print

The Syrian crisis from a neo-imperial perspective

Kudryashova I.V.,

MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia, i.kudryashova@inno.mgimo.ru

elibrary_id: 626828 | ORCID: 0000-0003-1842-4672 |

Kozintsev A.S.,

MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia, kozintsev.a.s@my.mgimo.ru

elibrary_id: 1014407 | ORCID: 0000-0001-8037-1466 |

Article received: 2025.10.17 20:17. Accepted: 2025.12.28 20:17


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2026.02.07
EDN: WZQWER

Rubric: Orbis terrarum

For citation:

Kudryashova I.V., Kozintsev A.S. The Syrian crisis from a neo-imperial perspective. – Polis. Political Studies. 2026. No. 2. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2026.02.07. EDN: WZQWER (In Russ.)

Abstract

This article presents the authors’ interpretation of the Syrian crisis as a critical juncture that opened the way for testing alternative institutional arrangements. The main objective is to assess the prospects of Syrian statehood and its possible future forms. Conceptually, Syria is analyzed as a network of spatialfunctional nodes—the core, semi-cores, intermediate, and deep peripheries—connected through three types of interaction channels: military-bureaucratic, economic, and cultural-symbolic. The research draws upon neo-institutional, spatial, and comparative approaches. The empirical section examines six periods of Syria’s political development (late Ottoman, Mandate, early independence, Ba‘athist consolidation under Hafez al-Assad, rule of Bashar al-Assad, and the post-Assad “window of opportunity”) based on a historically oriented case study. Nodes and interaction channels are operationalized through a set of indicators, and a number of analytical assumptions are tested. The novelty of the study lies in shifting the analytical focus from the conventional notion of the “weakness of the Arab national states” toward the examination of its deeper institutional layers – a system of segmented nodes and (neo)imperial mechanisms of mediation. The findings indicate that: (1) imperial practices of indirect rule persist and continue to structure political interactions within the country; (2) semi-core cities function as key intermediaries of political integration, and their functional degradation accelerates fragmentation; (3) external patrons recurrently substitute for a weakened core, maintaining short-term governability while simultaneously reinforcing segmentation; (4) Islamic narratives can perform an integrative role only when accommodating the sectarian diversity, and their coexistence with republican principles is not inherently contradictory. In the medium term, the most plausible trajectory of Syria’s political evolution appears to be a neo-imperial governance model that combines the formal framework of the nation-state with a multilayered system of mediation and asymmetric bargaining among functional nodes and external patrons. The proposed research design has a strong comparative potential and can be used to analyze other post-imperial political systems in the Middle East. It also provides a practical basis for discussing the design of decentralized governance mechanisms, guarantees of representation, and coordination of external patronage. More broadly, the analysis of the Syrian case contributes to the ongoing debate on reconceptualizing state-centric theory within the context of the emerging new world.

Keywords

Syria, statehood crisis, critical juncture, evolutionary institutionalism, center–periphery relations, neo-imperial configuration, spatial-functional analysis, external patrons, Islamic narrative, state-building.

Abboud, S. (2025). Conflict absorption and the paradox of state power in Syria. Syria Studies, 16(1), 15-29. https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/syria/article/view/2865/2159

Ahmad, H., MacTavish, E., & Christie, K. (2024). The de facto autonomous governance and stability in the Middle East: The case of Kurds in Rojava. The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 15(1), 91-110. https://doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2024.2314447

Barkey, K. (2014). Empire and toleration: a comparative sociology of toleration within empire. In A. Stepan & C. Taylor (Ed.), Boundaries of toleration (pp. 203-232). New York; Chichester; West Sussex: Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/step16566-007

Batatu, H. (1999). Syria’s peasantry, the descendants of its lesser rural notables, and their politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Capoccia, G. (2016). When do institutions “bite”? Historical institutionalism and the politics of institutional change. Comparative Political Studies, 49(8), 1095-1127. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414015626449

Çolak, Z. (2024). Pathways to modernity: Ottoman reforms before and during the Tanzimat. Türk Dünyası İncelemeleri Dergisi, 24(2), 417-437. https://doi.org/10.32449/egetdid.1522647

Collier, R.B., & Collier, D. (1991). Shaping the political arena: critical junctures, the labor movement, and regime dynamics in Latin America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Dolbee, S. (2022). Empire on the edge: desert, nomads, and the making of an Ottoman provincial border. The American Historical Review, 127(1), 129-158.

