Rebuilding Leviathan: A Quantitative Analysis of InternallyDisplaced Persons, Syrian Refugees, and Citizens in Aleppo

Shingo Hamanaka
December 25, 2019
Abstract
Eight years have passed since the Syrian Arab Spring began. Many Syrian people lost theirhomes, assets, and friends and family, and faced unparalleled tragedies. Today, the major
war is over within the Syrian territory, aside from in the Idlib governorate. For Syrians,
their work now focuses on the rehabilitation of their society and in rebuilding the Syrian
Arab Republic. In other words, the people must again accept a social contract with a brutal
and repressive authoritarian regime in the aftermath of the Syrian Civil War. Our researchinterest is as follows: How much patience do Syrian IDPs have in living with the politicalorder as rebuilt by the Assad Administration and its allied nations? Despite calling it a“civil war,” the Syrian conflict has been internationalized by two camps (Russia and theUnited States). Therefore, in this study, we attempt to find evidence that recognizes thedifference of attitudes toward the allies of Assad and the enemies of the IDPs and Syrian
citizens in order to inquire about the psychological difficulties for people with severe
experiences to accept Damascus’s authoritarian rule again.
Keywords: Civil war, Syria, IDPs, international relations1

1 Introduction
Charles Tilly’s argument "War made the state and the state made war"(Tilly, 1975: 42) applies
in the case of Syria, which has been torn to pieces by the civil war that has continued for morethan eight years. Beginning in March 2011, the Syrian Civil War became a violent competition
for power of the state, resulting in severe violence over establishing a new political order. The
rising power of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Islamic State, or ISIS) drove out the militaryforces of the Assad regime and also fought with the anti-regime militias, causing the militaryintervention of foreign countries (Phillips 2016: 189-212). These acts can be viewed as thecritical juncture that resulted in the full-scale military intervention by Russia in September 2015.
The superiority of the Assad regime was made sure of by the Russian intervention. As ofJanuary 2020, rebel fighters are expected to simply influence a part of the Idlib province, andthe civil war is predicted to end in a complete victory for the Assad regime.

The heart of the Syrian turmoil has already moved on to the process of nation
rebuilding, rather than on the civil war itself. In using technical terminology from theclassical state theory, the people are expected to codify a new social contract with the coldblooded, repressive, and brutal government in order to stop the violence. In other words,"rebuilding Leviathan"1 is the central issue in Syria. For more than eight years, the civil
war has caused refugees to flee across the border alongside many internally displaced
persons (IDPs). Their return and resettlement will be the key issue to "rebuilding
Leviathan."This study deals with the political attitudes of the IDPs in Syria who are on theway to nation rebuilding, especially with the nation reunification by the people from Aleppo.
A fierce battle was fought in the city of Aleppo during the Syrian Civil War, and the fateof the Allepian citizens was divided into becoming refugees in neighboring countries or
becoming IDPs, we defined IDPs as, who lost their homes but could otherwise remain as
residents within the Syrian borders, despite the hard-fought battles. When the people of
Aleppo who have survived the serious armed conflicts return to being under the control of
the Assad regime again, what do they think, and what are their political preferences incodifying a new social contract again?
We cannot measure the accurate support rate for the Syrian government because

1

Anna Grzymala-Busse put the same title on her book, but she treated with party competition process

in developing the formal institution of the democratizing post-communist states (Grzymala-Busse 2007).
However, this paper focuses not on party competition in democratization process but on the“Gligamesh Problem” (Acemoglu and Robinson 2019: xiii) which the people suffer tyranny of the Assadregime after finishing of the Syrian Civil War.

