Popular Mobilization in Syria: Opportunity and Threat, and the Social Networks of the Early Risers
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Mediterranean Politics ISSN: 1362-9395 (Print) 1743-9418 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmed20 Popular Mobilization in Syria: 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 Homs, 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, (Arabic) 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).