Download or read book Syria Ballots Or Bullets written by Carsten Wieland and published by Cune Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bashar al-Asad, unlike any other Arab leader, publicly announced his opposition to the war in Iraq. This made the Syrian president popular in the streets but brought him into open confrontation with the US. For a time it seemed that the US would invade or subvert the regime or institute a killing regimen of sanctions. The assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri made things worse, with observers, including the UN, pointing the finger at Damascus. Syrian troops were forced to withdraw from Lebanon where they had been stationed for nearly three decades. Today, Bashar is facing the toughest challenge of his career?caught between Syrian hardliners and an increasingly impatient opposition. And what of the 18 million people of Syria? Will this country descend into chaos and violence? Or will it progress toward pluralism and economic progress? Syria - Ballots or Bullets delivers surprising insights into one of the most obscure countries in the world.
Download or read book From Bullets to Ballots written by David L. Phillips and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From Bullets to Ballots" considers non-State Muslim organizations at different stages of abandoning violence and pursuing their goals through a political process. Some have successfully made the transition. Others are in mid-stream. Some have tried but backtracked, splintered, or simply abandoned such efforts reverting to pathological violence. Many groups could be case studies, but Phillips has selected the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, Hamas, Hezbollah, Kurdistan Workers Party, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, and the Free Aceh Movement, because they cover the spectrum.This book deals with political strategies for moderating violent Muslim movements by engaging them in the political process. In strong criticism of the Bush administration, Phillips notes that the push for democracy may have increased conflict by giving violent groups "the ballot" which they use to gain power. Focusing on non-state Muslim organizations, "From Bullets to Ballots" considers the relationship between ideology and policy. Phillips discusses their origin, ideology, structure and leadership and examines financing, activities, and communications. He assesses the group's commitment to elections and its acceptance of the responsibility that comes with governance."From Bullets to Ballots" draws on twenty years of Phillips' experience working democratization and conflict prevention in the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and South Asia. His recommendations are primarily directed to the United States because he believes the United States should be a leader in promoting democracy around the world. At the same time, he is convinced that the United States must tread softly, or run the risk of fomenting further violence, undermining future democratic development, and setting back its national interests. This is a provocative, informed, and balanced analysis of the theories behind current policies.
Download or read book Fixing Fragile States written by Seth D. Kaplan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fragile states are a menace. Their lawless environments spread instability across borders, provide havens for terrorists, threaten access to natural resources, and consign millions of people to poverty. But Western attempts to reform these benighted places have rarely made things better. Kaplan argues that to avoid revisiting the carnage and catastrophes seen in places like Iraq, Bosnia, and the Congo, the West needs to rethink its ideas on fragile states and start helping their peoples build governments and states that actually fit the local landscape. Fixing Fragile States lays bare the fatal flaws in current policies and explains why the only way to give these places a chance at peace and prosperity is to rethink how development really works. Flawed governance systems, not corrupt bureaucrats or armed militias, are the cancers that devour weak states. The cure, therefore, is not to send more aid or more peacekeepers but to redesign political, economic, and legal structures-to refashion them so they can leverage local traditions, overcome political fragmentation, expand governance capacities, and catalyze corporate investment. After dissecting the reasons why some states prosper and others sink into poverty and violence, Fixing Fragile States visits seven deeply dysfunctional places—including Pakistan, Bolivia, West Africa, and Syria—and explains how even the most desperate of them can be transformed.
