Mediterranean Politics

ISSN: 1362-9395 (Print) 1743-9418 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmed20

Popular Mobilization in : Opportunity and Threat, and the Social Networks of the Early Risers

Reinoud Leenders & Steven Heydemann

To cite this article: Reinoud Leenders & Steven Heydemann (2012) Popular Mobilization in Syria: Opportunity and Threat, and the Social Networks of the Early Risers, Mediterranean Politics, 17:2, 139-159, DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2012.694041

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2012.694041

Published online: 18 Jul 2012.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1954

View related articles

Citing articles: 4 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fmed20

Download by: [King's College London] Date: 17 March 2016, At: 08:04 Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 17, No. 2, 139–159, July 2012

Popular Mobilization in Syria: Opportunity and Threat, and the Social Networks of the Early Risers

REINOUD LEENDERS*, & STEVEN HEYDEMANN** *Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, **Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA

ABSTRACT This paper explores the dynamics and underlying conditions of the first few months of the uprising in Syria, from mid-March 2011 until the summer of that year. Together with the contributions from Dalmasso and Kandil, it exploits the opportunity created by the Arab uprisings to shed new light on patterns of social mobilization and collective action that research programmes focusing on authoritarian resilience had tended to overlook. Specifically, it presents an analysis that critically and loosely borrows from, communicates with and hopes to make a modest contribution to social movement theory (SMT). While threat and opportunity are necessary elements for popular mobilization, they are not sufficient. Both ‘threat’ and ‘opportunity’ therefore need to be contextualized within the specific social and political environment, real or perceived, of the ‘early risers’ in Syria, in order to appreciate their local significance. The article further argues that protestors, when under threat and faced with the opportunity, collectively rose up by capitalizing on their dense social networks. Strong clan-based or tribal social structures, circular labour migration, cross-border linkages and proliferating practices denoted as ‘criminal’ variably played a key role in cementing these social networks. It is also contended that these networks’ ability easily to dissolve into one another due to their high degree of interconnectedness was instrumental in collective mobilization and their ability to pose a strong and enduring challenge to the regime. Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016

Introduction To better understand the Arab upheavals of 2011 (Gregory Gause III 2011), this article critically engages with social movement theory (SMT) while building on earlier related work on the MENA region (Bayat, 2009; Beinin & Vairel, 2011). SMT has been neglected in the inter-paradigm debate discussed in the introduction to this special issue and the case of Syria can help to bring it back in.

Correspondence Address: Reinoud Leenders, Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, 02 Achterburgwal 237, Amsterdam, Netherlands 1012. Email: [email protected]

1362-9395 Print/1743-9418 Online/12/020139-21 q 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2012.694041 140 R. Leenders & S. Heydemann

The main questions that we hope to answer are how and why significant popular mobilization began in Syria, what we can learn from the ‘early risers’ (Tarrow, 1994: 86) about the onset and nature of popular mobilization in a harsh authoritarian regime like Syria’s, and to what extent ‘brokers’ (or, in regime parlance, ‘conspirators’) played a role in initiating mobilization and elevating it to the level of a mass uprising. In our focus on patterns of popular mobilization we share with other contributors to this issue, notably Dalmasso’s article on mobilization from below in Morocco and Kandil’s on the role of middle class mobilization in Egypt, the conviction that the Arab uprisings have been animated by forms of collective action which were obscured in research programmes that focused on top-down strategies of authoritarian persistence. Yet in framing our approach to popular mobilization, in part, as a challenge to social movement theory, our contribution also departs from those of Kandil and Dalmasso, who adopt very different analytical starting points for their work on Egypt and Morocco, respectively. Specifically, we argue that those areas that witnessed particularly high and intense levels of mobilization in the early stages of the uprising contain social and political features which, in combination, allowed for early collective action and mass mobilization based on grievances and aspirations otherwise shared by many if not most Syrians throughout the country. We will demonstrate this with special reference to Dar’a, where the Syrian uprising began, and suggest that other places which followed suit – including , Deir Az-Zur and Idlib, appear to share many of these qualities. ‘Opportunity’ and ‘threat’ – two key notions in mainstream SMT – helped trigger mass mobilization among these early risers, in part as a result of demonstrations emanating from Tunisia and Egypt, and in part as a response to the heavy repression unleashed by Syria’s security forces in Dar’a, particularly between 18 March and the beginning of May 2011. Yet the opportunity could well have been lost and the threat of repression could have nipped protests in the bud. Both ‘threat’ and ‘opportunity’ therefore need to be contextualized within the specific social and political environment, real or perceived, of the ‘early risers’, especially Dar’a, in order to appreciate their local significance. We further argue that protestors, when under threat and faced with the opportunity, collectively rose up by capitalizing on their dense social networks. In Dar’a, strong clan-based or tribal social structures,

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 circular labour migration, cross-border linkages and proliferating practices denoted as ‘criminal’ variably played a key role in cementing these social networks. We further contend that these networks’ ‘miscibility’ (Vasi, 2011), or their ability to dissolve easily into one another beause of their intense interconnectedness, was instrumental in collective mobilization and their ability to pose a strong and enduring challenge to the regime. This argument challenges SMT’s emphasis on ‘brokerage’ as a key factor in diffusion of mobilization and regime incumbents. At the same time, it counters the Syrian regime’s penchant for blaming the onset and early stages of the uprising on alleged instigators, conspirators or political entrepreneurs. In making these arguments, the article critically assesses and makes use of video footage uploaded by Syrian activists, drawn mainly from YouTube, in addition to telephone, Skype and e-mail exchanges with Syrians, mainly from or in Dar’a, () media reports, activists’ reports on protest-related casualties and Syrian official data.1 Popular Mobilization in Syria 141

The Onset of Mobilization: Opportunity and Threat The most basic hypothesis within SMT is that people overcome obstacles to collective action and start to mobilize in response to changing ‘political opportunity structures’ (Meyer, 2004). Hence, ‘the “when” of social movement mobilization – when political opportunities are opening up – goes a long way towards explaining its “why”’ (Tarrow, 1994: 17). Accordingly, changes in political opportunity structures – ‘dimensions of the political environment that provide incentives for people to undertake collective action by affecting their expectations for success or failure’ (Tarrow, 1994: 85) – are of immediate interest in understanding why Syrians did the unimaginable: rise up against a consolidated, ruthless authoritarian regime. Yet it has also been argued (Tilly, 1977; Goldstone & Tilly, 2001; Alimi, 2007; Almeida, 2008; Einwohner & Maher, 2011) that when actors are confronted by a threat, collective action and mobilization may follow as the costs of inaction come to outweigh the risks of mobilization. One could indeed argue that a combination of opportunity and threat goes a long way toward explaining how and why Syria’s uprising started in Dar’a. Yet, as will be explained below, this explanation is both insufficient and incomplete. As the editors discuss in the introduction to this issue, the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt suggested in dramatic ways that the Arab authoritarian regimes were far less solid than assumed.. The demonstration effects emanating from mass mobilization that forced entrenched Arab dictators out of office were powerful enough to help break barriers of fear that had long sustained a widespread sense of ‘ajz – an Arabic term denoting impotence – and helplessness (Kassab, 2010). Accordingly, as a Jordanian writer (Ad-Dustur, 25 March 2011) put it, ‘[t]he story, quite simply, is that the Syrian people wanted to join the Arab convoy of freedom and that the Syrians wanted to ride on the fourth wave of democracy, which is an Arab wave par excellence’. Confronted by such views stressing the powerful potential for contagion, the incumbent Syrian regime hastened to underscore its mantra of Syria’s ‘exceptionalism’ (Donati, 2009). Thus, on the eve of Syria’s own uprising, President Bashar al-Assad asserted in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on 31 January 2011 that Syrians were not going to revolt because the country could rely on its ‘resistance credentials’. However these assertions did not discourage Syrians, and the issue of exceptionalism, as the case of Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 Morocco discussed in this issue also demonstrates, might be over-emphasized. Dar’awis were not unique in sensing the winds of change. Indeed, a feverish atmosphere of anticipation prevailed throughout Syria in early 2011 as people sensed that events in Tunisia and Egypt had changed political opportunity structures in their country as well. Yet it can be argued that opportunity structures in Dar’a were more conducive to early mobilization precisely because, paradoxically, no one expected it to start there. The reputational effects associated with Dar’a created room for manoeuvre that was less available elsewhere. Demonstration effects interacted with these local peculiarities to mediate changes in ‘opportunity structures’ that proved critical in both animating and sustaining early mobilization. First, both regime incumbents and anti-regime activists have long perceived Dar’a as largely loyal to the Ba’ath regime. Farmers in the mainly agricultural province 142 R. Leenders & S. Heydemann

