Reading Syria through a Non-mainstream IR Theory Perspective

The Arab Spring directed attention to the Middle East, and in parallel, the emergence of the political agency of the Global South has accelerated the importance of engaging with political systems of non-western countries beyond mainstream IR theories. More precisely, the increasing impact of regional powers in global affairs with the emergence of a multilateral world has made it appropriate to take Syria into account by reading it through various theoretical matrices. These reveal the profound relation of a political system with multiple manifest social identities nurtured through historical occurrences, geographical alignments, national aspirations, and moreover forged in response to foreign occupations and interventions that have shaped the social and political environment in Syria and its national institutions. Conversely, reading Syria through the lens of mainstream IR theories such as liberalism and realism narrows the scope to the role of individuality and democratic rights, and a focus on power factors and political competition per se. Thus, regionalism as an approach, which allows for a more adequate understanding of Syrian politics, reveals the particularity of Syria by emphasizing its historical and geographical importance in current politics. Moreover, regionalism not only contributes to representing Syria in relation to its inherent characteristics but also demonstrates the role of regional politics in International Relations. The article examines Syria through a regionalist approach, and thus, by looking at it from a non-Western perspective, it attempts to understand the political realities in the Global South that are very different from those of the Western world. Lastly, such an approach allows for the broadening of the theoretical framework in the field of social sciences.