2

its cold-blooded and cruel authoritarian character is seen as being threatening from theviewpoint of the people. In other words, we cannot measure the validity of the social
contract between the Assad regime and the Syrian people. Therefore, in this study, we takean alternative approach to measure the validity of the social contract by the indirect methodof the political assessment of the United States as the strongest enemy against the Assadregime, and of Russia as the strongest ally with the Syrian government. The current
situation in Syria is a rare and interesting case in the study of state-building at the time of
its rehabilitation of its sovereignty, which gives us the chance to analyze this rare
phenomenon as the codifying of the social contract again.
In the remainder of the article, we set up two theories—a pro-social attitude
theory and a war-making apathy theory—based on the studies of political psychology in
Section 2 and derive two hypotheses from these theories. In Section 3, we give an outlineof the battle of Aleppo in order to show the context of this study. We explain the researchstrategy and dataset for empirical analysis in Section 4 and show the results of the statisticalanalysis in Section 5. In the last section, we discuss the result of the hypothetical test
regarding the two theories and conclude by examining the implications of "rebuilding
Leviathan" in Syria.

2 Theory
When a new political order is created within society, that is, when the people have escapedfrom a Hobbesian state of nature and decide to obey the sovereignty known as theLeviathan, any armed conflicts have already disappeared. Numerous studies haveattempted to explain that authoritarian regimes, such as in Syria, have created order byusing the distribution of resources along the multiple lines of social cleavage, and by thefear of secret police forces (Aoyama, 2019; Heydemann and Leenders, 2013; Hinnebusch,
1990; Pearlman, 2017). The literature on rebel governance, which has been rapidly
developed in the field of civil war studies, has highlighted that separatist rebels seek toacquire legitimacy by the provision of administrative services to their inhabitants (Arjona,Kasfir, and Mampilly, 2015). Some recent studies (Martinez and Eng 2017, 2018) haveshown that a similar phenomenon was confirmed during the Syrian Civil War, where rebel
forces made efforts to control steady supplies, the health care service, and the food supply
to the inhabitants under their controlled areas.
However, from the perspective of service distribution probability, the Syrian
government was superior to any rebel group because of its powerful resource distribution
probability. Under the scarcity of goods during the war, it is thought that the Assad regime
3was powerful in comparison with the anti-governmental organizations from the viewpointof the administrative services by securing the distribution route that included food, medicalcare, and public education. As of January 2020, the war is expected to be over without the
Idlib province, and the government has given top priority to restoration following thepostwar period. The success of the restoration means that the Assad regime will havesucceeded in recovering public confidence and in increasing legitimacy in its governance.
The restoration of Syrian society will depend on the explicit or implicit support of the
deeply wounded people toward the Assad regime, which is namely that in which rebuilding
the Leviathan would gain.
The Assad regime repeated indiscriminate bombing, particularly in air strikes withbarrel bombs in the rebel-controlled areas of anti-government militias or ISIS. The Syrian
government forces launched intensive and indiscriminate aerial bombing on Aleppo, Raqqa,
Deir ez-Zor, Homs, Rif, and Damascus provinces. Fabbe, Hazlett, and Sinmazdemir (2017)
investigated the impact of these indiscriminate air strikes on the political attitudes among
Syrian refugees in Turkey to analyze the original survey data on them. According to Fabbe
et al., the Syrian refugees who fled into Turkey had no representation of their own political
positions in the Syrian political forces, despite indicating the menace of the Assaddictatorship. There are possible two interpretations for this result. One is that there wereno representatives for the large number of Syrian refugees at the time of conducting thesurvey. In other words, the main forces of the Free Syrian Army, which continued fighting
against the government forces in Idlib city, were volunteer Islamists forces. For the refugees,
they were almost the same as the ISIS fighters who started to escape from the battlefields
during that period. The other interpretation is the possibility that the refugees fell into
political apathy by responding with the brutal attacks of the government forces.
It is interesting to note here the proposition that in the perspective of political
psychology theory, a severe indiscriminate attack causes political apathy. Cautres (2011:84)
shows that mass society theories explain the political apathy that appeared in urban
inhabitants as being because they were separated from their primary groups in the wakeof World War II. A civil war can have a separation effect on an individual who was forcibly
removed from their family or hometown, and this may cause political apathy or a lack ofinterest in the sense of politics among the IDPs. It is not clear whether these attitudes
truly arise from apathy, or whether they are pretending to be indifferent in considerationof their surrounding environments. This challenge could be overcome by repeating similar
questions to measure the consistency of attitudes, and by conducting experimental surveys.
We will refer to this proposition as the apathy creation theory of war.
However, there is an argument that states that the members of a society who have4

