THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF RECONSTRUCTION IN WAR-TORN SYRIA: SANCTIONS, SECURITY, AND LEGITIMACY

Abstract

This thesis explores the reconstruction agenda the Syrian Government has been deploying in multiple stages with pure political rationale in response to conflict challenges raised throughout the war. To do so, the research emphasizes on the war stages the Government perceived and used as factors to transform the role of the reconstruction plan accordingly. It argues that this reconstruction was used as a tool for the Syrian Government to: (1) securitize informal neighbourhoods in Damascus in response to the security threats these neighbourhoods carry; (2) exert authority and regain legitimacy it had lost throughout the war; and (3) to affirm a sense of victory and signal a finality of the war in response to the Western sanctions that stymied the Government from manifesting its battlefield supremacy into governance and reconstruction. This research challenges a narrative that depicts that reconstruction plans should take place in post-conflict phase as purely development strategy. It tries instead to reframe the rhetoric around reconstruction agendas using the Syrian Government case that started the deployment process without reaching a post-conflict phase. When it suffered from the informal neighbourhoods threats of Damascus in the early days of the war, it was able to manoeuvre the reconstruction agenda through urban policy to fit the security context and prepare for Marota City development. Afterwards, when it felt the need to regain legitimacy, the Government succeeded to craft the agenda through rerunning a modified economic governance model to restore part of its legitimacy fabric. Last, when the sanctions stymied the ability of the Government to transfer battlefield supremacy into reconstruction and governance, the Government manipulated the agenda to verify its victory and signal a final end of the war. Taking this research inquiry as a starting point, this thesis explores the following main question: How has the Syrian Government deployed the reconstruction agenda as a political tool and war strategy? A sub-question that is also relevant to the research is: How has the role of reconstruction agenda change throughout the various phases of the 10-year-old war? By answering these questions, this thesis aims to explore the shift in the power dynamics of the reconstruction agenda, and hence depicts how the Syrian Government perceives the process and maneuvers it for political gains. The different stages of the Syrian war put the Government under critical challenges, which push it to choose the deployment of the reconstruction agenda in order to overcome them.