benefited from the land reforms initiated by the Ba’ath. In addition, since 1963 a number of Dar’awis managed to obtain high-ranking positions in the regime, and have been viewed as eager supporters of the regime’s Arab nationalist and anti- Israeli stand.2 From this perspective, Dar’a was indeed an unlikely candidate for the start of an uprising. Impressions of the region’s inherent political quietism were reinforced by common, urban perceptions of Dar’a as backward, marginal, conservative and isolated. Even among anti-regime activists, as one admitted, Dar’awis were often seen as ‘uncivilized, naive and weak’.3 Likewise, their civil consciousness was seen as relatively underdeveloped as harsh agricultural labour supposedly preoccupied their lives.4 Common prejudice against ‘tribal’ forms of social organization shared by some secular anti-regime intellectuals and activists found echoes in conceptualizations of what ‘modern’ or democratic politics is about and, even more importantly, what it excludes. Popular perceptions of Dar’awis as benefiting disproportionately from the regime, or being inherently backward and submissive, may be little more than stereotypes. Yet in February and March 2011, they tempered perceptions among both regime incumbents and conventional opposition activists that Dar’a could be a potential source of unrest. Instead, both groups focused their attention largely on urban areas, and on the predominantly Kurdish areas in the north-east. The latter appears to have been less heavily monitored by security forces, especially in villages, although there are no hard data to fully corroborate this.5 But on the eve of the uprising, security and police forces throughout the governorate appeared to have been further reduced, as they were called back to central cities where unrest was much feared.6 In short, Dar’a’s susceptibility to the changing ‘opportunity structure’ associated with the events in Tunisia and Egypt may well have been greater than elsewhere in the country precisely because stereotypes led the authorities to focus their attention elsewhere. It is telling in this respect that months into the uprising some Syrian activists still refused to acknowledge that the uprising had started in Dar’a, and not in .7 The threat and exercise of regime violence and repression generated a second dynamic in which the people of Dar’a mobilized and rose up against the regime. As

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 the International Crisis Group (2011: i) noted, ‘[security forces’] violence almost certainly has been the primary reason behind the protest movement’s growth and radicalization’. That local security forces in Dar’a were determined to ruthlessly repress any expression of dissent was already clear when, at the end of January 2011, they arrested Aisha Abu Zeid, a medical doctor in Dar’a, following a private telephone conversation in which she compared Hosni Mubarak’s fate to that of the Syrian regime.8 Nor did they have any qualms about detaining 15 schoolboys for painting anti-regime graffiti on the walls of local buildings. Despite being minors, the students were subjected to torture. Subsequently, security forces responded with growing violence to small but steadily growing gatherings of protestors in Dar’a and neighbouring villages, culminating in mass protests on 18 March that were met by excessive force and repression. From 23 March, the day of the storming of Dar’a’s central Umari mosque, where many protestors had gathered, additional security Popular Mobilization in Syria 143

forces were sent from Damascus. They unleashed violence against protestors and civilian bystanders in Dar’a and surrounding areas on a scale and intensity not witnessed since the early 1990s, and in even sharper contrast to the relatively peaceful years since the early 2000s when the regime had markedly reduced its reliance on extra-judicial modes of repression (Leenders, 2012b). All accounts of the events suggest a level of coercion in Dar’a in early 2011 that was only to be seen elsewhere in the country much later in the uprising, including mass arrests, torture, the use of live rounds against crowds and targeted individuals suggesting a ‘shoot-to- kill’ policy, the deployment of snipers on rooftops and the prevention of medical treatment for the injured. Regime violence peaked between the end of April and mid- May when, during a siege of Dar’a, tanks were deployed and entire neighbourhoods were shelled. The number of detainees was so large they could barely be contained in Dar’a’s municipal stadium where they were rounded up and, according to several accounts, sometimes shot (Human Rights Watch, 2011; As-Sharq al-Awsat, 25 March 2011). Noting that existing statistics on casualties in Syria’s uprising have been questioned for their reliability (Narwani, 2012), one ‘martyrs’ count put the number of protest-related deaths in Dar’a governorate between mid-March until the end of June at 623.9 Thousands more were wounded or detained.10 SMT scholars, especially those working on authoritarian cases, have repeatedly argued that excessive force and repression can, under certain circumstances, propel people to act collectively and mobilize against their adversaries. This conclusion finds clear echoes in the case of Dar’a, as regime repression provided the impetus for mobilization. In conclusion, changes in both opportunity structures and threat levels have considerable explanatory value for analysing why mobilization started and grew in Dar’a. However, this analysis also leaves us with some unresolved questions. First, the shift in opportunity structures could have been overlooked, missed or squandered if protestors had failed to frame external events as new opportunities and if they had not possessed the capacity and resources to organize. In short, mass mobilization in Syria was by no means an inevitable consequence of the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings outside of Syria. Second, the regime’s threats and repression could well have been effective in deterring or quelling mass mobilization – they had often done so in the

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 past – yet Dar’awis, and soon large numbers of Syrians elsewhere, persevered in their mobilization and sustained their defiance of regime repression. The reasons that Dar’awis overcame both obstacles, and how they set an example for protestors in other cities, towns and villages, may be found in the region’s densely knit social networks and their miscibility. It is to this level of analysis that we now turn as it is in ‘face-to-face groups, their social networks and their institutions that collective action is most often activated and sustained’ (Tarrow, 1994: 21).

Where it Began: Social Networks and Mobilization in Dar’a Within SMT an increasing number of scholars have taken a critical view of the ‘opportunity’ and ‘threat’ approaches of earlier theorists (Goodwin & Jasper, 1999; Goldstone, 2004). Some have responded by developing analytic frameworks 144 R. Leenders & S. Heydemann

