Working Paper: Moth or Flame, The Sunni Sphere and Regime Durability in Syria

Tags: Syria, Civil Society in West Asia

This working paper is produced in the framework of the Knowledge Programme on Civil Society in West Asia. This is a joint initiative by Hivos and the University of Amsterdam with the purpose of generating and integrating knowledge on the roles and opportunities for civil society actors in democratization processes in politically challenging environments.

The paper investigates relations between the Syrian regime and the Sunni sphere by providing a brief policy oriented analysis of regime - sphere relations and their role in the resilience of the Syrian authoritarian regime. It adds to the emerging appreciation amongst scholars and practitioners in the field of civil society that civil activism does not necessarily have a positive impact on processes of democratization and/or socio-political liberalization. It does this by questioning the extent in which civil actors are independent in the Syrian authoritarian context and assessing what influence this has on stabilizing the Syrian authoritarian system. It argues that Sunni civil activists can (unintentionally) support authoritarianism by being drawn to the very regime that suppresses them – mimicking a moth drawn to a flame. Second, based on the outcomes of the research it provides recommendations aimed at international NGOs that hope to engage with civil actors in Syria. The paper focuses on the Sunni sphere as this has proven to be the largest and most resilient sphere of civil activism in Syria and in the Middle East in general.

In contrast to the academic article drafted on the same topic, Enduring Ambiguity: The Civil Dynamics of authoritarian Upgrading in Sunni Syria (Donker, Forthcoming) the present paper is focused less on an in-depth analytical analysis of the interaction between the Sunni Sphere and the Syrian Regime and more on the general findings and implications for practitioners in the field. For a more theoretical analysis of regime–Sunni sphere interaction that positions the current research in current debates on (resilience of) authoritarianism the reader can turn to Enduring Ambiguity.

Teije Hidde Donker is Syria Fellow for the Knowledge Programme Civil Society in West Asia and currently a PhD student at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. During the first half of 2009 he conducted field research in Syria for the Knowledge Programme Civil Society in West Asia.