Solitude in Europe for the communists

The Russian government sincerely believes that Assad’s removal from power would trigger the expansion of jihadism and instability in the Caucasus and southern Russia. Moscow is deeply concerned about the rise of Islamists in the Middle East, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia's efforts to support the most radical factions in Syria. At the same time, the obvious absence of the ideological background behind current Russian-Syrian relations makes them a trade item. Thus, official guarantees that the jihadists will not export their revolution elsewhere accompanied by promises to preserve some Russian economic positions in post-Assad Syria will probably create the necessary ground for the emergence of a compromise stance on Syria (including the issue of foreign intervention).     

Transnational Islamist Networks: Western Fighters in Afghanistan,Somalia and Syria

Abstract

Western Muslims have joined jihadi groups in Afghanistan/Pakistan, Somalia and Syria to defend Islam from its perceived enemies. Transnational Islamist networks have played a pivotal role in bringing them to conflict zones by fulfilling three functions: radicalisation through mosques, radical preachers, and the Internet; recruitment which can be conducted either physically or digitally; and identity formation that provides the radicalised recruits with a larger cause to fight for as members of an imagined global community. Transnational Islamist networks are multifunctional entities on the rise.     

TV News and the language of acid rain in Canadian‐American relations

This study focuses on American television news coverage of a specific issue, acid rain, in Canadian‐American affairs. It attempts to bring into focus the interaction of the formal characteristics of the news and political orientations of the viewing audience to offer an alternative approach to the pluralistic models that dominate media and foreign policy research. Finally, the study offers several strategic propositions describing the relationship of news language to political responses for this particular case of Canadian‐American affairs.     

The Arab Uprisings and the EU's Migration Policies—The Cases of Egypt,Libya, and Syria

The article analyzes the European Union's (EU) migration strategies toward the Arab states in the light of the Arab uprisings in a comparative context. Going through migratory processes related to Egypt, Libya, and Syria, the article discusses Middle Eastern migration and its diverse manifestations, critically assessing the relevance of the EU's migration policy ambitions vis-à-vis the different challenges in the Mediterranean region. In its theoretical approach, the article draws on the concept of non-traditional security, demonstrating that migration constitutes an anarchistic element in the relations between states, which goes beyond traditional foreign policy means. The article characterizes recent EU initiatives concerning migration and demonstrates that despite the fact that the EU has declared migration “one of the strategic priorities in the external relations of the Union,” it seems apparent that the EU has not been able to develop adequate new approaches regarding migration. Many of the suggested initiatives within the framework of the new EU foreign policy setup have not been established yet—they remain preliminary works in progress, projects in different stages or legislative procedures under negotiation between EU institutions. Summing up the cases of Egypt, Libya, and Syria, the article concludes that the migration phenomenon since the start of the Arab unrest in early 2011 constitutes a highly important issue in European–Middle Eastern relations, regarding which, the EU foreign and security measures seem to be relevant only to some degree.     

Understanding the Islamic State’s competitive advantages: Remaking state and nationhood in the Middle East and North Africa

While many researchers have examined the evolution and unique characteristics of the Islamic State (IS), taking an IS-centric approach has yet to illuminate the factors allowing for its establishment in the first place. To provide a clearer explanation for IS’s successes and improve analysts’ ability to predict future occurrences of similar phenomena, we analyze IS’s competitive advantages through the lens of two defining structural conditions in the Middle East North Africa (MENA): failure of state institutions and nationhood. It is commonly understood that the MENA faces challenges associated with state fragility, but our examination of state and national resiliency shows that Syria and Iraq yield the most deleterious results in the breakdown of the nation, suggesting that the combined failure of state and nation, as well as IS’s ability to fill these related vacuities, is a significant reason IS thrives there today. Against this backdrop, we provide a model of IS’s state- and nation-making project, and illustrate IS’s clear competitive advantages over all other state and non-state actors in both countries, except for Kurdish groupings. We conclude with recommendations on how policy-makers may begin halting and reversing the failure of both state and nation in Iraq and Syria.     