stressing prior social ties that operate as a basis for movement recruitment within established social settings that become the locus of mobilization (Diani, 2003: 7). Networks between individuals and groups have consequently become a main focus of research within SMT precisely because they appear to provide important clues as to why and how opportunities for mobilization are translated into action, and how threats come to be framed in ways that prompt action instead of submission (Tarrow, 1994: 136). Before demonstrating how, against a background of changes in opportunity structure and threat levels, social networks in Dar’a and elsewhere in the country contributed to mobilization, we will present their main (overlapping) features and sketch their relevance for daily social life. Dar’a’s social networks certainly are not confined to ascriptive, kinship or communitarian ties, but the region’s family clan structure and its significance in daily life and coping is remarkable. Dar’a’s clan structure, essentially comprised of networks based on extended family ties, has often erroneously been termed ‘tribalism’. Yet if ‘tribes’ (qaba`il) are to be understood as kinship groupings going beyond extended family ties as they aggregate into larger confederations (such as the Shamari and Juburi tribes), there are, strictly speaking, no tribes in Dar’a at all, but rather organizationally disconnected clans or ‘houses’ (bayt, aal or simply, ‘aylah). In this sense, there are about seven major clans that together appear to constitute the lion’s share of the governorate’s population and social life: the Abu Zeids (the largest clan in Dar’a city); the Zu’bis (reportedly the largest rural-based clan in the Hawran; see Batatu, 1999: 25); the Hariris; the Masalmas; the Muqdads; the Jawabras; and the Mahamids. At a level of daily life and social organization, the clans provide a major source of solidarity, identity and socio-economic coping or survival. In times of financial hardship members often rely on material support or loans provided by their counterparts. Leading members of the clan,11 referred to as the kubar al-‘ayla, for example, will help in collecting money to enable grooms to pay a dowry.12 Religiously conservative, the clan structure maintains and guards strict Sunni Muslim values mostly associated with Sufi tendencies, predominantly of a politically quietist nature. Combining social conservatism with practical coping mechanisms, clans also provide strong values for and a social locus of local conflict management and dispute settlement based on notions of justice and dignity. Finally, clan networks

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 provide a vehicle for career advancement and social status (Leenders, 2012a). Dense social networks, partly interlinked but not wholly overlapping with clan solidarities, also emerged around the region’s major source of income: (circular) labour migration (Chalcraft, 2009). According to official figures, Dar’awis in 1979 constituted the country’s largest group of labour migrants with 35 per cent of the province’s labour force working outside the country (Winckler, 1998: 95). Syria’s outbound labour migration increased in recent years, when it rose more than 10 per cent annually (Marzouk, 2010: 17). Whatever the exact number of workers and the volume of their remittances (UNCTAD, 2009: Table 7.4), there are strong indications that the Hawran’s contribution to what appears to be a growing trend of (circular) labour migration has been disproportionately high. For 2009, official figures ranked Dar’a among the regions with the highest dependency on transfers from abroad as a share of household income at 8.48 per cent – surpassed only by Popular Mobilization in Syria 145

Deir az-Zur.13 However, because menial workers are overrepresented in circular labour migration to and Jordan, most of which is unrecorded, and because most cash earnings are brought home in suitcases or wired via unofficial exchange bureaus, real numbers of migrant workers and their transfers are probably much higher. For our purposes what is particularly relevant in this context is that Dar’a’s outbound (circular) labour migration has been organized largely via extended social networks, sometimes based on clan membership but also on city or village of origin, or both. In the absence of formal employment agencies such networks provided crucial resources for migrant workers to cope (Chalcraft, 2009: 69–71, 149). Most importantly, social networks provided contacts with prospective employers and shelter or housing, causing workers to spend considerable parts of their lives abroad in close company with fellow Dar’awis. Successful members of these networks are individuals who are street-wise enough to survive, especially when migration occurs under semi-legal (Lebanon) or illegal conditions (Jordan). Another partly related network concerns cross-border traffic and linkages between Dar’a and Jordan. Due to Dar’a’s proximity to the border, much of its social and economic life has been directed toward Jordan, particularly the border town of ar-Ramtha and Irbid, 20 kilometres further west. Strong family or clan ties exist between these places, underscored by a strongly felt regional, Hawrani identity rivalling the two countries’ respective national identities.14 Economically, they are closely linked as well, as agricultural produce from Dar’a and Sweidah, purchased and stored by quasi-monopolist Dar’awi traders, ends up in ar-Ramtha’s markets in great volumes(Roussel, 2008: 219–21).15 Numerous economic opportunities are offered by the major border crossing of Nassib-Jaber, which connects Syria to Jordan and the Arabian Gulf. According to official Syrian figures, it services more than 5 million people annually (Syrian Arab News Agency, 21 October 2010). As well as the traders in agricultural produce, the busy traffic of people and goods across the border provides a major source of income for many Dara’wis. More than 11 per cent of Dar’a’s urban residents are officially estimated to work in ‘transport, storage and communication’,16 but real numbers are likely to be much higher as unregistered drivers use ordinary cars to transport people and goods across the border, often illegally.17 All these various, highly mobile

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 economic activities, legal and illegal, are organized via elaborate trust-based networks linking family or clan members, major traders, money exchangers, smugglers, truck drivers, taxi drivers and unregistered drivers, and indeed corrupt customs officials.18 Finally, the Hawran, and Dar’a city in particular, has been known for its disproportionately high ‘crime’ levels as defined in an authoritarian context. What ultimately interests us here is that involvement in ‘crime’ or illegal activity, because of its banned nature and its social organization, generates particular skills, tactics, resources, social relations and a social space of its own. According to official statistics,19 Dar’a in 2009 surpassed all other governorates, in absolute numbers of convictions for common law crimes. In other words, a disproportionately high number of Dar’awis, compared to residents of other governorates, appear to be involved in activities that the state or the regime classify as ‘criminal’. 146 R. Leenders & S. Heydemann

Official statistics, as always, should be used carefully, especially on highly charged subjects like crime, but no bias in the data comparing Dar’a’s conviction rates with those of other governorates seems to emerge. Moreover, anecdotal impressions from Dar’awis and outsiders also suggest that ‘crime’, in the sense of activity declared illegal by the state, has been rampant in the region.20 Like anywhere else, repeated criminal exchange, even if conducted at modest levels of complexity, requires and generates mechanisms and skills to reduce both transaction costs and chances of getting caught, including the use of middlemen, behavioural codes, trust-generating identities, cunningness and calculated risk- taking, intelligence gathering and means of concealed communication, safe houses, protection and sometimes the use of force (Della Porta & Vannuci, 2004). One may speculate about the underlying reasons for Dar’a’s rampant ‘crime’ rates; the region’s proximity to a major national border, and hence its propensity to smuggling, probably being one of them.21 Yet even if none of the aforementioned social networks can be reduced to its criminal activities alone, it is striking that each of them sustains illegal or extra-legal dimensions. Clan-based justice and conflict settlement at times supplants state civil law. Circular labor migration occurs mostly in a shadowy legal/illegal environment as workers fail to obtain work permits, cross the border without paying the mandatory exit tax and transfer their earnings back home illegally, either in their handbags or via illegal exchange offices, dodging Syria’s official foreign exchange restrictions and official exchange rates. Border traffic, as mentioned earlier, involves smuggling and paying off customs officials. In a range of ways, these social networks helped to reproduce the relationships, mechanisms, resources and skills needed to survive in the hostile and challenging environments that more often than not made illegality a necessity.22 Beyond the domain of criminality, all social networks connecting Dar’awis for different purposes and under distinct circumstances can be said to enjoy a high degree of ‘miscibility’ (Vasi, 2011), in that they reflect a high degree of interconnectedness. Thus, clan-based networks partly overlap with labour migration networks, cross-border networks and criminal or extra-legal networks. Labour migration networks feed into or are supplementary to cross-border networks and criminal networks, and vice versa. This type of social organization can also be

