Throughout its dynasty, the Assad regime (1970-2024) wielded transnational repression against the diaspora in order to monitor, control, and punish any person or group deemed as disloyal. As an extension of Assad’s ideological and totalitarian rule in Syria, the regime engaged in numerous tactics to silence diaspora members, including direct attacks and threats, surveillance, control over mobility, proxy punishment and coercion, the cooptation of civil society and civic engagement, and digital transnational repression. The 2011 Arab Spring destabilized the regime and gave diaspora members moral and strategic reasons to come out in protest. During the uprising and subsequent humanitarian crisis, transnational repression proved to be a less-effective deterrent against diaspora protest and mobilization owing to the regime’s weakened moral legitimacy and operational capacity to target individuals abroad while under siege at home. At the same time, regime agents and loyalists continued to use transnational repression against Syrians abroad – including against a global network of opposition members and ordinary refugees – until the regime was overthrown in 2024. At the time of this writing, Syrians have been liberated from over five decades of transnational repression that operated through Syrian networks and community ties. While the future of Syria remains uncertain at the time of this writing, subsequent research will do well to track how the new Syrian state reacts to, and attempts to govern, its diaspora.

Marxism is one of the three mainstream approaches in International Relations, along with realism and liberalism. Unlike the other two, Marxism acts as a critical theory that focuses on the hierarchical structure of the international system, driven by capitalist development and expansion. Since the early twentieth century, Marxists have used the concept of imperialism to analyse this structure. The first major debate on imperialism was about the expansion of European capitalism into non-capitalist societies, which was a key issue until the 1970s. Since then, the focus has shifted to analysing imperialism in the era of neoliberal globalisation and understanding why the interstate system endures despite the capitalist drive for global unification. The international relations of the Middle East have been featured in these debates among Marxists. The chapter first explains the basic concepts of Marxism as developed by Karl Marx. It then covers classical and contemporary theories of imperialism along with recent developments in Marxist geopolitics, while situating the Middle East into these discussions. Critics often argue that Marxism tends to overlook regional dynamics and powers. To address this criticism, the chapter examines Iran as a sub-imperial, peripheral power, exploring its role in the Syrian war.

In recent years, scholars of International Relations and the Middle East have increasingly argued that the region’s enduring colonial legacies render postcolonial theory not merely relevant but essential. This chapter contends that the relationship also works in the opposite direction: the Middle East has been central to the emergence and evolution of postcolonial thought. It traces the disciplinary and historical foundations of postcolonialism, outlines its key claims and limitations, and concludes with an analysis of Syria as an illustrative case of postcolonial inquiry in the Middle Eastern context.

This chapter introduces the English School (ES) theory through a powerful earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023, with insights from disaster diplomacy. An effective disaster response requires efficient aid delivery, sound governance of impacted areas, and productive diplomatic dialogue in cross-border cases. In civil war-torn Syria, the earthquake response was hampered by the prior collapse of a United Nations aid delivery mechanism, a governance vacuum, and a lack of diplomatic relations with Turkey. The chapter contrasts ES concepts of pluralist international society, which prioritises state-centric norms, with solidarist international society, which prioritises transnational humanitarian norms, to define two ideal types of disaster response. While the pluralist/consensual model necessitates the approval of the host state, the solidarist/coercive model permits bypassing the host state if it obstructs access to survivors. Syria and other cases demonstrate that the solidarist response, which may involve the suspension of ongoing conflicts, is often a temporary phase followed by the reassertion of state-centric norms and resumption of hostilities. The chapter concludes by questioning whether disasters, increasingly exacerbating in scale, severity, and frequency due to climate change, can instigate a more structured solidarism in the Middle East.

In Chapter 6, we build on the analysis from the previous chapter by focusing specifically on negotiations and dialogue. We examine a few Islamist groups in Mali and Syria, highlighting how their transnational or local orientation influences conflict resolution. In Mali, we analyze variations between groups: Ansar Dine, Katiba Macina, and Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). While they all share a radical Islamist ideology, Ansar Dine and Katiba Macina – both with strong local roots and a focus on Mali – have occasionally shown interest in negotiating with the Malian government. The government, in turn, has also been open to negotiations with them at times. In contrast, no such attempts have been made with AQIM, which has an explicitly transnational agenda. In Syria, we trace the development of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and focus on variations over time. Initially one of the most extreme Islamist actors in the Syrian civil war, HTS has gradually demonstrated respect for ceasefires and a willingness to explore dialogue. We demonstrate how these openings for conflict resolution are preceded and driven by localization.