Download or read book Demystifying Syria written by Fred H. Lawson and published by Saqi. This book was released on 2012-02-13 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demystifying Syria offers an extraordinary insight into the shifting relations between the Ba'th party and the armed forces, civil law, social structure, burgeoning private enterprise, internal political opposition, the European Union and its relation to Syria. This book goes beyond the headlines to offer a detailed portrait of the political, economic, social and diplomatic dynami that shape this pivotal and fiercely independent Middle Eastern state. Contributors include Bassem Haddad, Souhail Belhadj, Baudoin Dupret, Zouhair Ghazzal, Thomas Pierret, Salwa Ismail, Joshua Landis and Joe Pace. 'Demonstrates how US intervention in the region weakened the position of the Syrian opposition ... shows Syrian studies in the best possible light, edited to a high level and recommended to everyone interested in the complexities - rather than the mysteries - of contemporary Syria.' Times Higher Education Supplement 'This compelling book offers the reader much food for thought on a country that certainly defies any attempt to be encapsulated in unidirectional and straightforward definitions.' International Spectator
Download or read book Syria and the Neutrality Trap written by Carsten Wieland and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-20 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Syrian war has been an example of the abuse and insufficient delivery of humanitarian assistance. According to international practice, humanitarian aid should be channelled through a state government that bears a particular responsibility for its population. Yet in Syria, the bulk of relief went through Damascus while the regime caused the vast majority of civilian deaths. Should the UN have severed its cooperation with the government and neglected its humanitarian duty to help all people in need? Decision-makers face these tough policy dilemmas, and often the “neutrality trap” snaps shut. This book discusses the political and moral considerations of how to respond to a brutal and complex crisis while adhering to international law and practice. The author, a scholar and senior diplomat involved in the UN peace talks in Geneva, draws from first-hand diplomatic, practitioner and UN sources. He sheds light on the UN's credibility crisis and the wider implications for the development of international humanitarian and human rights law. This includes covering the key questions asked by Western diplomats, NGOs and international organizations, such as: Why did the UN not confront the Syrian government more boldly? Was it not only legally correct but also morally justifiable to deliver humanitarian aid to regime areas where rockets were launched and warplanes started? Why was it so difficult to render cross-border aid possible where it was badly needed? The meticulous account of current international practice is both insightful and disturbing. It tackles the painful lessons learnt and provides recommendations for future challenges where politics fails and humanitarians fill the moral void.
Download or read book Beyond Syria s Borders written by Emma Lundgren Jörum and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-12-03 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lebanon, together with the province of Hatay in Turkey (containing Antakya) and the Golan Heights were all part of French mandate Syria, but are now all outside the boundaries of the modern Syrian state. The policies and reactions of Syria both to the loss of these territories and to the states that have either absorbed, annexed or emerged from them (Lebanon, Turkey and Israel) are the focus of Emma Jørum's book. Jørum uses the differences in policy and discourse when it comes to each of these three cases to highlight the nature of territorial dispute in the region, and the processes of state-building and nationalism more generally. Through the examination of Syria's policies concerning these lost territories, Jørum plots and analyses Syrian-Turkish, Syrian-Lebanese and Syrian-Israeli relations, explaining why some losses have been pushed to one side and others remain at the forefront in Syria's international relations and diplomacy efforts.
Download or read book Syria 2011 2013 written by Azmi Bishara and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-12-01 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Azmi Bishara's book on the Syrian Revolution is one of the most comprehensive and profound works on the subject published to date. Translated here into English for the first time, the study examines the complex roots of Syria's political and sectarian conflicts from the day revolution erupted on 15th March 2011 to its descent into civil war in the two years that followed. The book unearths and discusses the very first signs of protests from across Daraa, Hama, Aleppo, Damascus, Raqqa, Deir El Zour, Edlib and Homs, and it deals with Syria's ruralization process and the subsequent economic 'liberalization', which eventually led to the revolt against the Baath party. The work is based on high-level interviews, analysis of the country's socio-economic background, and examination of the Syrian regime's strategy and its political and media discourse. Syria's revolution is chronicled in two stages: the peaceful civil stage and the armed stage. Bishara's analysis first centres on the regime's strategy, unveiling despotism, massacres, kidnapping, sectarian tendencies, jihadist violence, the emergence of warlords, and the chaotic spread of arms. He then turns to the role of the opposition to narrate in detail the events that broke out and exactly how a peaceful protest turned into an armed struggle. The book provides a roadmap to how revolution broke out and is a comprehensive analysis of what drove those early events. Its publication brings renowned Arabic-language scholarship to the English-speaking world.
