‘Penetration Through Fragmentation’Modelling Authoritarian Survival versus Resilience in the Middle East
Journal: Durham e-Theses (Durham University)
Year: 2020

This thesis centres on authoritarian survival in deeply penetrated regions of the Middle East. The main research question that the thesis tackles is: what explains the survival of the authoritarian regime in Syria since 2000? The Syrian regime showed high level of elasticity in facing multiple regional and local turbulence since the beginning of the new millennium that posed existential threats for the survival of the regime of Bashar Assad, yet it defied the odds and survived it all. The transf