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An Analysis of Foreign Involvement Within the Syria Conflict. - Why Had the United States and Russia a Foreign Interest in Syria

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An Analysis of Foreign Involvement Within the Syria Conflict. - Why Had the United States and Russia a Foreign Interest in Syria Bachelor thesis An analysis of foreign involvement within the Syria conflict. - Why had the United States and Russia a foreign interest in Syria. Author: Emelie Pettersson Supervisor: Anders Persson Examiner: Martin Nilsson Term: Ht19 Subject: Political Science Level: Bachelor Thesis Course code: 2SK31E 2 Abstract This study offers an alternative analysis of the current literature regarding foreign involvement in the Syria civil war. The initials briefly describe the current situation in Syria, international relations and why the conflict is interesting to analyse from a scientific standpoint. The relevant actors and theoretical construction are also introduced. In the previous research chapter, the current research is presented concerning the global superpowers as well as the interventions that have taken place in Syria. In the theory chapter realism and liberalism are presented, and a number of important factors are discussed. In the result, the decisions and events that have taken place during the conflict in Syria is analysed through the lens of previous named theories. The actors studied are the USA and Russia. There are both realistic and liberalist elements in the decisions made by the actors. The final part of the essay discusses the result. The underlying interest of the players largely determines which decision is ultimately taken. Moreover, there are underlying tones of realism even in clearly liberalistic decisions. Key words International Relations, International politics, IR Realism, IR Liberalism, foreign policy, foreign intervention, Syria civil war, Russia foreign policy, US foreign policy. 3 Table of Content 1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 6 1.1. Aim, problem statement and limitations. ............................................. 7 1.1.1. Limitations ....................................................................................................... 7 1.2. Outline ..................................................................................................... 8 1.3. Previous research .................................................................................... 8 1.3.1. Global powers and foreign interventions ......................................................... 8 1.3.2. Foreign intervention in Syria ......................................................................... 11 2. Methodology ......................................................................................... 13 2.1. Case study and qualitative research .................................................... 13 2.1.1. Strength and limitations ................................................................................. 14 2.2. Research design and sample selection ................................................. 15 2.3. Collecting data and level of analysis.................................................... 16 2.4. Validity, reliability and ethics .............................................................. 16 2.5. Material and source discussion ............................................................ 17 Theory ................................................................................................... 18 Realism ................................................................................................... 18 Security .......................................................................................................... 18 Interests .......................................................................................................... 19 Power rivalry ................................................................................................. 20 Resources ....................................................................................................... 22 Liberalism .............................................................................................. 23 The UN system .............................................................................................. 23 International law ............................................................................................ 24 Trade .............................................................................................................. 25 Interdependence ............................................................................................. 26 Table 1.1 ................................................................................................. 27 Result .................................................................................................... 28 Realism ................................................................................................... 28 USA ............................................................................................................... 28 Russia ............................................................................................................. 30 Liberalism .............................................................................................. 34 USA ............................................................................................................... 34 Russia ............................................................................................................. 38 Discussion ............................................................................................. 41 Is it liberalism? ...................................................................................... 42 Bibliography ................................................................................................. 43 4 5 1. Introduction The Arabic Spring in 2011 consisted of spontaneous public riots who challenged the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, including Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. In Syria democratic activists started a revolution against the country's ruling al-Assad family and demanded the resignation of the president and democratic reforms.1 The war in Syria has been raging for over eight years, and a huge part of the population have had to flee their homes. Many of them are children, and numerous are severely traumatized.2 The uprising was "cut off" and Syria is now an arena for regional and global superpowers different interest.3 Within an increasingly globalized world international relations are becoming progressively more important. International politics is a summary term of states' foreign policy and mutual relations.4 International relations explain the relationship between national governments, international organizations, multinational corporations, economic culture and national politics.5 It is interesting to analyze what really determines the foreign policy of states from a scientific perspective; is it because of self-interest or idealistic considerations?6 The war in Syria is also interesting to study from an outer 1 Utrikespolitiska institutet, ”Konflikten i Syrien” 2019, https://www.ui.se/landguiden/konflikter/syrien/ (111119) 2 UNHCR, ”Kriget i Syrien” 2019, https://sverigeforunhcr.se/syrien 3.Utrikespolitiska institutet, ”Konflikten i Syrien” 2019, https://www.ui.se/landguiden/konflikter/syrien/ (111119) 4 Nationalencyklopedin, internationell politik http://www.ne.se.proxy.lnu.se/uppslagsverk/encyklopedi/lång/internationell-politik (011219) 5 Fajana, Sola. “The Systems Approach as Theory for Multinational Industrial Relations in Developing Countries.” Relations Industrielles / Industrial Relations, vol. 44, no. 3, 1989, pp. 615–634. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23073602. (111119) 6 Peter Esaiasson, Mikael Giljam, Henrik Oskarsson, Lena Wängnerud, ”Metodpraktikan – konsten att studera samhälle, individ och marknad” tredje upplagan, Elanders Gotab, Vällingeby 2007. 40 6 scientific perspective as the world today is beset by several conflicts. In 2015, the refugee crisis peaked and became the biggest humanitarian crises since the Second World War. The conflict in Syria has attracted several strong international players and the decisions has not been unanimous. 7 1.1. Aim, problem statement and limitations. This paper aims to explain on what grounds international superpowers have made their decisions regarding the Syria conflict. Through comparing selected actors in relation to established theories of international relations this thesis aims to answerer to the following problem statement; Why did the United states and Russia act as they did regarding the conflict in Syria? - an analysis of the Syria conflict using realism and liberalism. 1.1.1. Limitations This paper will mainly focus on the Syrian conflict and not on other Arab Spring countries, however, other countries within the region will be mentioned if considered relevant. This paper has limited the actors to two different global superpowers, namely the United States and Russia, due to their prominent role in the conflict. Other international actors such as EU and UN will not be analyzed since this study only focuses on states as actors. There are also several significant regional powers that are involved in the conflict such as Turkey, Israel and Lebanon, however, they will not be studied because of the scope of the essay. The theories used in this paper is realism and liberalism since they are the two most prominent perspective within international theories. Another prominent theory is constructivism; however, the scope of the study does not 7 Svenska Dagbladet, ”FN: Asylsystemet måste ändras”, 2015-01-21, https://www.svd.se/fn- asylsystemet-maste-andras (201119) 7 allow for further
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