Connecting-Africa | Find publications

Advanced search

Find:


Title Opposition movement in Syria
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1887/19301
Date 2012
Author(s) Mabrouk, S.
Contributor(s) Stockmann, Dr. D.C.; Spirova, Dr. M.S.
Abstract This thesis discusses the impact of opposition movements in effecting regime transition in Syria and Egypt during the Arab Spring, analyzing their organizational structure, objectives, strategies, legitimacy, and de facto power. It starts out from the premise that it is crucial that the opposition influences 'soft-liners' within the regime to undermine its internal cohesion and stability. It is argued that the opposition in both countries has been durable due to intrinsic motivations of the participants and widespread social dissatisfaction, and their diffuse yet coherent grassroots forms of organization have rendered them hard to repress by the regime. In both countries, however, the opposition was unable to overthrow the regime by itself since it did not have sufficient military power resources to pose a real threat to the regime's survival. In Syria, the opposition could not generate enough division among the elite, while in Egypt, division already existed among the elite and this was augmented by the opposition, with the acquiescence of the military proving crucial in the regime transition. The extent of influence of the opposition was heavily constrained by the political opportunity structures in which they operated, with repression by the regime playing a large role and curtailing agency.
Subject(s) opposition; Arab Spring; Syria; social movements; regime transition; soft-liners
Language en
Type of publication Bachelor thesis
Repository Leiden - University of Leiden
Added to C-A: 2012-07-16;13:44:57