The Origins of the Syrian Conflict
Climate Change and Human Security

Presents a new conceptual framework drawing on human security to evaluate the claim that climate change caused the conflict in Syria.

Marwa Daoudy (Author)

9781108466820, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 March 2020

267 pages, 27 b/w illus. 14 tables
22.7 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.38 kg

'This is an erudite, paradigmatic study of the origins of the ongoing Syrian civil war that commenced in March 2011 … Every policy maker in the US government should read this book.' R. W. Olson, Choice

Does climate change cause conflict? Did it cause the Syrian uprising? Some policymakers and academics have made this claim, but is it true? This study presents a new conceptual framework to evaluate this claim. Contributing to scholarship in the fields of critical security, environmental security, human security, and Arab politics, Marwa Daoudy prioritizes non-Western and marginalized perspectives to make sense of Syria's place in this international debate. Designing an innovative multidisciplinary framework and applying it to the Syrian case, Daoudy uses extensive field research and her own personal background as a Syrian scholar to present primary interviews with Syrian government officials and citizens, as well as the research of domestic Syrian experts, to provide a unique insight into Syria's environmental, economic and social vulnerabilities leading up to the 2011 uprising.

Part I. The Context: History, Geography, Security: 1. Climate change and the Syrian revolution
2. The many faces of environmental security
3. When geography rules history
Part II. Human-Environmental Climate Security: 4. Rules of ideology and policy: from Ba'athism to the liberal age
5. Vulnerability and resilience: human-environmental climate security (HECS) in Syria
6. Syria: a (hi)story of vulnerability, resistance, and resilience.

Subject Areas: Social impact of environmental issues [RNT], Armed conflict [JPWS], Demonstrations & protest movements [JPWF], Political science & theory [JPA]