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 argued to have thrived in direct response to and to some degree independently from centralized, authoritarian rule and its low tolerance for formal, collective action. Returning to the main thread of our argument, one needs to appreciate this region’s dense, overlapping social networks. Our approach in this respect has been partly inspired by social network theorists within SMT and other related works suggesting mechanisms whereby social networks may matter for mobilization (McAdam et al., 2001; Osa, 2003; Einwhohner & Maher, 2011). In highly authoritarian contexts, in particular, where an open public sphere has been eliminated and formal social organizations are easily surveyed or repressed, informal social networks play a key role in mobilization (Gerlach & Hine, 1970; Shock, 2005; Gamson, 1990; Denoeux, 1993; Pfaff, 1996). Dar’a’s strong social networks served as a social site relatively independent from the state’s authoritarian surveillance where grievances and resistance to Ba’athist Popular Mobilization in Syria 147

authority could develop, be refined, expressed and shared. Whether holed up in run- down lodgings in Amman, Beirut or the Gulf, or during visits back to their families in Dar’a, circular migrant workers had fierce debates about politics.23 Interestingly, migrant workers’ harsh experiences abroad appear to have helped frame anti-regime grievances. Syria’s heavy military presence and at times heavy-handed role in Lebanon until 2005, for instance, prompted Syrian workers there to distance themselves from the Syrian regime (Chalcraft, 2009: 172). Long stays abroad also helped shape expectations about what Syria should be like, and framed discontent concerning what it actually offered (Chalcraft, 2009: 217). As noted in another context, that of circular labour migration in , ‘migrants are part of a travelling culture that exposes them to diverse worlds of association and signification that sow the seeds of discontent’ (Gidwani & Sivaramakrishnan, 2003: 191). Truckers and taxi drivers crossing the border with Jordan can be assumed to have similarly sharpened, expressed and shared their stories of political injustice outside the earshot of the regime. ‘The principal carriers of the hidden transcript’, argues Scott (1990: 124), ‘are ... likely to follow trades or vocations that encourage physical mobility’. While abroad the relatively unmonitored nature of migrant workers’ and drivers’ exchanges was naturally enhanced by the absence or limited reach of the Syrian mukhabarat, the trust built into social networks generally also generated a relatively independent space for expression and debate on domestic and international politics at home.24 With the benefit of hindsight, we can therefore strongly suspect that many of the themes, slogans and rallying cries of the uprising – including those that appeared on the walls of the Arba’in school in Dar’a – had already been scripted for years. Individuals jointly developed them while being embedded in their tightly knit social networks that are ‘as opaque to the authorities as they are indispensable to sustained collective action’ (Scott, 1990: 151). Second, Dar’a’s social networks contributed to the transfer, circulation and interpretation of information whereby the shifting opportunities emanating from events in the region were recognized, and the regime’s threats were framed in ways that induced people to act. For the uprising in Tunisia and, especially, Egypt to present opportunities, they first had to be viewed as such, foremost by establishing a resemblance between Syria’s conditions and those abroad. Contrary to common

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 conceptions held elsewhere in Syria, residents of Dar’a city, its towns and many of its villages are, thanks to their transnational networks, highly cosmopolitan and, related to this, highly informed about regional and international politics.25 Yet, even more importantly, Dar’a’s social networks and the values they embodied were also crucial in the framing of regime threats as a source of action rather than submission. The origins of this mechanism go back to the arrest of two women from Dar’a in February 2011 and the detention of the schoolboys. As recalled by a local resident, interviewed on 19 October 2011: ‘Rumours circulated that the two detained women had their heads shaven, that they were humiliated and beaten up. For the clans, this was unacceptable as it breached the honour of their women. We were furious. It was in this context that the children painted their graffiti on the school walls.’ A popular account of subsequent events, repeatedly retold, describes the attempts by Dar’a MP Nasser al-Hariri to negotiate the children’s release. Atif Najib, the local intelligence 148 R. Leenders & S. Heydemann

chief, responded to his efforts with contempt: he extended an insulting invitation to send Dar’a’s women to his office so ‘I can make them conceive some new kids’.26 Although uttered in a brief moment, the words attributed to Najib were crucial for Dar’awis’ framing of the heavy-handed security response as a cause to stand up against regime-inflicted indignity rather than as a reason to remain in silent submission. The incident would have caused any Syrian to fume, but the clans’ religious conservatism combined with their strong notions of justice, honour and shame turned their fury into a programme of action. The regime’s relentless violence that followed only served as further insult to the injury that helped spark Dar’a’s mobilization. Third, Dar’a’s social networks from the start provided an important sense of solidarity and presented the background against which recruitment for mobilization took place, both voluntarily and because of social pressure. As soon as word came out on Hariri’s meeting with Najib, the clan of Abu Zeid found itself supported by the other clans. Within days, the people of Dar’a marched in the streets in open defiance of the regime. Many of course joined less out of conviction than norms of solidarity: ‘when your clan tells you what to do, there’s no way you can ignore it’. Late recruits were probably compelled to join the movement by a sense of personal loss and anger, as more and more clan members appeared on the growing list of casualties.27 Security forces inadvertently encouraged clan solidarity as they focused suspicion on members of the Abu Zeid clan and targeted them accordingly.28 The clans’ social pressure to join the movement was most evident when it came to these clans’ regime loyalists in positions of influence. Many of them felt compelled to criticize the regime or its security forces for the violence, or to resign in protest. Finally, social networks supplied skills and resources that made mobilization more effective and helped sustain it under prohibitive conditions of massive repression.29 For example, connections with circular labour migrants and clan members abroad mobilized quickly to provide Thuraya satellite phones in anticipation of the regime turning off local communications networks. Villagers used their remittances to cope amidst strikes and a collapsing local economy, and to purchase arms.30 With internet coverage down or heavily monitored, truckers, taxi

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 drivers and unregistered drivers crossed the border to smuggle out footage of the protests on flash memory cards, which were then uploaded by relatives in ar-Ramtha or e-mailed from Dar’a to activists in Jordan and Yemen who had initiated an opposition website, called As-Sham al-Ikhbariyya. On their way back, they smuggled in weapons, and, during Dar’a’s siege between the end of April until mid- May 2011, medicines, syringes, food and baby formula. Realizing the key role of smugglers, Syrian security forces stepped up their border surveillance, temporarily shut the border down and, tellingly, sent arrested protestors from Dar’a to the ‘smugglers’ wing’ of the infamous ‘. Criminal networks provided their own skills, resources and connections to help in the smuggling of weapons and other goods. They also provided intelligence about the whereabouts of the security forces and their checkpoints, organized safe houses to conceal wanted activists, carried away the wounded and the dead, and helped establish secret, makeshift hospitals. Popular Mobilization in Syria 149

Perhaps because of criminals’ involvement in the uprising, it may be no surprise that Dar’a’s local courthouse was among the first government buildings to be set on fire even when the court processed no political cases.31

‘Scale Shift’: Mobilization among other Early Risers Now that we have contextualized the onset of mobilization within its local environment and social networks, it is striking to see the extent to which most areas that immediately followed Dar’a’s mobilization share all or most of the key characteristics explored above. Among the most energetic early risers, along with Dar’a, were the governorates of Homs, soon dubbed ‘the capital of the revolution’, Idlib and Deir Az-Zur.32 In all these places thousands of protestors took to the streets, especially from 25 March 2011 onwards, generally expressing solidarity with Dar’a and fury against the regime. In several cities, including Idlib, Ba’ath party headquarters were set on fire and regime statues torn down. As soon as security forces clamped down on mostly peaceful protestors with heavy force, mass demonstrations quickly escalated beyond the weekly rhythm connected with Friday prayers, becoming daily events. If reported protest-related deaths can be viewed as a proxy measure for the intensity of early mobilization (viewed as the number of mobilized individuals compared to governorates’ share of total population), Dar’a, Homs, Idlib and Deir Az-Zur clearly emerge as the country’s heartlands of mobilization during its first few months. Between March and June 2011, these governorates combined suffered about 70 per cent of total reported deaths, while their share of the country’s total population does not exceed 21 per cent.33 Put differently, these figures appear to suggest that more than anywhere else in the country, during these early months of the uprising, residents mobilized and went into the streets en masse, eliciting brutal reactions from security forces. Dar’a in this respect stands out as it suffered more than 26 per cent of casualties nationwide; nearly six times more than the governorate’s 4.4 per cent share of the country’s total population.34 Similarly for Homs governorate, during the same period it reportedly suffered more than 25 per cent of total casualties nationwide; disproportionately large given its 8.7 per cent share of the country’s total population.35 Neighbourhoods of Homs city, including Bab ‘Amr, and nearby

