Syria: Alawi regime or modern nation state?

was the subject at a Fafo breakfast seminar 17th February 2010

Syria is widely regarded as governed by the Alawis since Hafez Al-Asad came to power in 1970. But is it true? What characterize relations between the Alawite community and the Syrian state? How well has the regime integrated the Alawi coastal region into the Syrian nation state?

Lecturer: Professor Fabrice Balanche, Orient and Mediterranean Institute, University of Lyon
Discussant: Kjetil Selvik, Fafo
Chair: Åge A. Tiltnes, Fafo

Find seminar programme here

Dr. Fabrice Balanche, University of Lyon

Dr. Balanche has lived and worked in Syria, and has published widely on Syria and Lebanon. His latest papers on Syria are “Clientelism, ethcnicity and territory in Syria”, “Syria and Lebanon relationships”, and “Territorial fragmentation and public authority: Damascus government paralysis”.

Fafo-researcher Kjetil Selvik

Dr. Selvik’s research interest concentrates on state-society relations. Two recent titles on Syria are: “Changing Regime Discourse and Reform in Syria” (with Aurora Sottimano) and “Limits of “authoritarian upgrading" in Syria: private welfare, Islamic charities, and the rise of the Zayd movement” (with Thomas Pierret).

This event was a cooperation between Fafo and the Åsgard Programme founded by the French Embassy in Norway and the French-Norwegian Foundation for Research (FFN-FNS), and which invites French scholars to visit Norway to give lectures and to explore institutional cooperation.

Read about Fafos research in the Middle East