On 17 July 2000, Bashar Al-Asad became President, surviving his father Hafez Al-Asad who ruled Syria for thirty years. The young ophthalmologist had promised a new and modern future for Syria and Syrians. Two decades later, Syria lies in ruins. This is a conversation between several scholars on the transition, policies, institutions, uprising, and mayhem that characterized his rule, co-sponsored by Jadaliyya and Salon Syria.
Omar Dahi
Omar S. Dahi is a co-editor of Jadaliyya and an associate professor of economics at Hampshire College and co-director of the Peacebuilding and State building program and research associate at the Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research interests are in the political economy of development in the Middle East, South-South relations, comparative regionalism, peace and conflict studies, and critical security studies. He has published in academic outlets such as the Journal of Development Economics, Applied Economics, Southern Economic Journal, Political Geography, Middle East Report, Forced Migration Review, and Critical Studies on Security. His last book South-South Trade and Finance in the 21st Century: Rise of the South or a Second Great Divergence (co-authored with Firat Demir) explores the ambiguous developmental impact of the new economic linkages among countries of the global South. He has served on the editorial collective of Middle East Report and is a co-founder and co-director of the Beirut School for Critical Security Studies working group at the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS). Dahi is also the founder and director of the Security in Context initiative.
Katty Alhayek
Katty Alhayek is a scholar-activist from Syria pursuing a doctorate in communication at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Her research interests broadly center around themes of Syrian refugees, gender, media audiences, activism, and new technologies. Katty published peer-reviewed articles in journals like Gender, Technology and Development; Syria Studies; and Feminist Media Studies. Katty worked for organizations like The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women; The Online Journal of Space Communication; and Geneva Institute for Human Rights. A former Open Society Foundations fellow, Ms. Alhayek holds Master’s degrees in International Affairs and Media Studies from Ohio University and a graduate certificate in Women`s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She earned an undergraduate degree in Media Studies from Damascus University in 2008.
Bassam Haddad (Moderator)
Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of the forthcoming book, A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Forthcoming, Stanford University Press, 2021). Bassam serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the series Arabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves on the Board of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and is Executive Producer of Status Audio Magazine. Bassam is Co-Project Manager for the Salon Syria Project and Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA’s Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Bassam is working on his second Syria book tittled Understanding The Syrian Tragedy: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).
Ibrahim Hamidi
Ibrahim Hamidi is a Syrian journalist, who heads the Damascus bureau of the Arab daily newspaper Al-Hayat, and contributes to several other international media outlets and think tanks. Previously, he served as head of the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) office in Damascus, in addition to his work with al-Hayat, and as a senior writer for Forward Magazine in Damascus. Hamidi’s work focuses on strategic issues in the Middle East, with special insight into Syria’s internal and regional politics. He is also a Research Fellow and co-founder of the Syrian Studies Center at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Hamidi is also a co-founder of the Arab Investigative Journalism Program (ARIJ).
Lisa Wedeen
Lisa Wedeen is the Mary R. Morton Professor of Political Science and the College and the Co-Director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory at the University of Chicago. She is also Associate Faculty in Anthropology and the Co-Editor of the University of Chicago Book Series, “Studies in Practices of Meaning.” Her publications include three books: Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria (1999; with a new preface, 2015); Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power and Performance in Yemen (2008); and Authoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria (2019), which has won two awards from the American Political Science Association. Among her articles are the following: “Conceptualizing ‘Culture’: Possibilities for Political Science” (2002); “Concepts and Commitments in the Study of Democracy” (2004), “Ethnography as an Interpretive Enterprise” (2009), “Reflections on Ethnographic Work in Political Science” (2010), “Ideology and Humor in Dark Times: Notes from Syria” (2013), and “Scientific Knowledge, Liberalism, and Empire: American Political Science in the Modern Middle East” (2016). She is the recipient of the David Collier Mid-Career Achievement Award and an NSF fellowship, and is currently completing an edited volume with Joseph Masco, entitled Conspiracy/Theory.