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 villages like Rastan witnessed particularly intense mobilization. Further to the north, in Idlib governorate, mass protests swelled and were sustained at very high levels at least until June 2011 when armed clashes broke out between security forces and armed opposition groups. Fighting soon shifted to the governorate’s mountainous Jabal al- Zawiya area near the Turkish border. Idlib governorate reportedly sustained nearly 15 per cent of total deaths between March and June 2011; more than twice its 6.4 per cent share of population.36 Deir Az-Zur governorate also witnessed near immediate and intense mobilization following events in Dar’a, with its provincial capital and border town Bu Kamal becoming the scene of large and sustained mass demonstrations. Fighting also broke out in Bu Kamal between security forces and defectors, especially from the summer of 2011 onwards. Deir Az-Zur reportedly suffered 3.35 per cent of total deaths between March and June 2011 – a large share of casualties given its 1.3 per cent share of the country’s total population.37 150 R. Leenders & S. Heydemann

In line with insights offered by SMT (Tarrow, 1994: 86) one can reasonably assume that mobilization in Dar’a affected opportunity structures perceived by protestors elsewhere in the country as the unprecedented sight of mass demonstrations and collective disobedience in Dar’a, frantically broadcast and narrated by activists, shattered the myth of Syrian exceptionalism. Likewise, the signals of change emanating from Tunisia and Egypt had already raised expectations across the country that popular mobilization could reach Syria. Indeed, individual activists and small groups of protestors across the country made some modest or unsuccessful attempts at mobilization between the end of January through mid- March 2011, in Hasakeh, Bab Tuma, Hariqa (Damascus) and Aleppo (Leenders, 2012a). However, this does not explain why mobilization was most intense in specific places while elsewhere small-scale contention failed to reach critical mass during the first months of the uprising. Hence, for ‘scale shift’ to occur – a mechanism that increases ‘the number and level of coordinated contentious actions, leading to broader contention involving a wider range of actors and bridging their claims and identities’ (McAdam et al., 2001: 311) – we need to focus on how diffusion was made possible and how this affected Homs, Idlib and Deir Az-Zur with particular force. Pending a full and detailed investigation into each of these places, there are strong reasons to suspect that the kind of tightly knit social networks that played their part in Dara’s mobilization effected and made possible similarly intense mobilization levels and their persistence among other early risers. To a greater or lesser extent, these other sites of early protest show some remarkably comparable features when it comes to social network endowments and related mechanisms relevant to mobilization as detailed above for the case of Dar’a. Notably, it was the governorates of Homs and Deir Az-Zur, which have strong tribal or clan-like forms of social organization, which featured significantly in the uprising.38 Prominent tribal leaders who publicly lent their support to the uprising include Khalid al-Khalaf, a leading figure in the Saddah al-Bakara tribe, one of the largest tribes in Deir az-Zur, who went into forced exile in 2008, and later joined the opposition Syrian National Council. Another leader of the same tribe was Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir, who from the start joined public rallies against the regime in Deir Az-Zur and Bu Kamal and established himself as a fervent supporter of peaceful

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 opposition against the regime until he was arrested and, allegedly, killed under torture in June 2011 (As-Sharq al-Awsat, 1 August 2011). Protestors in both Homs and Deir Az-Zur framed their revolt explicitly in tribal terms, evoking notions of tribal justice and dignity to explain their rage about and retaliation for causalities inflicted by the regime’s security forces (Sands, 2011). In some instances, demonstrations were staged as exclusively tribal gatherings (, 10 June 2011) while protestors across the country dubbed 20 June the ‘Friday of the Tribes’ in appreciation for their role in the uprising. Symptomatic of the tribes’ role has been the regime’s response, which repeatedly paraded loyalist tribal leaders to make the increasingly dubious claim that it continued to enjoy the tribes’ full support (Syrian Arab News Agency, 24 August 2011; Al-Manar, 28 September 2011). Circular migration and the networks associated with it are especially relevant in Deir Az-Zur where household incomes are even more dependent on remittances than Popular Mobilization in Syria 151

their counterparts in Dar’a.39 Homs and Idlib score lower on this measure, yet still rank remarkably higher than most other governorates.40 The cumulative effects of circular migration and its related social networks on mobilization in Dar’a are likely to have been key in accounting for other early risers as well. Furthermore, all early risers share with Dar’a locations on or close to Syria’s international borders. The social networks and cross-border traffic that such proximity generates has frequently been emphasized with reference to smuggling, particularly of arms, both in media accounts and by the regime (Tishrin, 8 April 2011; Al-Sabil, 28 June 2011; Christian Science Monitor, 9 June 2011; The Daily Star, 23 September 2011). All of the areas involved, including Homs governorate, are known for their smuggling traditions and porous borders (Obeid, 2010; Hutson & Long, 2011). Yet there is no reason to believe that cross-border networks only involved smuggling; such networks are likely to have contributed to and facilitated mobilization in many other significant ways as well, as they did in Dar’a. In addition, and Lebanon soon became prominent as hosts to Syrian activists crossing the borders, carrying digital footage of regime atrocities, communications equipment, medical supplies and food. In the early months of the uprising, the financial, human and cognitive resources that border proximity generates are likely to have been essential for early mobilization and the ability of protesters to sustain and broaden their collective action despite heavy regime repression. Finally, ‘crime’ levels are higher than would be expected based on the early risers’ share of total population, except for Homs. In other words, in the four governorates ‘crime’ thrived like nowhere else in the country. None of the early risers match Dar’a’s official crime rate, yet both Idlib and Deir Az-Zur scored disproportionately high, with respectively 8.4 and 6.7 per cent of total convictions in 2009, compared to their share of total population of 6.4 per cent and 1.3 per cent respectively.41 Homs scored lower on crime convictions (nearly 6 per cent) than would be expected based on its share of total population (8.7 per cent).42 Many Syrian activists or Syrians who are sympathetic to the uprising acknowledged the key role of those involved in ‘crime’, while stressing their contribution to the uprising.

Network Miscibility, not a Conspiracy Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 SMT theorists have put considerable emphasis on the role of ‘brokers’ who are viewed as key actors establishing relational mechanisms making and altering connections between people and groups that help them discover their common interests and identities, and come together during periods of increased interaction, and hence spread contention (McAdam et al., 2001: 331). To some extent this emphasis on prominent individual agents or leaders of mobilization has been echoed by the Syrian regime’s insistence that the uprising, in Dar’a and beyond, was the work of (foreign-backed) instigators or conspirators, mostly accused of Salafist or Islamist sympathies. Although it cannot be ruled out that at least some Islamist ‘brokers’ or instigators played a role in the first months of the uprising (while they certainly emerged at a later stage of armed resistance), the argument fails to capture the dynamics of mobilization by the early risers. To understand how mobilization 152 R. Leenders & S. Heydemann

