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Transnational Mobilisation and Escalating Conflict in Syria an Anatomy of Syria’S Exiled Political Opposition

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Transnational Mobilisation and Escalating Conflict in Syria an Anatomy of Syria’S Exiled Political Opposition Transnational mobilisation and escalating conflict in Syria An anatomy of Syria’s exiled political opposition Jamie Michael Travis. Student No. 41156501 Bachelor of Applied Science, Occupational Therapy (Cumberland) 1989 Master of International Relations (Macquarie) 2009 First submitted on the 10th day of October 2014. Submitted in revised form on this 5th day of January 2015 to: The Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations (Faculty of Arts) in fulfilment of the requirements of the Master of Research. THE MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY Sydney, Australia. Transnational mobilisation and escalating conflict in Syria 2014 Abstract The master frame of the “Syrian Civil War” has dominated the public discourse, implying that it is essentially domestic in nature and bound by the territory of the Syrian state. This state-centric view has underscored most research on civil war. However, domestic-level analyses provide insufficient explanations. The escalation of the Syrian conflict displays a substantially more complicated picture characterised by ambiguous dynamics, myriad identities, and diverse private and collective interests and behaviours that transcend the modern Syrian state. This study responds to an identified weakness in the research on diaspora mobilisation and engagement in civil conflicts. It is built upon two questions. Firstly, how does conflict escalation mobilise Syria’s exiled political opposition? Secondly, how does transnational mobilisation of the exiled political opposition play a causal role in conflict escalation? Set within a theoretical analysis of diaspora and transnational mobilisation in politics and conflict, a single case study of the principal political opposition, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, is conducted. The process-tracing method is applied to examine hypothesised mechanisms of transnational mobilisation and their relationship to conflict escalation. The mechanisms of transitional brokerage, strategic framing and outbidding deployed by the exiled political opposition are shown to be consequences of conflict escalation. The exiled political opposition’s approach to resource mobilisation, and lobbying and persuasion are shown to advocate and exacerbate conflict. Overall the study makes a contribution towards understanding the transnational dynamics of contentious politics and conflict escalation in Syria. TRAVIS, Jamie. 1 Transnational mobilisation and escalating conflict in Syria 2014 Contents i Introduction............................................................................................................ 4 i.i Civil or transnational war? ............................................................................................ 7 i.ii Aim and purpose of the study .................................................................................... 11 i.iii Method .......................................................................................................................... 12 i.iv Map of the work ........................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 1 Diasporas and transnationals in “homeland” politics and conflict ................ 18 1.1 Conceptualising diasporas and transnationals in politics ....................................... 18 1.1.1 The evolving concept of “diaspora” ............................................................. 21 1.1.2 Diasporas and transnationals converge .................................................... 25 1.1.3 Beyond typologies: Turning to transnational mobilisation processes..... 31 1.2 Transnational mobilisation in civil conflicts............................................................. 32 1.3 Transnational risk factors for civil conflict: What do we know from the statistical research? .................................................................................................................. 36 Chapter 2 Tracing the transnational mobilisation of the National Syrian Coalition 43 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 43 2.2 Transnational brokerage by Syrian political entrepreneurs .................................... 43 2.2.1 Same voices, different name ........................................................................ 44 TRAVIS, Jamie. 2 Transnational mobilisation and escalating conflict in Syria 2014 2.1.2 Transnational brokerage of Syrian opposition coalitions: building political efficiency and legitimacy .......................................................................... 50 2.1.3 Brokering state-sponsorship engages regional rivalries ........................... 55 2.3 Strategic framing: traversing international, regional and domestic cleavages ................................................................................................................................... 59 2.4 Outbidding the Sunni-Salafi rivals: a transnational struggle for legitimacy ......... 73 Chapter 3 Tracing the impacts of mobilisation on conflict escalation ............................ 83 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 83 3.2 Resource mobilisation: factionalised resourcing begets conflict ............................ 84 3.3 Lobbying and persuasion: an uncompromising position leads to conflict advocacy .................................................................................................................................... 98 Conclusion 110 Bibliography 114 Primary sources, field reports, and policy research papers ................................................... 124 TRAVIS, Jamie. 3 Transnational mobilisation and escalating conflict in Syria 2014 i Introduction We are accused of terrorism If we dare to write about the remains of a homeland That is scattered in pieces and in decay In decadence and disarray About a homeland that is searching for a place And about a nation that no longer has a face About a homeland that has nothing left of its great ancient verse But that of wailing and eulogy About a homeland that has nothing in its horizons Of freedoms of different types and ideology About a homeland that resembles poetry in our country Improvised, imported, loose and of no boundaries Of foreign tongue and soul Detached from Man and Land, ignoring their plight as a whole. Nizar Qabbani, “We are accused of terrorism”, London, 15 April 1997 Written one year before his death, the opening stanzas of Nizar Qabbani’s poem transcend some 17 years to provide an accurate description of the Syrian Arab Republic (Syria) today – fraught with disunity and plagued by foreign influence. Qabbani laments the great Syrian homeland or historical Bilad al-Sham that, since being restructured by foreign powers in the wake of World War I, has left the modern state struggling to carve out a unifying and durable national identity whilst the void is filled with widespread societal malaise and competing ideologies.1 Consistent with Qabbani’s refrain, those who in the present day write about or challenge the Syrian government’s designs on state ideology, national identity and, therefore, solidarity are accused of collaboration with the hostile 1 Bilad al-Sham (The Syrian Lands or The Levant) describes the territory organised in the wake of the Arab conquests of the 630s and governed under the Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates and later divided and administered as sub-provinces by the Ottomans. It extends eastward from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates and is bound by the Arabian Desert in the south and the Taurus Mountains in the north. It spans present-day Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria, eastern Iraq and south-east Turkey. TRAVIS, Jamie. 4 Transnational mobilisation and escalating conflict in Syria 2014 West, sedition and terrorism.2 This has remained the narrative of the Syrian government during the onset and course of the current conflict. Dissent and resistance, whether cast through words or the taking up of arms, are framed as being existential threats to the unity and security of the Syrian state and society. Those threats are said to be fomented by hostile foreign actors. Dissenting Syrian citizens who participate in resistance activities are branded as being rogue, misguided and coopted by conspiring foreign interests and the practitioners of extreme interpretations of the Sunnah.3 If the Syrian government’s narrative is to be believed, then one would conclude that the conflict is almost entirely foreign in origin and design. That it has been stoked by the United States and its allies in Europe and the Gulf, as well as foreign- bred Salafi zealots and al-Qa‘eda types, that have long sought to destabilise Syria in order to serve their ideological and geopolitical interests. The conflict’s critical flashpoint – the 15th March 2011 uprising in Dar‘ā – was followed by locally-led acts 2 Lesch, David W. Syria: The fall of the house of Assad, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2013, pp.88, 227. Lesch explains that the al-Assad regime believes that the perpetrators of instability are armed gangs and terrorists acting on behalf of Syria’s external enemies. Shaaban, Bouthaina. 2011. ‘News, which news?!’ Syria Forward Magazine, [90], April 2011, p.56. Shaaban is Bashar al-Assad’s political and media advisor. She conveys the view that an interfering hostile West is at work in the present conflict. She
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