experienced intense fighting will contribute to the post-war reconstruction anddemocratization by acquiring a pro-social attitude after the war. For example, in Nepal,
after a violent civil war arose, it was reported that the community that lingers maintained
a pro-social attitude, and that their pro-social attitude toward those who left the community
was weak (Gilligan et.al., 2016). In other studies, Blattman (2009) also revealed that in
Uganda, a person who was kidnapped to become a child soldier and rebel was found to be
actively participating in politics in the democratized society after the civil war.
The pro-social attitude formation theory of war can be considered as an
adaptation to the norms prepared by the surrounding environment in political psychology.
For the above case in Uganda, the person’s career as a former rebel soldier would besusceptible to having negative recognition after the war. Therefore, young former rebel
soldiers are more likely to behave in an excessively adaptive manner toward postwar social
norms. The same mechanism is considered to work in the example of Nepal.
In the case of Syria, who did not democratize after the civil war, but theauthoritarian regime won, it would be considered as having a pro-social attitude to follow
the standards prepared by the Assad regime. Adaptation toward the governmental code of
conduct can be observed by survey scans. Moreover, it is not necessarily the case thatbehavior is an act that expresses the true intentions of the resident. Even if the norm isdeceptive and ridiculous, it is essential that following it be considered as pro-social byothers2.

3 The Battle of Aleppo: The Most Important Regional Battle of the
Syrian Civil War
Aleppo was one of the largest battlegrounds in the Syrian Civil War. Aleppo isthe second largest city of Syria and had flourished as the commercial capital for a longtime. During the outbreak of war, the territory under the control of the Assad regime only
consisted of the area containing the University of Aleppo, the western Aleppo district
where the Syrian military base is located, and Aleppo International Airport in the suburbs.
The mostly eastern districts of Aleppo city were "liberated" by the Syrian Free Army, andmuch of the city block was ruled by the rebels. In addition, ISIS occupied Raqqa, the city2

Wedeen (1999) argued that Syria, under Hafez Assad's regime, was governed by a kind of cult-likeshow. Wedeen insisted that people were disproportionately following the "visible cult-like show" thatwas found in symbols (e.g., posters and mass games) that saw Assad as a hero; which is the power baseof the system.

5

in Aleppo’s neighboring prefectures, as its "capital." ISIS declared "the founding of anation" and extended its control to Aleppo province. As a result, Aleppo became the stage
in which the three forces of the Assad regime, the Free Syrian Army, and ISIS engaged inarmed conflict.
The Battle of Aleppo is considered the most important battle in the Syrian Civil
War (Uskowi 2019: 82). Aleppo is next to Idlib province, a rebel stronghold, and is also
sandwiched between the ISIS-controlled Raqqa province. Aleppo was positioned as a baseof the East-West trade route during ancient times, and it had been a large and prosperous
city. Therefore, the thinking that "the one who controls Aleppo, controls the civil war" wascreated. This also meant that the Battle of Aleppo would be a disastrous battle.
The event which can be said to be a turning point in the war occurred in
September 2015. At the order of President Vladimir Putin, Russian air forces launched alarge-scale airstrike on ISIS. ISIS carry out a brutal rule reminiscent of the Middle Ages,and one that is based on the thought of reactionism, which attracts Islamists from all over
the world who volunteer for combat. Major countries around the world began to consider
intervening in the civil war in order to recognize ISIS as a terrorist organization anderadicate it (Phillips 2016: 213-231). At the same time, the Russian campaign was the firstfull-scale military intervention by a great power of international politics. The Russian
military intervention supported the Syrian regime’s forces and targeted the attack not only
on ISIS, but also on the other rebel militias such as the Syrian Free Army.
During the Battle of Aleppo, the Assad regime’s forces tried to win back control.
The Syrian Armed Forces, which held air control, expanded the scope of their barrel bombs
and repeated daily indiscriminate bombings on the eastern districts of Aleppo city. The
attacks destroyed most of the city, and many residents lost their homes and became IDPs.
In 2016, the power relationship in the city, which had been divided between thegovernment forces and the rebels, was refurbished, and the Assad regime’s area of control
expanded. In the same year, there was a siege by the regime’s forces and in December, theBattle for Aleppo came to an end with the withdrawal of the rebel forces.