The Practice and Impacts of Russian-style Hybrid Warfare

The term hybrid warfare was first coined by US military scholars and later widely adopted in the West to refer to Russian military operations in the Ukrainian and Syrian crises.In Russia,it is called "Gerasimovism".Russia adapted the idea of hybrid warfare for its military operations in Ukraine and Syria into a Russian-style hybrid warfare that has seen successful results so far.This model is likely to impact future military developments.     

“Talk about terror in our back gardens”: an analysis of online comments about British foreign fighters in Syria

The phenomenon of foreign fighters has become a central issue to the ongoing conflict in Syria. This article explores how members of the public answer the question ‘Why do British citizens join the conflict in Syria’ on social media sites and in response to online news articles. Building upon research on everyday narratives of security and terrorism, we analyse 807 comments, and in doing so, we argue that online comments are important in producing the discursive environment for making sense of British foreign fighters and what should be done in response to them. We find that there is a tendency to view British foreign fighters as being purely motivated by religion, and there is also a belief that British foreign fighters should be responded to through exceptional measures. We discuss the implications of such perceptions, and we highlight how problematic misconceptions about Islam and Muslims are not just disseminated through elite and media discourse, but through everyday narratives published by members of the public online.     

Media development in Syria: the Janus-faced nature of foreign aid assistance

This article intends to provide responses to some of the many unanswered questions about the making and the transformation of the uprising in Syria by exploring a new avenue of research: media development aid. Most academic interest has been oriented towards the role that the new media played at the time of the uprising; insufficient interest, by contrast, has been directed to the development of the sector in the years predating it. What emerges from this article is that the Syrian media landscape was strongly supported by international development aid during the years prior to the outbreak of the uprising of 2011. By looking at the complex structure of media aid architecture and investigating the practices and programmes implemented by some representative organisations, this article reflects on the field of media development as a new modus operandi of the West (the EU and US especially), to promote democracy through alternative and non-collateral, bottom-up support.     

Gender,family law and citizenship in Syria

This paper explores the impact of family law on the structuring of gendered citizenship in Syria where the state's family law accords male and female citizens different legal status, thus ordering the distribution of basic rights and duties along gendered lines. Partial centralization and fragmented secularization of judicial authority relates to the accommodation of religious groups, a policy which was continued after the establishment of territorial states in the 1920s. Family law maintained its religious tenets and was included as part of the state's jurisdiction. The impact of family law on citizenship is exacerbated in that membership in religious groups is mandated and monitored by the state. Citizenship is thus mediated through a citizen's membership in a religious group where the religiously based family law applies as state law. Seen in theoretical terms, family law plays a crucial role in structuring gendered citizenship in ways that limit the legal authority of female citizens as full members of the polity. Two questions are addressed: First, how and why does family law premise gendered citizenship in Syria? Second, what characterizes the debates regarding changes within family law that surfaced after 2003 following the political regime's liberalization efforts?     

叙利亚冲突与国际人道主义法的“劫难”

国际人道主义法致力于规制武装冲突,以实现"军事需要"与"人道主义"之间的平衡。叙利亚冲突导致了震撼人类良知的人道主义灾难,也导致了国际人道主义法的巨大灾难。叙利亚冲突本身的特征、一些国家暴虐"反恐"的泛滥,国际人道主义法本身的缺陷,都影响了叙利亚冲突各方关于如何实现"军事需要"的考量,导致各方几乎都忽视了国际人道主义法的要求。以参与方的不平等和非对称为核心特征的叙利亚冲突,代表着全球范围内武装冲突的"新常态"。以平等为基础、以互惠为条件的既有国际人道主义法,已经难以满足此种"新常态"。在推进国际人道主义法的建设过程中,国际社会须将当代武装冲突的非对称性考虑在内,推动某种共同但有区别的责任与义务。国际社会迫切需要确定"恐怖主义"的定义,以免"恐怖主义"标签被进一步泛化和滥用。国际社会还需检视和减少国际人道主义法与国内外其他规范体系之间的矛盾和冲突,弥合不同规范体系之间的裂痕。