Post-conflict scenarios are often proposed for Arab countries that have witnessed significant changes and civil wars. Yet the plans for reconciliation, transitional justice, and the return of the displaced often overlook the real conditions that make these recommendations impossible.
This book provides a critical analysis of current post-conflict frameworks for Syria and Iraq. Drawing on empirical research, the book shows that reconciliation and reconstruction scenarios need to be considered alongside the realities on the ground. It argues that Iraq and Syria exist in a condition of 'conflict transformation' rather than of 'conflict termination', because the extreme changes that accompanied these countries into war continue long after the conflicts end. Furthermore, the chapters highlight why experts should not seek solutions in culturalist terms and ancestral enmities, or rely on the wartime status quo. Rather, they should look to the specific military, political, economic and socio-cultural conditions that require different solutions.
A critical analysis of existing post-conflict frameworks, their applicability and their potential outcomes in Iraq and Syria, the book is a vital contribution to post-conflict studies. It highlights the need for new approaches to reconstruction and peacebuilding in Arab countries and points to how they should be found.
Arvustused
Postwar conditions are sometimes no more than a continuation of war by other warlike means. Iraq and Syria plainly illustrate this fact. Empirically and theoretically rich, this book is an important contribution to the analysis of these two countries as well as to the general field of post-conflict studies. * Gilbert Achcar, Professor, SOAS, UK * Providing important analysis of Syria, Iraq and beyond, this book very usefully challenges the idea of a 'transition' to peace and good governance, suggesting instead that a variety of wartime fighters, fiefdoms and proto-states linked to external backers and sometimes with government support have formed the basis for extraction and corruption underpinned by continuing violence. A sobering corrective to magical thinking about peace. * David Keen, Professor of Conflict Studies, LSE, UK *
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Examines the conditions of Syria and Iraq to show why existing post-conflict proposals to transform these countries are inadequate
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: Reconstituting the Post-conflict Register, Aziz Al-Azmeh,
Central European University, Vienna, Austria and Harout Akdedian, Central
European University, Vienna, Austria
Part 1: Conceptual and Global Exploration of the Post-conflict Register
2. Peacebuilding: A Liberal State Building Imperative in Post-conflict
Registers? Perspectives from Comparison, Balazs Kovacs, UN University for
Peace, Costa Rica
3. Ceasefire Agreements and the Post-conflict Register: A Continuation of war
by Other Means, Marika Sosnowski, German Institute for Global and Area
Studies (GIGA), Hamburg, Germany
Part 2: Reconstitution of Power in Syria and Iraq: Military Standoffs and
Conflict Fragility
4. Paramilitarism in Syria and Iraq: The Interpenetration of Militias and the
State, Ugur Ungor, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
5. Conflict Transformation, Security Fragmentation, and Government
Architecture in Post-War Southern Syria, Abdullah Al-Jabassini, European
University Institute, Florence, Italy
6. From Devolution to Reconstitution? Dynamics of the Local Devolution of
State Power in Syria and Iraq: Tribal Auxiliaries in the Margin, Teeside
University, UK
7. Conflicted Counterinsurgency: Daesh vs Iraqs Security Arena, Jessica
Watkins, London School of Economcis, UK
Part 3: The Political Economy and Geopolitics of Emergent Orders in Syria and
Iraq
8. The War Economy in Syria: Consolidating the pre-2011 Dynamics of Syrias
Political Economy, Joseph Daher, Lausanne University, Switzerland
9. Turkey's Geopolitical Role in Shaping Political Vectors and Patterns of
Power Configuration in Iraqi Kurdistan, Bahadir Dincer, Bonn International
Center for Conversion, Germany
10. The Shadow Economy of Shabbiha Networks: Local Systems of Patronage under
the Assad Rule, Ali Aljasem, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Part 4: The Body Politic Reconfigured: Between Social Engineering and
Community Resistance
11. The State from Tahrir Square: Understanding Protestors Conceptions of
the Iraqi State, Irene Costantini, University of Naples, Italy & Yasmin
Chilmeran, The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Stockholm, Sweden
12. Resisting War in Syria: Civilian-Led Community Protection Efforts and
their Limits, Harout Akdedian, Central European University, Vienna, Austria
and Ali Aljasem, University of Montreal, Canada
13. For Assads sake Religion, the State and Refitting Syrian Islam,
Hammoud Hammoud, Free University of Berlin, Germany
14. Building, Living, Feeling the space of Aleppo City: Social Polarization
at the Heart of Population Engineering, Marie Kostrz, The Graduate Institute
Geneva, Switzerland
15. Dilemmas of Interventions in Northern Syria: Refugee Return,
Reconstruction, and Displacements, Zeynep Sahin-Mencütek, University of
Duisburg-Essen, Germany & Bahadir Dincer, BICC Bonn International Centre for
Conflict Studies, Germany
Aziz Al-Azmeh is Professor at the Central European University, Vienna, Austria. He has held visiting professorships at Columbia University, Yale University and University of California, Berkeley in the US and at the Institut dEtudes Politique in France. He has been a long-term fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, Germany, among others, and twice Directeur de Recherches Associé at the Maison des Sciences de lHomme in France. He has served on the Advisory Council of the UNDP Arab Human Development Reports.
Harout Akdedian is Carnegie SFM Senior Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Central European University, Vienna, Austria, and a visiting scholar at the Middle East Studies Centre of Portland State University, US. He holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of New England, Australia.
Haian Dukhan is Postdoctoral Fellow of the Central European University, Vienna and a fellow of the Centre for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews, UK. He has taught politics and international relations at the University of St Andrews, UK, the University of Leicester, UK and the University of Edinburgh, UK.