4 Methods: Strategy and Data Collection
4.1 Research Strategy
The survey data available in this paper does not include any questions that directly6ask about the faithfulness or sympathies toward the Assad regime3. The request containing
the question items to measure the support for the government in regime-controlled areas
was rejected by the Syrian Opinion Center for Polls and Studies (SOCPS), the research
agency in Syria. Therefore, we had to use another method to measure attitudes. Although
in recent years, a popular method is to use a list experiment, it is not used in our threesurveys: the Syrian IDPs Survey (2018), the Middle East poll (Syria, 2017), and the Syrian
refugees in Turkey survey (2017)4. The research team took advantage of the fact that the
Syrian Civil War has become internationalized, that is, it has been intervened by the majorinternational great powers such as the United States and Russia, and by neighboring
countries such as Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. In other words, Russia and Iran, whohave clearly sided with the Syrian government, are treated as "agents of the Assad regime,"
while the United States, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are treated as "rebel agents."
The three surveys included questions that evaluated the foreign countries’
involvements in Syria. When people who accept the authority of the government evaluatedthe foreign countries, the response of "highly appreciate the Russian performance, andhave a reduced evaluation of the American performance" showed that the regime wastreated as a norm. In other words, the people predicted that they would show obedienceto the authoritarian regime, or a pro-social attitude, by favoring the allies and take action
to refuse the enemy. This prediction is consistent with the pro-social attitude formation
theory of war.
The most authoritarian regime may not require active obedience to its rulers.
Unlike the totalitarian system, if an authoritarian regime is not obedient, yet has been
depoliticized, it cannot become the object of surveillance. As Linz’ (2000: 167) classic
argument shows, if an authoritarian regime lacks the effectiveness of political mobilization,then this ultimately leads to the apathy of the regime’s supporters. Regardless of the typeof political system, if political indifference is prevalent among the people, the politicalsystem will become stabilized without accountability for its governance (Almond and Verba
1963; Huntington 1968). This prediction fits the apathy creation theory of war.
The context of this study is to view the Assad regime, which survived the Syrian
Civil War, as a Leviathan that will be regenerated, and to understand the characteristics ofthe political attitude toward the Leviathan. The intensity of the battles that people have3

The researchers, including the author, went to Mersin province in Turkey to interview 10 Syrian

refugees (February 17, 2019), but they were unable to hear political opinions about the Assad regime
unless they were in their home space.
4

We will give further explanation about the three surveys in the next section.

7

been exposed to is the main independent variable. What political attitudes do people form
after being exposed to intense fighting? That is the issue at hand in this study.
In this study, the participants can be classified into IDPs, citizens, and refugees;
all of whom experienced the Battle of Aleppo. “Citizens” here refers to the people who
were lucky enough to maintain their own homes during the Syrian Civil War and did notlose their homes. More specifically, the citizens are from and reside in Aleppo province,
and are considered as the least injured people from the Battle of Aleppo. The IDPs referto those who had to abandon their homes and flee to areas considered as safe. Refugees
are referred to as those who fled from their homes as well, but the difference between
themselves and the IDPs depends on whether they crossed the border or not. That is, the
IDPs here refer to those who remained in Syria, from Aleppo province, who became IDPs
inside the territory controlled by the Assad regime. Refugees are also limited to those from
Aleppo province and are also referred to as the people who were evacuated across thenorthern border into Turkey.
In terms of the intensity of the battle, it is impossible to determine whether the
IDPs or refugees had more experience on average in being involved in the fierce fighting.
However, the IDPs that remained in the territory without crossing the border between
Syria and Turkey were expected to be better adapted to social norms under the Assadregime than the refugees who evacuated to Turkey. Since the Turkish government was
supporting the rebels in the Syrian Civil War, it is predicted that those who became
refugees would act against the norms within Syria. The IDPs from Aleppo province would
also find differences between the people staying in Aleppo and those who fled to otherprefectures. On average, the IDPs that remained in Aleppo province until 2016 seem tohave had more experience in facing intense fighting. Therefore, this study chose an IDPfocused analysis.
From the above discussion, the following hypotheses are proposed. We derived
both hypotheses from the pro-social attitude formation theory of war and the apathy
creation theory of war:
H1: The higher the battle intensity, the more likely people are to be obedient to theauthoritarian regime.
H2: The higher the battle intensity, the more likely people are to fall into apathy.