could occur without them, it may be useful to first look at the actors who were accused of instigating and leading the ‘conspiracy’ in Dar’a. Immediately following the onset of mass mobilization in Dar’a, the Syrian regime focused much of its narrative response to the uprising on the ‘instigators’ and ‘conspirators’ accused of leading the revolt. Two main characters found themselves the particular targets of regime attention in this respect: Sheikh Ahmad al-Sayyasna, the imam of the ‘Umari mosque in Dar’a, and Dar’a’s mufti Sheikh Rizq Abd al- Rahim Abuzeid (Syrian Arab News Agency, 27–29 April 2011, 10 and 27 May 2011). The regime’s account portrayed the two men as the brains behind the uprising and accused them of orchestrating alleged terrorist operations against security forces by Salafist or Takfiri radicals. They were charged with obtaining financial resources and weapons from Saudi-based Salafists, calling for jihad, instigating demonstrations, issuing a fatwa branding Syrian security forces as ‘Zionists’, and paying volunteers to attack security forces and burn down Ba’ath party headquarters. More specifically, a link was suggested between Sayyasna and Adnan al-‘Arur, a Dar’a-born anti-Shiite sheikh who, Syrian Arab News Agency reports alleged, resides in Saudi-Arabia where he facilitated the contacts between Sayyasna and his Saudi sponsors. In addition, the regime alleged that both men and their co-conspirators were helped by members of radical groups including Fatah al-Islam and Jund as-Sham, and new recruits incited by the Egyptian radical cleric Yussef al-Qaradawi (BBC Arabic, 28 March 2011; Syrian State TV, 10 May 2011). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the account fails to convince. In fact, it was only accurate concerning ‘Arur and Qaradawi’s convictions, as both men indeed issued statements calling on Syrians to overthrow the ‘Alawite regime as their religious duty. Yet ‘Arur left Saudi Arabia years ago, then went to London and currently resides in Jordan. His relations with Saudi Arabia are troubled at best. Qaradawi’s message failed to resonate in the streets of Dar’a and, after scrutinizing large amounts of YouTube footage, we found no slogans or banners that during the first few months of the uprising referred to or even resonated with his ideas. The alleged involvement of Fatah al-Islam and Jund as-Sham raises more questions than it answers. For one thing, why would protestors have turned to members of the religious establishment, formerly allied to the regime, if both militant organizations had led or hijacked popular mobilization, or in other 43

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 ways played a prominent role? On top of this, both organizations were defunct as all their known members and leaders, including from villages near Dar’a, were imprisoned and remained in jail during at least the first months of the uprising.44 Both men did indeed give angry sermons and speeches in front of crowds of protestors, while Sayyasna heavily criticized the regime’s heavy-handedness on Arab satellite news channels. Yet none of the activists and residents from Dar’a interviewed accepted the characterization of these two men as leaders or as playing a key role in mobilization.45 Other than a few public appearances, the mufti remained absent during demonstrations. Sayyasna appears to have been pushed into a position of seeming prominence because his mosque became a bastion of opposition, which was only reinforced when security forces pounded it and then raided it in response to the protests. Consequently, and together with other local dignitaries who had links to the regime, he was forced to take a position. In fact, one Popular Mobilization in Syria 153

resident said Sayyasna even went to his village nearby in the first week of protests to urge restraint and to discourage villagers from coming to Dar’a city to demonstrate. Finally, after the regime had silenced both Sayyasna and Rizq, by putting them under house arrest, killing their relatives and forcing them to confess to having been ‘misguided’ in supporting the protests, mobilization continued unabated. In conclusion, Dar’a’s main revolutionary or ‘terrorist’ instigators appear to have been little more than the fantasy of a regime searching in vain for ‘conspirators’ to eliminate. During the first few months of the uprising, the lack of brokers or key leaders characterized mobilization by the other early risers as well. This led Syrian anti- regime commentators and other more established activists to complain about the absence of leadership that they perceived as necessary to transform mass protests into a genuine revolution.46 Only in the late summer were attempts made to create such a leadership, although such efforts have been largely unsuccessful to date.47 Our findings suggest that dense social networks and their miscibility stood in, to a significant extent, for the role attributed to ‘brokers’ and ‘conspirators’, and connected individuals of different origins throughout and between regions, urban or rural, and of various socio-economic strata. A brief reference to the ‘neighbourhood committees’ that arose in Dar’a may illustrate this.48 Emerging immediately after the regime’s violence on 18 March, the first such a ‘committee’ (lajneh) was formed spontaneously by 82 men who had met each other on the frontlines of confrontations with security forces. ‘The committee wasn’t established, it formed itself.’49 Some members were poor, others were quite well off, some were unemployed, others ran their own businesses. Their ages varied from 26 to 48 years. They came from most of Dar’a’s main clans. Some had relatives abroad, mostly in the Gulf. Most had spent time in prison, but none for serious crimes. Together they bundled their resources, skills and connections, and initially began negotiating with the security forces to stop the bloodletting. Failing this, they provided protection and intelligence to the protestors, and encouraged army soldiers to defect. Relentless regime violence did the rest: ‘There was an unprecedented togetherness and each person felt like he knew the others for years. The authorities’ transgression actually made the bond between them much firmer.’50

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 As the committee’s membership grew, its template spread through the entire province, so that within a matter of weeks village and town had its own ‘committee’. The next step was that these committees started communicating with one another and, when necessary, helping each other out. Even though members of the committees in the province had not known each other personally before the uprising, they connected via overlapping social networks built up over the years that now provided the cognitive frameworks, contacts, solidarity, skills and resources to rise up against authoritarian rule. Dar’a’s ‘committees’ spread to the other early risers elsewhere in the country, partly in emulation and partly because they independently originated in and reflected similar social network mechanisms. Soon they evolved into an amorphous web of committees, commissions, councils and unions, including the Local Coordinating Committees (Shadid, 2011). Fragmentation and the absence of clear leadership 154 R. Leenders & S. Heydemann

continued at least until the summer of 2011. In a sense, such decentralized, non- hierarchical mobilization contributed to Syrian protestors’ resilience in the face of regime repression, while others rejoiced in the absence of clear leadership as ‘revolutions with charismatic leadership often end in coups and military takeovers’.51 On the first point, Syria’s early risers appear to corroborate some authors inspired by SMT in stressing challengers’ greater effectiveness when they are organized as networks (Gerlach & Hine, 1970; Gamson, 1990; Shock, 2005: 52). Indeed, the Syrian regime was not going to put a halt to mobilization by rounding up its leadership, despite its best efforts. Yet by Ramadan in August 2011, regime repression, in addition to its increasingly clever tactics to divide the opposition and shore up the loyalty both of its supporters and those sitting on the fence, appears to have caused mobilization to slow down. This counter-revolutionary campaign now needed a more coordinated, unified and resourceful effort to withstand and defeat the regime. Subsequent attempts to establish such leadership have been hampered, however, not least because those who presented themselves as suitable candidates appeared to be out of touch with the Syrian grassroots and could always be accused of imposing their leadership on a popular uprising that had commenced and spread without them. Thus, to an extent, what had been a source of strength for mobilization during the first few months became a liability thereafter.