Basileus Zeno
Basileus Zeno is a Syrian archaeologist pursuing a doctorate in Political Science at University of Massachusetts/Amherst. He holds a BA (2006) and MA (2011) in archaeology from the University of Damascus (Syria), where his studies focused on Hellenistic Antiquity and Islamic civilization. He was a graduate fellow at the Institut français du Proche-Orient (IFPO) from 2007 to 2012. Until summer 2012, Basileus was doing his Ph.D. in classical archaeology, researching the production of coins under the Seleucids in Northern Syria, but he couldn’t complete his research because of the outbreak of the war. In 2013, he started his M.A. in Political Science at Ohio University, which he completed in 2015. Basileus is broadly interested in the areas of Comparative Politics, Contemporary Political Theory and Identity Politics. His scholarly interests primarily focus on nationalism, civil wars, sectarian transnationalism, refugees, and social movements in the Middle East.
Bassam Haddad interviews Omar Dahi and Rabie Nasser about the recently released report: “Conflict Economies in Syria: Roots, Dynamics, and Pathways for Change.” Omar Dahi, the lead author of the paper which was prepared for the Syrian Center for Policy Research (SCPR), summarizes its contents and findings. Rabie Nasser, Co-Founder of SCPR, address the context within which the report emerged, both analytically and institutionally. The interview was conducted on 9 July 2020.
The paper is part of a series on Development Policy Dialogue initiative and can be downloaded in full on SCPR’s website here, both in English and Arabic.
Omar S. Dahi is a co-editor of Jadaliyya and an associate professor of economics at Hampshire College and co-director of the Peacebuilding and State building program and research associate at the Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research interests are in the political economy of development in the Middle East, South-South relations, comparative regionalism, peace and conflict studies, and critical security studies. He has published in academic outlets such as the Journal of Development Economics, Applied Economics, Southern Economic Journal, Political Geography, Middle East Report, Forced Migration Review, and Critical Studies on Security. His last book South-South Trade and Finance in the 21st Century: Rise of the South or a Second Great Divergence (co-authored with Firat Demir) explores the ambiguous developmental impact of the new economic linkages among countries of the global South. He has served on the editorial collective of Middle East Report and is a co-founder and co-director of the Beirut School for Critical Security Studies working group at the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS). Dahi is also the founder and director of the Security in Context initiative.
Rabie Nasser is a co-founder of the Syrian Center for Policy Research (SCPR), working as researcher in macroeconomic policies, inclusive growth, poverty, and conflict dynamics. He obtained a B.A. in Economics from Damascus University in 1999. He has a MSc in Economics from Leicester University, UK. Before joining SCPR, Nasser worked for the State Planning Commission as Chief Economist and Director General of Macroeconomic Management Directorate. Afterwards, he worked as an Economic Researcher at the Arab Planning Institute in Kuwait. He then moved on to work as a senior researcher for the Syrian Development Research Center that conducts studies, evaluations, and applied research.
Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of the forthcoming book, A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Forthcoming, Stanford University Press, 2021). Bassam serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and theKnowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the seriesArabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves on the Board of theArab Council for the Social Sciencesand is Executive Producer of Status Audio Magazine. Bassam is Co-Project Manager for theSalon Syria Projectand Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA’s Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Bassam is working on his second Syria book tittled Understanding The Syrian Tragedy: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders(forthcoming, Stanford University Press). Bassam is a Co-Editor of the Syria Page.
[This article was originally published by Jadaliyya on 15 July, 2020.]
This video is part of the Commonsense on Syria series providing the opportunity for a broad audience to engage with incisive analysis and important perspectives about Syria and U.S. “regime-change” wars. This session, featuring Jadaliyya co-editor Omar Dahi and Tima Kurdi, author of The Boy on the Beach: My Family’s Escape from Syria and Our Hope for a New Home, discusses internally and externally displaced Syrians.
[This article was originally published by Jadaliyya on 10 July, 2020.]