8

4.2 Survey Projects
The population of the survey projects were IDPs from Aleppo, Syrian citizens in
Aleppo, and Syrians from Aleppo living in Turkey as refugees. The three parties of IDPs,
citizens, and refugees were collected in separate polls.
The Syrian IDP survey was conducted in September 2018 using face-to-faceinterview in Arabic The survey took place using 1,499 Syrians who were displaced since2011 as a result of the Syrian Civil War, and who were between the ages of 18 and 70. The
review was conducted by SOCPS, but the chart was designed by a research team which
included this study’s author. SOCPS also conducted inspections in five prefectures otherthan Aleppo province (Damascus, Rif-Damascus, Homs, Latakia, and Hasaka). In thissurvey, the sample of the people from Aleppo prefecture was extracted based on the 2015
census data owned by the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Cabinet Office and was
carried out by using the quota method. The target of the Aleppo province investigation
was limited to the districts in Aleppo city and contained the areas featuring the western
districts formerly controlled by rebels which the Assad regime forces then recaptured byairstrikes, shelling, ground battles, and so on (see Figure 1).
The Middle East poll (Syria, 2017) was conducted in March 2017 by a face-toface interview method in Arabic. The subjects of the study were Syrian nationals and men
and women living in the Syrian Arab Republic between the ages of 18 and 65. The review
was conducted by the same research agency (SOCPS) as the IDP survey, but the designof the questionnaire was done by a team of which the author was the research
representative. The SOCPS inspection was also carried out in five prefectures other thanthe Aleppo province (Damascus, outside of Damascus, Homs, Latakia, and Hasaka). In
this survey, the sample of the people from Aleppo prefecture and the residents wereextracted based on the 2004 census held by the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Cabinet
Office, the 2011 demographic estimation by the Bureau of Statistics, and the SOCPS
survey team's estimates, and these were used in the stratified two-stage random sampling
method. The survey of Aleppo province was carried out mainly in the districts of Aleppo
city, which was used in this study. The target area for investigation was the region
controlled by the Assad regime which had been excluded from airstrikes.
The Syrian refugees in Turkey survey (2017) was conducted from the end of
October to early November 2017, using a face-to-face interview method in Arabic. The
population of the survey were Syrian male and female refugees living in seven Turkishprovinces. The survey was conducted by the Infakto Research Workshop, but thequestionnaire was designed by the research team which included this study’s author.
9

Among the seven provinces in Turkey (Istanbul, Sanliurfa, Hatay, Gaziantep, Adana,
Mersin, and Kilis), this study only utilized samples of people from Aleppo province. In theselected provinces listed above, neighborhoods were selected through consultation with thelocal authorities. The number of interviews conducted in each neighborhood was fixed at
12. In these neighborhoods, three streets were selected by using a Kish grid, and fourinterviews were completed in each street through random walks. The four provinces ofKilis, Gaziantep, Hatay (Iskenderun in Arabic), and Sanliurfa share a border with Syria,
while Adana and Mersin are in their vicinity. Istanbul is far from the border, but is themost populous city and close to Europe, so many Syrian refugees have emigrated from thesouthern provinces.