Download or read book Syria from Reform to Revolt written by Raymond Hinnebusch and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-02 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Bashar al-Asad smoothly assumed power in July 2000, just seven days after the death of his father, observers were divided on what this would mean for the country’s foreign and domestic politics. On the one hand, it seemed everything would stay the same: an Asad on top of a political system controlled by secret services and Baathist one-party rule. On the other hand, it looked like everything would be different: a young president with exposure to Western education who, in his inaugural speech, emphasized his determination to modernize Syria. This volume explores the ways in which Asad’s domestic and foreign policy strategies during his first decade in power safeguarded his rule and adapted Syria to the age of globalization. The volume’s contributors examine multiple aspects of Asad’s rule in the 2000s, from power consolidation within the party and control of the opposition to economic reform, co-opting new private charities, and coping with Iraqi refugees. The Syrian regime temporarily succeeded in reproducing its power and legitimacy, in reconstructing its social base, and in managing regional and international challenges. At the same time, contributors clearly detail the shortcomings, inconsistencies, and risks these policies entailed, illustrating why Syria’s tenuous stability came to an abrupt end during the Arab Spring of 2011. This volume presents the work of an international group of scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. Based on extensive fieldwork and on intimate knowledge of a country whose dynamics often seem complicated and obscure to outside observers, these scholars’ insightful snapshots of Bashar al-Asad’s decade of authoritarian upgrading provide an indispensable resource for understanding the current crisis and its disastrous consequences.
Download or read book The Alawis of Syria written by Michael Kerr and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wide-ranging exploration of the cultural and historical hinterland of Syria's powerful Shia minority.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of the Syrian Uprising and Civil War written by Asaad Alsaleh and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-05-21 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historical Dictionary of the Syrian Uprising and Civil War introduces readers to the events and main players that shaped the conflict in Syria since 15 March 2011, as the country entered a new era in its modern history. The “Syrian Revolution,” was part of the Arab Spring that was launched in Tunisia, Egypt, and other countries in the Middle East in late 2010. The Syrian situation turned into a winter, which merits such an all-encompassing book that reveals the complex dynamics of the Syrian civil war. Many of the key players, places, and unfolding events were making headlines for a short period before vanishing from memory, but this book records their emergence and influence. The book traces the political opposition, initially in the form of street-level unrest, targeting the rule of the al-Asad family that ruled for over five decades. The book provides a picture of the fighting groups and their varying agendas, including the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other extremist groups. It depicts a picture of a country whose civil war caused one of the biggest crises in the 21st century. It contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 200 cross-referenced entries on the major events, places, and actors in the Syrian war. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Syrian uprising.
Download or read book And Freedom Became a Public square written by Najib George Awad and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2012 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an Arab Christian perspective, this book introduces some of the substantial components and the pivotal ramifications of the latest revolutions in the Arab World, known as "the Arabic Spring." It offers a fresh, timely, and intellectual reading of the promising "Spring" in Syria and in the rest of the "born-again" Arab world. The first part of the book looks at the uprisings in general, while the second part examines Christians in the Arab world and their view of the uprisings, with primary attention to the case of Syria. The third part is an invitation for developing an Arabic contextual religious discourse out of the recent Arabic world's (deeply religious) context and changes. The book will benefit those who would like to have a general idea about what happened, and is still happening, in the Arab world, as well as those who would like to get some insightful and coherent understanding of why, how, and on what presumptions the Arab Christians base their appraisal of, and stances on, the Arabic Spring. (Series: Studies on Oriental Church History / Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte - Vol. 46)
Download or read book Dealing with Damascus written by Mona Yacoubian and published by Council on Foreign Relations. This book was released on 2008 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors develop a set of policy recommendations for an effective approach to the Syrian regime.
Download or read book Ballots Bullets and Bargains written by Michael H. Armacost and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on twenty-four years of experience in government, Michael H. Armacost explores how the contours of the U.S. presidential election system influence the content and conduct of American foreign policy. He examines how the nomination battle impels candidates to express deference to the foreign policy DNA of their party and may force an incumbent to make wholesale policy adjustments to fend off an intra-party challenge for the nomination. He describes the way reelection campaigns can prod a chief executive to fix long-neglected problems, kick intractable policy dilemmas down the road, settle for modest course corrections, or scapegoat others for policies gone awry. Armacost begins his book with the quest for the presidential nomination and then moves through the general election campaign, the ten-week transition period between Election Day and Inauguration Day, and the early months of a new administration. He notes that campaigns rarely illuminate the tough foreign policy choices that the leader of the nation must make, and he offers rare insight into the challenge of aligning the roles of an outgoing incumbent (who performs official duties despite ebbing power) and the incoming successor (who has no official role but possesses a fresh political mandate). He pays particular attention to the pressure for new presidents to act boldly abroad in the early months of his tenure, even before a national security team is in place, decision-making procedures are set, or policy priorities are firmly established. He concludes with an appraisal of the virtues and liabilities of the system, including suggestions for modestly adjusting some of its features while preserving its distinct character.