يعاني السوريون من تدهور شديد في أوضاعهم المعيشية بسبب السنوات التسع المتواصلة من النزاع. وفي الأشهر القليلة الماضية تفاقمت خسائر البلاد بسبب عوامل عديدة داخلية وخارجية من ضمنها مؤسسات مركزة على الصراع، معارك عسكرية، الأزمة الاقتصادية اللبنانية، وباء كوفيد ١٩ وقانون قيصر. ومؤخراً شهد الاقتصاد تدهوراً غير مسبوق في سعر صرف الليرة السورية، وارتفاعاً في الأسعار ومعدلات الفقر وموجة ضخمة من فقدان الوظائف. وصار الانهيار الاقتصادي أولوية محورية للنزاع السوري. يناقش المحرر المشارك في صفحة سوريا في جدلية ربيع ناصر والباحث عارف دليلة تأثير عوامل بنيوية غذت الصراع ودور اقتصاد الصراع في التطورات الأخيرة بالإضافة إلى سيناريوهات وخيارات على المدى القصير.
ربيع ناصر باحث اقتصادي وأحد مؤسسي المركز السوري لأبحاث السياسة، ويعمل كباحث في سياسات الاقتصاد الكلي، النمو الشامل وديناميات الصراع. حصل على الإجازة الجامعية في الاقتصاد من جامعة دمشق في ١٩٩٩. كما حصل على شهادة الماجستير في الاقتصاد من جامعة لايشستر في المملكة المتحدة.
In a webinar dated 12 May 2020, Villanova University Scholar and Jadaliyya Syria Page Co-Editor Samer Abboud examined the emergent “illiberal peace” in Syria. The absence of an internationally mandated or internally negotiated peace process, he argued, has allowed the Syrian regime to craft an illiberal peace as an outcome to the nearly decade-long conflict. This illiberal peace is shaped through a politics of exclusion in which Syrian society is bifurcated into the loyal and disloyal through processes of reconciliation, settlement, and new legal regimes of citizenship. Click below to watch the recording of the talk.
[This article was originally published by Jadaliyya on 5 June, 2020. The talk was hosted by Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and was posted to their website orginally.]
This podcast takes you to several cities/countries affected by Covid-19 to discuss social, economic, and political challenges facing their societies, with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups and on what this pandemic reveals about the human condition (wow, big phrase). Based on personal and incisive conversations with various interlocutors on location, we hope both to learn from others and to provide some solace as we address how we are collectively experiencing and dealing with similar challenges.
We will be speaking with our guests, one or several at a time, via Skype, and will try to have brief, informative, and non-draining calls within 20-30 minutes.
Look out for upcoming episodes in the coming week(s) from Dublin, Cairo, Iran, San Francisco, Vancouver, and more.
Hosted by Noura Erakat and Bassam Haddad
Production Set by Khalid Namez
Edited by Alicia Rodriguez
Directed by Bassam Haddad
Research by Naim Mousa
[Date: 26 March 2020]
Issam A. Adwan, the project manager for We Are Not Numbers, is a trained translator/interpreter, journalist and English teacher. In 2019, he was chosen by The Carter Center to be the first Palestinian independent observer for the Tunisian elections.
Salam Khashan is a family doctor in the Palestinian primary health care. She holds a bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery from Ain Shams University, Egypt.
Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of the forthcoming book, A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Forthcoming, Stanford University Press, 2021). Bassam serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the series Arabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves on the Board of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and is Executive Producer of Status Audio Magazine. Bassam is Co-Project Manager for the Salon Syria Project and Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA’s Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Bassam is working on his second Syria book tittled Understanding The Syrian Tragedy: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).
Noura Erakat is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University in the Department of Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice where she teaches topics such as human rights law, humanitarian law, national security law, refugee law, social justice, and critical race theory. Her scholarly interests include humanitarian law, human rights law, refugee law, and national security law. She earned her BA and JD from Berkeley Law School and her LLM in National Security from the Georgetown University Law Center. She is a Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya e-zine. Prior to beginning her appointment at GMU, Noura was a Freedman Teaching Fellow at Temple Law School and has taught International Human Rights Law and the Middle East at Georgetown University since 2009.
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