Syria: Neoliberalism and Social Movements

• In Event: Globalized Social Movements, Latin America, the Arab Spring and Beyond-1

Abstract

Syria is a pivotal and complex nation-state where ordinary people for decades have been refusing to exit from the social and political stage controlled by the Assad’s repressive state and they have been generating and discovering new spaces within which they can voice their dissent and strive to enhance their lives. Nevertheless, through the prism of prevailing social movement theories, which were primarily developed in politically open western societies, many scholars have concluded that there was no such thing as social movement in Syria because the characteristics of ordinary people and youth activities did not comply with the principle “ framework” of the West. Social movements in Syria may be unconventional but they definitely exist. Contrary to the prevailing discourse, activism and agency in Syria, Middle Eastern, and Muslim societies merely take on a different form that is rooted in the socio-religious and socio-political context, but have yet to have been recognized because they do not fit Western conceptual imaginations and prevailing categories.
In addition, Syria has been the object of much political polemic and a more limited body of scholarly inquiry. This paper will raise not only a number of methodological and theoretical questions regarding ways to view social movements, agency, and change in Syria, but also, it seeks to portray the character of the Syrian state and its interactions, contradictions and excesses with the ordinary people. It will survey the consolidation of an authoritarian state (1970s–1980s); and, most recently under Bashar Al-Assad, the adaptation of economic liberalization, neo-liberalism and privatization (1990s–2010s). The junior Assad’s short-term gain and neoliberal policies – to shift public assets- as well as the authoritarian character of the state have entailed cumulative long-term costs that have led to growing internal and external pressures.

Author

• Majid Rafizadeh, University of South Florida