Dukhan, H. (2024). Processes of cohesion and fragmentation among Arab tribes during the Syrian civil war. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 26(4), 452-466. https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2024.2307821

Emrence, C. (2008). Imperial paths, big comparisons: the late Ottoman Empire. Journal of Global History, 3(3), 289-311.

Hadaya, S. (2020). Sectarianisation in Syria: the disintegration of a popular struggle. Conflict, Security & Development, 20(5), 607-629. https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2020.1833520

Haenni, P., & Roy, O. (2024). The management of religious law and police by HTS in the Idlib region between 2017 and 2024. EUI, RSC, Working Paper 2024/61, Middle East Directions (MED). https://hdl. handle.net/1814/77677

Heper, M. (1980). Center and periphery in the Ottoman Empire: with special reference to the nineteenth century. International Political Science Review, 1(1), 81–104.

Hinnebusch, R. (1989). Peasant and bureaucracy in Ba’thist Syria: the political economy of rural development. Boulder: Westview Press.

Hinnebusch, R. (2014). Syria: revolution from above. London: Routledge.

Hogan, J. (2019). The critical juncture concept’s evolving capacity to explain policy change. European Policy Analysis, 5(2), 170-189. https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1057

Hosseini, A. (2016). The spirit of the spiritless situation: the significance of Rojava as an alternative model of political development in the context of the Middle East. Critique, 44(3), 253-265. https://doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2016.1199631

Karpat, K. (1988). The Ottoman ethnic and confessional legacy in the Middle East. In M.J. Esman, I. & Rabinovich (Ed.), Ethnicity, Pluralism, and the State in the Middle East (pp. 35-53). Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press.

Keser, A., & Fakhoury, F. (2022). Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from an insurgent group to a local authority: emergence, development and social support base. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 48(1), 46-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2022.2082833

Khoury, P.S. (1987). Syria and the French Mandate: the politics of Arab nationalism, 1920-1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Klein, J. (2011). The margins of empire: Kurdish militias in the Ottoman tribal zone. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Miles, W.F. (2019). The divided Druze: Legacies of colonial partition for an historically persecuted minority. Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, 42(4), 18-39. https://doi.org/10.1353/jsa.2019.0013

Palmer, M. (1966). The United Arab Republic: an assessment of its failure. Middle East Journal, 20(1), 50-67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4323954

Peter, F. (2004). Review of The Empire in the City: Arab Provincial Capitals in the Late Ottoman Empire, by J. Hanssen, T. Philipp, & S. Weber. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 47(2), 267-271. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25165038

Pierson, P., & Skocpol, T. (2002). Historical institutionalism in contemporary political science. Political Science: The State of the Discipline, 3(1), 1-32.

Satloff, R. B. (1986). Prelude to conflict: communal interdependence in the Sanjak of Alexandretta 1920-1936. Middle Eastern Studies, 22(2), 147-180. https://doi.org/10.1080/00263208608700657

Thelen, K. (1999). Historical institutionalism in comparative politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 2(1), 369-404.

White, B. T. (2011). The emergence of minorities in the Middle East: The politics of community in French  Mandate Syria. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Akhmedov, V.M. (2005). Siriya pri Bashare Asade. Regional’nyy opyt modernizatsii v usloviyakh vneshney nestabil’nosti [Syria under Bashar Al-Asad. Reginal experience of modernisation under the conditions of external instability]. Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies RAS. (In Russ.)

Kaspe, S.I. (2022). Theoretical notes on the structure and dynamics of empires. World Economy and International Relations, 66(11), 115-125. (In Russ.)https://doi.org/10.20542/0131-2227-2022-66-11-115-125

Kozintsev, A. (2018). A fight for the state: Syrian crisis through the lens of center-periphery relations. Political Science (RU), 4, 223-240. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.31249/poln/2018.04.11.

See also: