We are pleased to present you our major new empirical study of Syria under the present armed conflict. Researchers from the SiT programme conducted more than 100 in-depth interviews with people in three areas under opposition control. The aim was to identify activities which may be contributing to the persistence of violence and to put forward recommendations, making it relevant to both scholars of Syria and the Middle East and to policy makers. The output of the project has been two reports, detailed below.
ISIL, JAN and the war economy in Syria – a paper by Dr Rim Turkmani
This paper explores how the collapse of the state and the spread of the war economy enable ISIL’s expansion and JAN’s infiltration in Syria. The war has destroyed the legitimate local economy and led to extremely high levels of unemployment. In the absence of other sources of income men of fighting age are left vulnerable to recruitment by extreme organisations in order to provide for their families. The breakdown of the governing system in Syria has opened up a space that is exploited by ISIL and JAN. ISIL has developed a comprehensive model for running a proto-state, a model that includes governance and the provision of public services, including a judiciary system, policing, education, health care, an ideology and intelligence. The paper proposes that a strategy to counter this perverse logic must be based on legitimate state building and reviving the economy.
Countering the war economy in Syria- evidence from three local areas – a paper by Rim Turkmani, Ali A.K Ali, Mary Kaldor and Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic
This paper is based on empirical research in three areas of Syria, Eastern Gouta, Idleb and the Daraa and Aleppo countryside. The main argument of this paper is that the conflict in Syria needs to be viewed as a societal condition in which armed groups have emerged as the main economic actors and in which the allocation of resources in determined by violence. The pre-war formal economy has dramatically contracted, while new illicit and informal revenue-raising activities have expanded.
Both reports and more information about the project can be found on our SiT website.