catered to local needs and depended on consent. Based on archival material, interviews and statistics, Creating Consent in Ba'thist Syria will shed new light on mass organisations as a crucial institution of Ba'thist state building and, more broadly, the construction of the Asad regimes.

Islamic Revivalism in Syria

Islamic Revivalism in Syria
Author: Line Khatib
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2012-05-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1136661778

Contemporary studies on Syria assume that the country’s Ba’thist regime has been effective in subduing its Islamic opposition, placing Syria at odds with the Middle East’s larger trends of rising Islamic activism and the eclipse of secular ideologies as the primary source of political activism. Yet this assumption founders when confronted with the clear resurgence in Islamic militantism in the country since 2004. This book examines Syria’s current political reality as regards its Islamic movement, describing the country’s present day Islamic groups – particularly their social profile and ideology – and offering an explanation of their resurgence. The analysis focuses on: Who are today’s Syrian Islamic groups? Why and how are they re-emerging after 22 years of relative silence as an important socio-economic and political force? How is the Syrian state dealing with their re-emergence in light of Syria’s secularism and ideologically diverse society? Bridging area studies, Islamic studies, and political science, this book will be an important reference for those working within the fields of Comparative Politics, Political Economy, and Middle Eastern Studies.

Palestine in the Evolution of Syrian Nationalism (1918-1920)

Palestine in the Evolution of Syrian Nationalism (1918-1920)
Author: Muhannad Salhi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN:

One of the most enduring political dilemmas in modern history, the Palestine question has had a tremendous effect on the evolution and development of all nation-states in the Middle East. Directly bound to both the once paramount ideology of Arab nationalism and incorporated into the doctrines of politicized Islamic groups, the loss of Palestine and its consequences have been bemoaned by both secular nationalists and religious "fundamentalists" alike as one of the greatest "catastrophes" Arabs and Muslims have had to face in the modern age. The magnitude of the Palestinian predicament and its complexity have almost necessarily dictated its tremendous impact on the entire Middle East, thus becoming the ostensible source of most problems in the region and the focus of most political pursuits to this day. Palestine in the Evolution of Syrian Nationalism analyzes the place of Palestine in the development of Syrian nationalism from the inception of Syria as a modern nation-state following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. The author does not approach this issue solely in terms of analyzing any direct relationship between Syria and the Zionists, but rather as a means of understanding the centrality of this issue to the development of Syrian nationalism. Instead of emphasizing the Palestine question as an external problem with which the Syrian nation-state had to contend as an Arab and Muslim country, this study attempts to discover to what extent Palestine was genuinely understood to be inherently an internal Syrian issue. The book concludes that Palestine was viewed as an integral part of the Syrian nation and demonstrates the extent to which the issue of Palestine/Southern Syria was entrenched and intertwined in the Syrian understandings of nationhood and national identity. Thus, this study fills a critical gap by providing focus on a topic that is necessary to any future study of modern Syrian political history.

Greater Syria

Greater Syria
Author: Daniel Pipes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 1992-03-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195363043

While for many years scholars and journalists have focused on the more obvious manifestations of political life in the Middle East, one major theme has been consistently neglected. This is Pan-Syrian nationalism--the dream of creating a Greater Syria out of an area now governed by Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and Turkey. Though not nearly as well known as Arab or Palestinian nationalism and hardly studied in depth, Pan-Syrianism has had a profound effect on Middle Eastern politics since the end of World War I. In Greater Syria, the noted Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes provides the first comprehensive account of this intriguing, important, and little understood ideology.

Islam: Continuity And Change In The Modern World

Islam: Continuity And Change In The Modern World
Author: John Obert Voll
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2019-03-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429728506

This book goes beyond the headlines to explore the broad dimensions of Islam, looking at the vitality of the main elements of the faith across the centuries and finding the basis of today's Islamic resurgence in the continuing interaction of varying styles of Islam—fundamentalist, conservative, adaptationist, and individualist—and in the way each o