Conclusion Popular uprisings, especially revolutions, tend to be analysed as one single event, with their outcomes retroactively colouring the study of their earlier or intermediate phases. Mindful of warnings against such an approach, and acknowledging the often messy, non-linear and rapidly changing nature of mobilization and contestation (McAdam et al., 2001), this article disaggregated Syria’s uprising by focusing on the early months involving its early risers. We first argued that opportunity structures changed considerably in favour of mobilization throughout Syria following the dramatic revolutionary events in Tunisia and Egypt. The initial impetus, therefore, came from abroad. However, for these external events to have a tangible impact on the propensity for mobilization, it was argued that Dar’a’s own opportunity structure

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 favoured effective mobilization due in part to ingrained perceptions of its loyalty to the Ba’ath regime and its ‘marginal’, ‘backward’ or ‘isolated’ qualities that created spaces where dissent could become organized, informally, without attracting the regime’s notice. The regime’s discursive framing of opportunities thus played a role in shaping opportunity structures: these were not entirely a product of the agency of the regime’s adversaries. An increased level of threat also played its part, once Dar’a was subjected to fierce repression and regime violence. Noting that both ‘opportunity’ and ‘threat’ should be viewed as necessary but insufficient conditions for effective mobilization, we moved to the dense social networks of the early risers. These networks centred on clan or tribal structures, circular labour migration, cross- border movements and ‘criminality’, and served as a social site relatively independent of the state’s authoritarian surveillance, where grievances and nonconforming views on submission to Ba’athist authority could develop, be Popular Mobilization in Syria 155

refined, expressed and shared. These social networks contributed to the transfer, circulation and interpretation of information whereby the shifting opportunities emanating from events in the region were recognized, and the regime’s threats were framed in ways that compelled people to act. From the start, networks provided an important sense of solidarity and presented the background against which recruitment for mobilization took place, both voluntarily and because of social pressure. In addition, these networks supplied key skills and resources for mobilization to be effective and to be sustained under prohibitive conditions of massive repression. Finally, we contended that dense social networks, thanks to their high miscibility or strongly overlapping qualities, substituted for the role attributed to ‘brokers’ (in SMT parlance) or ‘conspirators’ (the Syrian regime’s preferred term), and succeeded in connecting individuals of different origins throughout the region, urban or rural, and of various socio-economic strata. What resulted was largely ‘leaderless’ mobilization, initially giving it resilience in the face of a regime determined to identify ‘conspirators’ to eliminate. Yet when regime repression increased and counter-revolutionary tactics became more developed, attempts to construct a more coordinated, unified and resourceful opposition were hampered by an emerging leadership’s relative detachment from the popular mobilization that had commenced and lasted for months without them.

Notes

1 For a detailed discussion of the role of social media and YouTube footage in the Syrian uprising, and the opportunities and challenges these pose for SMT-inspired research see Leenders (2012a). 2 Reinoud Leenders’ e-mail exchange with Ausama Monajed, 29 September 2011, and with Syrian journalist and activist Ayman Abdul-Nur, 19 September 2011, President Bashar al-Assad’s speech in Parliament, Syrian State TV, 30 March 2011. 3 Reinoud Leenders’ interview with human rights activist Walid Saffour, 7 October 2011. 4 See for example the comments made in UNDP (2008). 5 Reinoud Leenders’ interviews with Syrian activists from Dar’a governorate, September–October 2011. 6 Ibid. 7 Reinoud Leenders’ e-mail exchange with Ausama Monajed, 29 September 2011, and interviews with Syrian activists, April–May 2011.

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 8 See the portrait of Aisha Abu Zeid by Yasser Abu Hilala in Al-Hayat (16 August 2011). 9 The estimate is by the opposition website ‘Syrian Shuhada’, the only source we are aware of providing total numbers of protest-related fatalities per month and per governorate, at: http://syrianshuhada.com/ Default.asp?a ¼ st&st ¼ 20 (accessed 16 April 2012). 10 For a list of names and locations of arrests and detentions during the first few months of the uprising, see Syrian Human Rights Information Link, at: http://www.shril-sy.info/enshril/ (accessed 16 April 2012). 11 More concentrated, centralized leadership – the phenomenon of the ‘paramount chief’ – seems to have died out by the early 1970s (Batatu, 1999: 26). 12 Reinoud Leenders’ interview with Dar’a resident, 19 September 2011. 13 At: http://www.cbssyr.org/family/family2009/Family8T-2009.htm (accessed 16 April 2012). 14 Reinoud Leenders’ interviews with Dar’a residents and activists, September–October 2011. 15 Ibid. 16 At: http://www.cbssyr.org/work/2010/ALL-2010/TAB13.htm (accessed 16 April 2012). 17 Reinoud Leenders’ interview with Dar’a resident, 19 September 2011; Jordan Times, 1 May 2011. 18 Reinoud Leenders’ interview with Dar’a resident, 19 September 2011. 156 R. Leenders & S. Heydemann

19 At: http://www.cbssyr.org/yearbook/2010/Data-Chapter13/TAB-6-13-2010.htm, http://www.cbssyr. org/yearbook/2008/Data-Chapter13/TAB-6-13-2008.htm (accessed 16 April 2012). 20 Reinoud Leenders’ interviews with Dar’a residents and activists, September–October 2010. 21 In this respect Dar’a as ‘borderland’ would be no exception (Goodhand, 2011: 236). 22 On the role of illegality in survival strategies in a general Middle Eastern and authoritarian context see Bayat (2009: 93). 23 Reinoud Leenders’ interview with Dar’a resident, 19 October 2011. 24 Reinoud Leenders’ interview with migrant from Dar’a, 19 October 2011. 25 Ibid. On this point concerning borderlands more generally see Goodhand (2011: 232). 26 Reinoud Leenders’ interview of local resident, 19 October 2011. 27 On 17 April 2011 a banner outside Dar’a’s Umari mosque listed the names of ‘martyrs’, many of them from the large clans. See: http://www.onsyria.com/?clip ¼ 5408&cat ¼ 5&parent ¼ 1&page ¼ 310& sort_order ¼ timestamp (accessed 16 April 2012). 28 See the eyewitness accounts cited by Samar Yazbak in Al-Hayat (16 August 2011). 29 Most of the following is based on Reinoud Leenders’ interviews and e-mail exchanges with residents and activists from Dar’a and Syrian activists between September and November 2011, unless stated otherwise. 30 The potential effect of remittances and outside investments in Syria fostering a degree of material independence from the state has also been noted by Balanche (2005: 207). 31 Alternatively, some suggested that the courthouse was burned down by security forces themselves to bring the uprising into disrepute (RL interview with Dar’a activist, 29 September 2011). 32 Protests also occurred in other places, including Sunni neighbourhoods and towns in Latakiyya, but at least until the summer of 2011 they were repressed or contained at much lower levels of intensity. 33 Estimates of protest-related deaths per months/governorate, at: http://syrianshuhada.com/Default. asp?a ¼ st&st ¼ 20 (accessed 16 April 2012). Official 2010 population figures from Syria’s Central Bureau of Statistics, at: http://www.cbssyr.org/work/2010/ALL-2010/TAB1.htm (accessed 16 April 2012). 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 On the importance of tribes in the uprising in Deir az-Zur see Nasser al-Ayid in Al-Hayat (22 December 2012). On tribes and clans in Homs governorate see Chatty (2010). 39 At: http://www.cbssyr.org/family/family2009/Family8T-2009.htm (accessed 16 April 2012). 40 Ibid. 41 See: http://www.cbssyr.org/yearbook/2010/Data-Chapter13/TAB-6-13-2010.htm (accessed 16 April 2012). 42 Ibid. 43 The authors are grateful to Thomas Pierret for raising this point in a conversation on the issue.

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 44 Reinoud Leenders’ interviews with Syrian activists and residents from Dar’a governorate, September– October 2011. 45 Ibid. 46 See for example Yassin al-Hajj Saleh interviewed at Jadaliyya on 4 April 2011, at: http:// www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1103/ _on-syria_intervi (accessed 16 April 2012); and an interview with human rights activist Razzan Zaytuneh on 18 September 2011, at: http://shabab.assafir.com/Interview/?InterviewID ¼ 80(accessed 16 April 2012). 47 For an overview of such attempts see Slim (2011). 48 The following is based on a detailed e-mail exchange with Muhammad (21 October 2011), a zged who participated in the first neighbourhood committee in Dar’a. 49 Reinoud Leenders’ e-mail exchange with Muhammad, one of the committee’s members, 24 October 2011. 50 Ibid. Popular Mobilization in Syria 157

51 Interview with Riyyad al-Turk by Ali Atassi, 29 July 2010, at http://www.syriatruth.org/index. php?option ¼ com_content&view ¼ article&id ¼ 2612:2011-07-29-10-22-32&catid ¼ 47:2010-12- 23-21-35-40&Itemid ¼ 85 (accessed 16 April 2012).