This paper explores the evolution, transformation, and adaptation of settlement patterns in Roman-period Southwest Asia. By examining three case study areas—the Amuq Plain in southern Turkey, the Balikh River Valley, and the Upper Khabur Basin in northeastern Syria—it investigates subsistence strategies and modes of landscape exploration. Through a detailed analysis of archaeological and historical data, this chapter aims to shed light on how local communities adapted to changing socio-economic and ecological condition in this extended borderland.

This chapter examines the Constitution’s allocation of war powers, arguing that the President’s commander-in-chief authority permits only defensive actions or congressionally authorized military engagements, not unilateral offensive actions. Congress holds extensive war-related powers, including declaring war, raising armies, and regulating the military, while the President’s role is limited to directing forces in existing wars or repelling sudden attacks. The chapter introduces the concept of “imperfect war” and analyzes early military conflicts. It critiques modern executive claims, used to justify the Obama and Trump administrations’ Libya and Syria bombings, that the President can initiate military actions short of “war” in the “national interest,” finding no textual basis for such authority. It argues that unilateral acts risking war, like bombing foreign forces, encroach on Congress’s war powers under the law of nations. Rejecting functionalist expansions of presidential power, the chapter advocates a formalist, originalist approach, emphasizing that the President is not above the law. Such a framework ensures a restrained presidency, preserving Congress’s primacy in war-making and maintaining the Constitution’s separation of powers.

The Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex, or SACC, a collection of city-states that surrounded the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea during the early first millennium BCE, is traditionally understudied by researchers interested in contacts between the Aegean and the Near East. In part this is due to the interest garnered by the Phoenicians and their far-flung colonies, but it is also because the complicated ethnolinguistic composition of the city-states themselves defies easy categorization. This chapter presents an overview of the material evidence for the robust exchange between the Aegean and SACC during the early first millennium BCE. Syro-Anatolian finds in the Aegean, especially luxury items including worked ivory and bronze objects, couple with Aegean ceramics in the Levant and southeastern Anatolia to index a surprisingly robust exchange between the two spheres. Although the mechanisms of this exchange remain unclear, it is now apparent that SACC was a major component of Iron Age eastern Mediterranean cultural and economic networks.

Chapter 5 considers the possibility that, while people with liberal and democratic proclivities may leave their countries of origin, they may influence the democratization of their homelands from abroad – a possible “democratic gain.” Could emigrants’ advocacy from abroad offset the effects of their departure on prospects for democracy? After the oppressive Assad dictatorship was challenged by opposition groups in 2011, many activists in Syria’s massive diaspora mobilized to support and influence people living in rebel-held territory. However, in a social network analysis of Syrians in regions governed by the Free Syrian Army in 2015, there is almost no evidence of their impact. Despite their presumed prominence in the West, a majority of Syrians could not even name a single pro-democratic leader from abroad – let alone identify their influence. And perhaps most damningly, the departure of former Syrian citizens for other countries was viewed by most respondents as an abandonment of their cause – an offense worse than being previously complicit with the oppressive Assad regime. Taken together with other research showing the limits of democratic diaspora activism, the chapter concludes that the potential for “democratic gain” is severely constrained.

Armed conflict and the proximity of soldiers and other combatants shaped late ancient monastic communities in diverse ways that reflected not only the vulnerability of victims but also the resourcefulness of innovators. Monks were wounded, captured, and killed, and some became the objects of veneration as martyrs; monastic communities built walls and towers for protection and offered help to victims of violence; monks interacted with barbarians peacefully and violently and integrated their fears of barbarians into their spiritual lives; monks formed new and often beneficial relationships with military men, some of whom chose to become monks themselves; and the military may have provided one of the models for the organization of monastic communities. Monks saw themselves as soldiers of the heavenly king, not entirely different from the nearby soldiers of the earthly king.

Written in February 2025, well after the completion of the monograph, the epilogue reflects on the fall of the Assad regime as a historic rupture while acknowledging the uncertainty of Syria’s post-revolutionary trajectory. While revolutionary ideals have been reaffirmed in historical narratives, their translation into governance, justice, and political inclusion remains unresolved. New actors now compete to define Syria’s future, shaping its ideological and institutional landscape. The chapter highlights how discursive battles over key political concepts – such as democracy, secularism, and governance – mirror a broader crisis of democracy, where increasingly questioned. It argues that the post-Assad moment has not ended Syria’s struggle for meaning but has transformed it into a contest over the principles that will shape the new order. The epilogue concludes that while something undeniably good has happened – the fall of a brutal dictatorship – the revolution’s aspirations remain incomplete. The task ahead is not to declare its success but to create the conditions in which its meaning continues to unfold.