Download or read book The Social Life of Prayer written by Andreas Bandak and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings the theme of prayer into anthropological discussion. Across diverse significant ethnographic case studies, five anthropologists attend to prayers and how they are performed and seen to intervene in the social world. The studies include Pentecostals in Zambia, Charismatic Christians in Ghana, Protestants in Scotland, Eastern Orthodox Christians in Romania, and Catholics in Syria. Across these ethnographic cases, the book argues that focusing on the social life of prayer offers a significant way to engage with matters close to people. Prayers are a way to map affect and the affective relationships people hold in what they are oriented towards and care about. Taking its cue from Marcel Mauss, the book invites us to go beyond the individual and see how prayers always point to a broader social landscape of obligation and affective investment. Focusing on the social life of prayers, the book posits, accordingly entices a particular form of situated comparison of diverse Christian traditions that pushes the scholarly conversation on Christianity to consider central questions of agency, responsibility and subjectivity. Taking up prayer as the object of study, this book offers novel anthropological perspectives on Christian life and practice. The chapters in this book were originally published a special issue of Religion.
Download or read book Lebanon and the Arab Uprisings written by Maximilian Felsch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-23 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arab uprisings have put Lebanon under increased strain. While the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt caused limited reverberations, the war in Syria echoed in the fine-tuned political and confessional balance of Lebanon. Over one million refugees, equal to one-quarter of Lebanon’s population, have moved in from Syria. The country’s economy and its already weak public infrastructure have been impacted heavily. Hizbullah’s engagement in Syria has posed questions about Lebanon’s disassociation policy. Terrorist attacks by ISIL and the growing risk of radicalization across the confessional spectrum have left the country at unease. However, Lebanon’s political elites have vowed to shield the country from regional turbulences. Lebanon recently saw a series of demonstrations because of the inability of the government to manage the garbage crisis, but it has been far from witnessing a large-scale citizen uprising similar to the 2005 Cedar Revolution or the revolts next door. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the current situation in Lebanon, and a detailed assessment of the difficulties which the country is currently facing.
Download or read book The Arab American Handbook written by Nawar Shora and published by Cune Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tune up your knowledge of the Arab and Muslim worlds with this easy to read text. The Arab-American Handbook contains useful reference material and comment by a wide variety of participants and observers. The book includes: a thumbnail history; the essentials of Islam; social insights & cultural norms. The perfect tool for : teachers, employers, travelers, law enforcement. Government workers and the general public will find that they can quickly penetrate the stereotypes and misconceptions to appreciate the tenor and nuance of Arab and Muslim life. Without a better grasp of this subject, the citizens of liberal democracies are unsafe at home and at a disadvantage in the global competition for hearts and minds.
Download or read book Exemplary Life written by Andreas Bandak and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2022-06-29 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on over five years of ethnographic fieldwork in Syria, Exemplary Life focuses on the life of a Damascus woman, Myrna Nazzour, who serves as an aspirational figure in her community. Myrna is regarded by her followers as an exemplary figure, a living saint, and the messages, apparitions, stigmata, and oil that have marked Myrna since 1982 have corroborated her status as chosen by God. Exemplary Life probes the power of examples, the modelling of sainthood around Myrna’s figure, and the broader context for Syrian Christians in the changing landscape of the Middle East. The book highlights the social use of examples such as the ones inhabited by Myrna’s devout followers and how they reveal the broader structures of illustration, evidence, and persuasion in social and cultural settings. Andreas Bandak argues that the role of the example should incite us to investigate which trains of thought set local worlds in motion. In doing so, Exemplary Life presents a novel frame for examining how religion comes to matter to people and adds a critical dimension to current anthropological engagements with ethics and morality.