5 Results
Using the survey data conducted as discussed in Section 4.1, the attitude ofobedience to the dictatorship, or the pro-social attitude, under the authoritarian Assadregime meant to highly appreciate the Russian performance as an "agent of the Assadregime," and to reduce the evaluation of the United States as an "agent of the rebels."
However, a depoliticized attitude, or apathy, was considered as an inconsistent attitude
regardless of whether it was pro-Assad or anti-Assad.
The IDPs living in Aleppo were considered as having experienced the battle, whohave lost their homes, and who continue to be exposed to the aftermath of the battle. The
other type of IDPs were born in but escaped from Aleppo and went to other cities in thewake of the battle. Therefore, the IDPs from Aleppo could be seen as having experienced
fewer combats. The surveys on the Syrian citizens in Aleppo and the Syrian refugees had
different questions than the survey on the IDPs in order to measure their political attitudes.
Therefore, we used the measurements as a reference. Among the questions included in the
Syrian IDPs, the following five questions were used in the analysis of this study:(a7) To what extent do you believe that the following countries or organizations willcontribute toward the improvement of living conditions?
(a8) To what extent do you believe that the following countries or organizations willcontribute toward the rehabilitation of internally displaced persons?
(a9) To what extent do you believe that the following countries or organizations
working within Syria during the crisis have supplied citizens with necessities?
10

(a10) To what extent do you want the following countries or institutions to invest in
Syria?
(a13) To what extent do you want the following countries or organization to participate
in the reconstruction of Syria?
The Syrian IDPs survey provided the above questions to 18 foreign countries andinternational organizations, and in this study, the questions from (a7) to (a13) were used
as measurement variables of political attitudes toward the United States and Russia. In
this survey, the country code of the United States is 1 and 2 for Russia. Therefore, thevariable code of (a7_1) means that question (a7) is about the United States. The answers
from (a7) to (a13) contained five choices, and the respondents chose from: (1) Very much,(2) much, (3) moderately, (4) not so much, and (5) not at all.
Figure 2 represents the response distribution for (a7_1) to (a13_1) of the Aleppo
resident IDPs. For question (a7), the pros and cons of having the living situation improvedby the United States, the answer is concentrated on choice (5) being “not at all.” However,when we reviewed the questions about the rehabilitation of the IDPs (a8), provision ofnecessary supplies (a9), investments for Syria (a10), and the reconstruction of Syria (a13),
the answers are distributed from (3) “moderately” to (5) “not at all.” When compared to
the IDPs response distribution, who were evacuated to other cities from Aleppo as shownin Figure 3, the characteristics of the distribution in Figure 2 are clear. Figure 3 has a
distribution for all questions (a7_1 to a13_1) with roughly a tail on the left. In other words,
the IDPs from Aleppo had a remarkable attitude toward rejecting the United States, andthe proportion of vague attitudes, that is, the answer of (3) “moderately,” from the IDPs
from Aleppo were lower than those of the IDPs that remained in Aleppo.
So, what attitudes do the IDPs have toward Russia, the agent of the Assad regime?
Figure 4 represents the distribution of the Aleppo resident IDPs responses to questions(a7_2) to (a13_2). The answer to question (a7), "Russia's improvement of living conditions"is concentrated on the responses of (1) “very much,” while the answers to the otherquestions are still distributed from the responses of (3) to (5). More to the point, thedistribution of responses to (a8_2) to (a13_2) in Figure 4 is similar to the distribution of
responses to (a8_1) to (a13_1) in Figure 2. This results in the following possibilities: the
Aleppo resident IDPs do not distinguish their attitudes toward the United States as the"agent of the insurgents," and toward Russia as the "agent of the Assad regime."
For the IDPs who fled to other cities in the wake of the Battle of Aleppo, their11political attitudes toward Russia are summarized in Figure 5. We can recognize the
distribution with roughly a tail on the right for questions (a13_2) to (a7_2a). In other words,
for Russia’s contribution toward improving living conditions (a7), rehabilitation of IDPs
(a8), provision of necessary supplies (a9), investment in Syria (a10), and reconstruction of
Syria (a13), the answers are concentrated into the responses of (1) “very much” and (2)“much.” The respondents have a positive attitude toward Russia as the "agent of the Assadregime."Table 1 shows the correlations between the evaluation of the United States andof Russia in each of the five questions (a7 to a13), in which the IDPs living in Aleppo andthe IDPs away from Aleppo responded to. The numerical values are polychoric correlation
coefficients, and the calculation was performed using the maximum likelihood method
algorithm. For the Aleppo resident IDPs, only the improvement of living conditions (a7)displayed a strong negative correlation between the evaluation of the United States andRussia. However, the rehabilitation of the IDPs (a8) later showed positive correlations.
For the case of the IDPs living away from Aleppo, the correlation of the evaluation between
the United States and Russia are negatively displayed in all questions.
Table 2a indicates the results of the two-sample t-test for a difference in mean
involving the sample of the IDPs from Aleppo and the sample of the IDPs in Aleppo about
the evaluation of the United States, and Table 2b is the results of Russia. Since thenumerical values were converted in reverse order, the larger the value, the better theevaluation. All questions except the improved living conditions (a7) reveal that the scoresof the IDPs living away from Aleppo are lower for the United States and are more
appreciative of Russia than those of the IDPs living in Aleppo.
Finally, let us compare refugees who fled from Aleppo to Turkey with the IDPs
living in Aleppo, and compare the Syrian citizens in Aleppo with the IDPs living in Aleppo.
The wording of the United States’ and Russia’s assessment of the Syrian refugee survey inTurkey was used, as follows:・“From the viewpoint of assistance to the Syrian people, how do you evaluate thesecountries?”
The wording of the evaluation of the United States and Russia used in the survey for the
Syrian citizens is as follows:
・“How do you evaluate the following countries, including Japan, from the perspectiveof giving aid to the Syrian people?”12

