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Abstract
The problematic export of the Westphalian system to MENA is examined, taking Syria as exemplar. The export model is juxtaposed to actual non-lineal trajectories, semi-sovereignty and hybrid or failing states. This is manifested in post-uprising Syria in failing statehood, fragmented and overlapping governance, permeable and collapsing borders, the loss of sovereignty to trans-state movements, “competitive regime-building” between the Asad regime and jihadist warlords, and “competitive interventionism” by external powers filling the governance vacuum with their own proxies. The result is heterarchic zones of limited statehood in which state sovereignty is contested by both international (supra-state) penetration and sub-state fragmentation.
Notes
1. Bull and Watson, The Expansion of International Society; and Buzan and Little, “The Historical Expansion of International Society.”
2. Smith, “States and Homelands”; and Gellner, Nations and Nationalism.
3. Waltz, Theory of International Politics; and Meyer et al., “World Society and the Nation-state.”
4. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy; and Risse, Governance without a State?
5. Weuleresse, Paysans de Syrie, 79–83.
6. Jackson, Quasi States.
7. Lustik, “The Absence of Middle East Great Powers.”
8. Bacik, Hybrid Sovereignty.
9. Bank and Richter, “Neo-patrimonialism in the Middle East.”
10. Krasner, Sovereignty.
11. Clark, “Another Double Movement.”
12. Cox, “Social Forces, State and World Orders.”
13. Bull, The Anarchical Society, 254, 255.
14. Hinnebusch, “Historical Sociology of State Formation.”
15. Newman, “Failed States and International Order.”
16. Donnelly, “The Heterarchic Structure.”
17. Risse, Governance without a State?
18. McGinty, International Peacebuilding.
19. Hinnebusch, Authoritarian Power and State Formation.
20. Hinnebusch, “Syria: From Authoritarian Upgrading to Revolution?”; and Hinnebusch et al., “Civil Resistance in the Syrian Uprising.”
21. Kaldor, “Old Wars, Cold Wars.”
22. Posen, “The Security Dilemma.”
23. Abboud, Syria, 85, 86.
24. Khalaf, “Governance without Government in Syria”; and Abboud, Syria, 180–182.
25. Abboud, Syria, 81–95.
26. LeGrande, “Foreign Backers.”
27. Abboud, Syria, 97–108, 162–87; and Lawson, “Implications of the 2011–2013 Syrian Uprising.”
28. Abboud, “Syria’s War Economy.”
29. Abboud, “Syria’s War Economy”; Yaziji, Syria’s War Economy; and Turkmani, “ISIL, JAN and the War Economy in Syria.”
30. Todman, “Sieges in Syria.”
31. Ali, “The Security Gap in Syria.”
32. Glass, “How Assad is Winning”; and Lund, “Syria: East Ghouta.”
33. Hamlo, “Syria’s ‘Reconciliation’ Deals.”
34. Tamimi, “Reconciliation in Syria.”
35. DelSarto, “Contentious Borders”; and Hamdan, “Opposition Governance”.
36. Vignal, “The Changing Borders”; Lund, “Black Flags over Idlib”; DelSarto, “Contentious Borders”; and Khateb, “Border Crossings.”
37. Knights, “Syria’s Eastern Front”; and El-Hamed, “Trouble on the Border.”
38. El-Hamed, “Trouble on the Border.”
39. Guardian, 8 December 2015.
40. Tamimi, “Reconciliation in Syria.”
41. al-Salhy, “Iraqi Shia Militants.”
42. Bulos, “Iraqi Fighters.”
43. Stanfield, The Remaking of Syria.
44. Analysis based on Hassan, “More than ISIS”; Wehrey, “To Beat ISIS”; and Itani, “al-Qaida Offshoots in Syria.”
45. Pierret, “State Sponsors.”
46. Independent 2017
47. Azizi, “US Escalation in Syria.”
48. Hashem, “Recapture of Iraq-Syria Border.”
49. Khatib, “Free Syrian Army.”
50. Trombetta, “‘De-escalation Zone’ Plan.”
51. This analysis is based on: ICG, “The State of Syria’s Political Opposition”; Lund, “Who are the pro-Asad Militias”; Samaha, “Survival is Syria’s Strategy”; Khaddour, “The Assad Regime’s Hold on the Syrian State”; Khaddour, “Assad’s Officer Ghetto”; and Yaziji, Syria’s War Economy.
52. ICG, “The State of Syria’s Political Opposition,” 11–15; and Lund, “Non-state Militant Landscape in Syria.”
53. Syrian Centre for Policy Research, Citation2013
54. This analysis is based on: Baczko et al., Building a Syrian State; Khalaf, “Governance without Government in Syria”; Legrande, “Foreign Backers”; Favier, “Local Governance Dynamics”; Ali, “The Security Gap in Syria”; and Yazigi, Syria’s War Economy.
55. Khalaf, “Governing Rojava”; and Ali, “The Security Gap in Syria.”