References Alimi, E. (2007) The dialectic of opportunities and threats and temporality of contention: evidence from the occupied territories, International Political Science Review, 28(1), pp. 101–123. Almeida, P. D. (2008) Waves of Protest: Popular Struggle in El Salvador, 1925–2005 (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press). Balanche, F. (2005) La fragmentation spatiale en Syrie: entre patrimonialisme et communautarisme rampant, Revue de l’Economie Me´ridionale, June, pp. 203–210. Batatu, H. (1999) Syria’s Peasantry, the Descendants of its Lesser Rural Notables, and their Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Bayat, A. (2009) Life as Politics. How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). Beinin, J. & Vairel, F. (Eds) (2011) Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). Chalcraft, J. (2009) The Invisible Cage: Syrian Migrant Workers in Lebanon (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). Chatty, D. (2010) The Bedouin in contemporary Syria: the persistence of tribal authority and control, Middle East Journal, 64(1), pp. 29–49. Della Porta, D. & Vannuci, A. (2004) The governance mechanisms of corrupt transactions, in: J. G. Lambsdorff, M. Taube & M. Schramm (Eds) The New Institutional Economics of Corruption (London: Routledge). Diani, M. (2003) Introduction: social movements, contentious actions, and social networks: ‘from metaphor to substance’?, in: M. Diani & D. McAdam (Eds) Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Donati, C. (2009) L’Exception Syrienne. Entre Modernisation et Re´sistance (Paris: Editions La De´couverte). Einwohner, R. L. & Maher, T. V. (2011) Threat assessment and collective-action emergence: camp and ghetto resistance during the Holocaust, Mobilization: An International Journal, 16(2), pp. 127–146. Gamson, W. A. (1990) The Strategy of Social Protest (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth). Gerlach, L. P. & Hine, V. H. (1970) People, Power, Change: Movements of Social Transformation (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill). Gidwani, V. & Sivaramakrishnan, K. (2003) Circular migration and the spaces of cultural assertion, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 93(1), pp. 186–213. Goldstone, J. (2004) More social movements or fewer? Beyond political opportunity structures to relational fields, Theory and Society, 33(3/4), pp. 333–365.

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 Goldstone, J. & Tilly, C. (2001) Threat (and opportunity): popular action and state response in the dynamic of contentious action, in: R. Aminzade, J. Goldstone, D. McAdam, E. Perry, W. Sewell, S. Tarrow & C. Tilly (Eds) Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Goodhand, J. (2011) War, peace, and the places in between: why borderlands are central, in: M. Pugh, N. Cooper & M. Turner (Eds) Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding (London: Palgrave Macmillan). Goodwin, J. & Jasper, J. (1999) Caught in a winding, snarling vine: the structuralist bias of political process theory, Sociological Forum, 14, pp. 27–54. Gregory Gause III, F. (2011) The Middle East academic community and the ‘winter of Arab discontent’: why did we miss it?, in: E. Laipson (Ed.) Seismic Shift: Understanding Change in the Middle East (Washington DC: Henry L. Stimson Center). Human Rights Watch (2011) We’ve never seen such horror: crimes against humanity by Syrian security forces, 1 June. Available at: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/syria0611webwcover.pdf (accessed 14 April 2012). 158 R. Leenders & S. Heydemann

Hutson, R. & Long, T. (2011) Features of smuggling in Wadi Khaled, Lebanon, Conflict, Security and Development, 11(4), pp. 385–413. International Crisis Group (2011) Popular protest in North Africa and the Middle East (VII): the Syrian regime’s slowmotion suicide, Middle East/North Africa Report Number 109, 13 July. Available at http://www.crisisgroup.org/,/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/Iraq%20Syria% 20Lebanon/Syria/109%20Popular%20Protest%20in%20North%20Africa%20and%20the% 20Middle%20East%20VII%20–%20The%20Syrian%20Regimes%20Slow-motion%20Suicide.pdf (accessed 14 April 2012). Kassab, E. S. (2010) Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective (Columbia, NY: Columbia University Press). Leenders, R. (2012a) Collective action and popular mobilization in Dar’a: an anatomy of the onset of Syria’s uprising, Mobilization: An International Journal (forthcoming). Leenders, R. (2012b) Prosecuting political dissent: courts and the resilience of authoritarianism in Baathist Syria, in: S. Heydemann & R. Leenders (Eds) Comparing Authoritarianisms: Reconfiguring Power and Regime Resilience in Syria and Iran (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, forthcoming). Marzouk, N. (2010) L’e´migration syrienne hautement qualifie´e: les enjeux sociopolitiques, CARIM Notes d’analyse et de synthe`se, 2010/25. Available at http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/13679/ CARIM_ASN_2010_25.pdf?sequence¼1 (accessed 14 April 2012). McAdam, D., Tarrow, S. & Tilly, C. (2001) Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Meyer, D. S. (2004) Protest and political opportunities, Annual Review of Sociology, 30, pp. 125–145. Narwani, S. (2012) Questioning the Syrian ‘casualty list’, Al-Akhbar English, 28 February. Available at http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/questioning-syrian-“casualty-list” (accessed 14 April 2012). Obeid, M. (2010) Searching for the ‘ideal face of the state’ in a Lebanese border town, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 16(2), pp. 330–346. Osa, M. (2003) Networks in opposition: linking organizations through activists in the Polish People’s Republic, in: M. Diani & D. McAdam (Eds) Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Pfaff, S. (1996) Collective identity and informal groups in revolutionary mobilization: East Germany in 1989, Social Forces, 75(1), pp. 91–117. Roussel, C. (2008) L’agriculture dans la montagne druze (Syrie) entre cliente´lisme, blocages communautaires et libe´ralisation e´conomique: un de´veloppement durable pour le paysan druze? Ge´ocarrefour, 83(3), pp. 213–221. Sands, P. (2011) Tribal justice blamed for deaths of 120 Syrian police and soldiers, The National, 17 May. Available at http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/tribal-justice-blamed-for-deaths-of- 120-syrian-police-and-soldiers (accessed 14 April 2012). Scott, J. C. (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). Shadid, A. (2011) Coalition of factions from the streets fuels a new opposition in Syria, New York Times,

Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016 30 June. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/world/middleeast/01syria.html?page- wanted¼all (accessed 14 April 2012). Shock, K. (2005) Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press). Slim, R. (2011) Meet Syria’s opposition, Foreign Policy, 2 November. Available at http://mideast. foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/11/02/meet_syrias_opposition (accessed 14 April 2012). Tarrow, S. (1994) Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Tilly, C. (1977) From mobilization to revolution, University of Michigan Center for Research on Social Organization Working Paper No. 156. Available at http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/ 50931/1/156.pdf (accessed 14 April 2012). UNCTAD (2009) Handbook of Statistics (Geneva: ). Popular Mobilization in Syria 159

UNDP (2008) Syrians to get better access to justice, 27 November. Available at http://web.archive.org/ web/20090427140442/http://www.undp.org.sy/index.php/stories/59-democratic-governance/426- syrians-to-get-better-access-to-justice (accessed 14 April 2012). Vasi, I. B. (2011) Brokerage, miscibility, and the spread of contention, Mobilization: An International Journal, 16(1), pp. 11–24. Winckler, O. (1998) Demographic Developments and Population Policies in Baa´thist Syria (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press). Downloaded by [King's College London] at 08:04 17 March 2016