In response to the above questions, respondents were asked to answer from theselection of: (1) very high, (2) high, (3) somewhat, (4) not very, and (5) not at all. In theoperation of the variables and reverse order, it was changed so that the higher thenumerical value, the higher the evaluation. For comparative study, the mean of the IDP’s
answers in Aleppo to the previous five questions (a7 to a13) was taken and integrated intoa single variable. Again, it was recoded in reverse order, and changed so that the higher
the number, the higher the rating.
Table 3a shows the t-test result of the American and Russian evaluation by the
refugees and the IDPs living in Aleppo. It can be seen that the refugees from Aleppo havea lower rating for both countries. Table 3b is the t-test result of the evaluation of the great
powers by the citizens and the IDPs living in Aleppo. It shows that the citizens have alower rating for the United States than the IDPs, and a higher rating for Russia.

6 Concluding Remarks
This study focused on ordinary Syrian people who had experienced indiscriminate
bombing during the Battle of Aleppo and had then become IDPs, and the study clarified
the characteristics of the political attitudes of the IDPs as shaped by the intense fighting.
From the viewpoint of political psychology, we constructed two propositions: the apathy
creation theory of war and the pro-social attitude formation theory of war. We derived two
hypotheses from these theories, which were verified using basic statistical methods withthe original datasets from the IDPs from Aleppo and the citizens and refugees survey
projects. As a result of the statistical analysis, we can report the following three findings.
First, the IDPs in Aleppo, who lost their homes after experiencing the Battle of
Aleppo but stayed in the city, revealed no significant difference in their attitude toward
the United States and their attitude toward Russia when compared to the IDPs living awayfrom Aleppo (Figure and Table 2a, 2b). In other words, the IDPs from Aleppo appreciate
Russia as the agent of the Assad regime, and show a pro-social attitude to criticizing theUnited States as the agent of the rebels (Figure and Table 1, 2a, 2b). These results support
the second hypothesis (H2) derived from the apathy creation theory of war, because the
IDPs in Aleppo are considered to have experienced a higher intensity of battle than the
IDPs that left Aleppo city.
Second, the IDPs in Aleppo expressed a pro-social attitude only in respect to theimprovement in living conditions in question (a7) of Table 1, and (a7) of Table 2a andTable 2b. However, the associations between the evaluation for the United States and13

Russia had positive correlations in the items concerning the rehabilitation of the IDPs (a8),provision of necessary supplies(a9), financial investment (a10), and reconstruction of Syria(a13) in Table 1, with the exception of question (a7). These results are also consistent withthe second hypothesis (H2) derived from the apathy creation theory of war and does notsupport the pro-social attitude formation theory hypothesis (H1) of war.
Finally, the refugees from Aleppo showed an attitude toward criticizing both
Russia and the United States, while the Syrian citizens living in Aleppo evaluated theRussian performance and showed a pro-social attitude toward criticizing the performanceof the United States. The political attitude of the IDPs in Aleppo had different
characteristics from those of the refugees and the citizens. From the above discussion, theresults of this study support the apathy creation theory of war, and are inconsistent withthe pro-social attitude formation theory.
As a result, we are faced with a people who have apathy due to their survival of
the fierce fighting, and who are in the process of re-signing a social contract with the Assadregime. Although the Assad regime begins working on the post-war reconstruction of thestate, the Syrian government is expected to implement reconstruction policies while being
sensitive to the watchful eyes of Russia and Iran. If there are a large number of people
falling into apathy, it will be considered convenient for the restoration of the authoritariansystem. The more people there are that do not have a politically clear opinion, that is, themore depoliticized people there are, the more people there will be at the center of power
who can survive politically in order to gain the support of the elite Damascus insiders. The
rebuilding Leviathan, the state of Syria, will regain the face of a powerful dictator, even if
it is step by step.

14

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16Figure 1: Satellite-Detected Damage Map of Aleppo.
Source: United Nations Institute for Training and Research. Imagery Analysis December 15, 2016.

75

200

count

count

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0

0
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a9_1

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a10_1

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a13_1

Figure 2: Frequencies of attitudes of IDPs in Aleppo toward USA

100

count

count

90
60
30

75
50
25

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a7_1

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a13_1

Figure 3: Frequencies of attitudes of IDPs from Aleppo toward USA
18

100
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80

80

60

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count

Figure 4: Frequencies of attitudes of IDPs in Aleppo toward Russia

40

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0

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Figure 5: Frequencies of attitudes of IDPs from Aleppo toward Russia
19

Table 1: Correlation between USA and Russia
a7

a8

a9

a10

a13

IDPs in Aleppo-0.811 **0.054 ***

0.192 ***

0.244 ***

0.111 ***

IDPs from Aleppo-0.059 ***-0.090-0.056 **-0.164-0.149*p < .10; **p < .05; ***p < .01.
Table 2a: Attitudes toward USA
IDPs in Aleppo

IDPs from Aleppo

Difference

a7

1.104

1.906

-0.802

***

a8

2.431

1.876

0.555

***

a9

2.508

1.735

0.773

***

a10

2.458

2.208

0.250

**

a13

2.561

2.281

0.280

**

*p < .10; **p < .05; ***p < .01.
Table 2b: Attitude toward Russia
IDPs in Aleppo

IDPs from Aleppo

Difference

a7

4.829

3.836

0.993

***

a8

2.431

3.774

-1.343

***

a9

2.569

3.896

-1.327

***

a10

2.478

3.918

-1.440

***

a13

2.551

3.912

-1.361****p < .10; **p < .05; ***p < .01.
Table 3a: Attitude toward Foreign Powers
Refugees

IDPs in Aleppo

Difference

USA

1.857

2.197

-0.340***Russia

1.282

2.948

-1.666****p < .10; **p < .05; ***p < .01.
Table 3b: Attitude toward Foreign Powers
Citizens in Aleppo

IDPs in Aleppo

Difference

USA

1.528

2.197

-0.669***Russia

4.023

2.948

1.075

***

*p < .10; **p < .05; ***p < .01.
20

21