Questions about the economy and structure of economic power in the Arab region after the 2011 uprisings remain relatively unexplored by scholars. This project focuses on the economic dimensions of the Arab uprisings—both its antecedents and those that are shaping ongoing transitions in the region. What is the relationship between uprisings in the region and the economic interests of domestic and international actors? Why have governments in the region been reticent to reform social welfare policies? What influence have regional and international pressures had on the kind of domestic political transformations that have occurred thus far? This paper bridges the fields of fiscal sociology, international relations, and political economy to understand the political economies of transition in the Arab world. I focus on the economic debates and positions taken by domestic actors in the region and responses by international actors including western donor states and those from the Gulf. Attention is given in particular to the aid strategies advocated by international actors and the domestic responses towards understanding the multitude of economic interests competing to shape a new status quo in the region. I examine the construction of foreign assistance and defence spending since 2011 from western donors to the region, the Gulf, and that from the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) to examine the composition of that aid and its intended allocation within states in the region, with attention to the negotiations between donor and recipient states and civil society. I also focus on debates taking place within states towards understanding the incentive structure for governments in the region. Research for this project draws on extensive fieldwork in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt and interviews with activists, development practitioners, and diplomats engaged in transitional assistance projects in the region. This work builds on previous scholarship within international relations on aid and hierarchy and links that with the literature on transitions elsewhere, particularly in Eastern Europe to think about the role of aid in reinforcing power relations and coercing outcomes in what Lake (2012) has called “manipulating incentives” through aid to constrain state behaviour in building a new architecture of aid and security in the region. My findings underscore the importance of examining how elites, aid institutions, and experts are shaping the post 2011 environment with potentially perverse outcomes for those who have played an active role in pushing for alternative economic and political frameworks.

If it is true that political violence fragments state sovereignty, then transnational forces have become crucial to shaping how this process unfolds in Syria today. Although so-called non-state actors represent some of these, it is also true that state actors openly foster cross-border networks that support all parties to the conflict. That the United States, Turkey, and Qatar (among others) back the Syrian opposition to the Assad regime is nothing new. Less clear is how this support opens up, but also closes down, space for opposition politics in Syria despite access to a wealth of resources. Indeed, external support has prioritized bringing stability to Opposition-held communities, in practice turning these spaces into laboratory polities that quietly push contrasting models of governance for Syria’s “liberated” territories. How do Opposition networks articulate these diverse projects with the goals of the Syrian Revolution? More practically, how does this tangle of experiments shape governance? This paper investigates the transnational forces shaping the Syrian opposition, focusing on governance in the “liberated” territories. I argue that the entangled projects of donor states introduce an emergent process of wartime regionalization, one that realigns, and consequently strains, the political relationships upon which opposition actors rely for efficacy within Syria. I do so by illustrating how this spatial process is shaping governance practices in two communities in the opposition-held north: Idleb and Jarablus. This project is informed by twenty-six months of fieldwork in Turkey and Jordan, drawing on in-depth semi-structured interviews as well as research on geographies of conflict and political mobilization at a distance. It hopes to show how locally-situated actors navigate the tensions, but also benefits, created by external ties in civil war. Keywords: Proxy, laboratories, political violence, civil war, Syria, Syrian Opposition, governance.

In the simple narrative of the Syrian conflict, a grassroots uprising met with repression, violence overwhelmed mass mobilization, and civilians became either victims or warriors. Despite the dizzying truth of the violence, a more careful consideration of the Syrian warscape (Lubkemann 2008) finds continued evidence of mobilization among refugees in neighboring countries and activists inside Syria, a proliferation of civil society organizations and civilian governance authority in rebel-held territory, a formal political opposition with generous support from world powers, and abundant humanitarian and development aid and a dense organizational response to the crisis. And yet nonviolent mobilization appears to be ineffective and incoherent, to the point of the simple conclusion that it has all but disappeared. How can we explain the trajectories of grassroots activism in and around Syria, and how are they connected across borders? How do internal dynamics—violence and armed groups—and external dynamics—political, military, and humanitarian intervention—shape these trajectories? Ultimately, this project asks: How has nonviolent mobilization in the Syrian warscape developed and evolved during the conflict, and what is the impact of humanitarian and development (i.e. civilian) aid on these trajectories? To answer these questions, I build on literatures that consider the role of external actors in conflict, the nature of neoliberal governmentality, expectations about refugees’ political behavior, and the role of resources in contentious politics. My empirical investigation uses mixed methods at multiple levels of analysis. I collect data through two original surveys conducted among activists in Syrian refugee communities and qualitative interviews with aid workers and activist and ordinary Syrians. Case studies of Syrian communities in northern and southern Syria, Jordan, and Turkey, reveal the trajectories of civilian roles and organizations during the conflict, while a cross-state comparison considers the impact of distinct macro-level responses. I identify and trace multiple processes underlying the transformation of a grassroots uprising into an aid-based/dependent response to a humanitarian crisis: the infusion of resources into a competitive environment, the creation of technocrats to resolve technical problems, and a reorientation of the struggle’s language, targets, and outputs. I find that violence and intervention configure civilian roles and institutions to respond to the war as a humanitarian crisis; agency is overwhelmed by militarization and humanitarianization. Finally, I reflect on the long-run processes and implications of this transformation in civilian roles, considering, among other things, how aid may obviate political responses by containing the conflict.

Modern constitution-making is assumed to adhere to the founding tenants of classical constitutionalism. Since a constitution governs citizens, the citizens ought to have the authority to construct and amend it. In practice, however, this is increasingly being challenged. This paper confronts the persistent underlying assumption that external actors are not and should not be involved in the constitution-making process. In the case of Tunisia, International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) were involved in the drafting process, however very little is known about their role. This paper therefore asks: What type of role did INGOs play in Tunisia’s constitution-making? And how did their involvement influence the constitution? I argue that INGOs influenced the constitutional text, in addition to impacting the process, the state, and local civil society. INGOs significantly contributed to the development of Tunisia’s constitutional regime by way of training constituent members and local actors, organizing workshops, providing financial assistance, as well as supplying other means of ideational and material support. Constituent member participants in particular agree that the involvement of experienced international actors was necessary to fill the expertise gap in the state. After 54 years of authoritarianism, the state was arguably democratically deficient. Furthermore, as self-interested actors, INGOs eagerly dedicated their resources and support to the constitution-making process in order to advance interests they believed to be of importance. INGOs met their constitutional objectives vis-à-vis direct access to the state and its actors, and indirect access through local civil society. These findings call for a broad re-conceptualization of the role international actors has in the state during constitution-making. International actors in relation to engaging in constitution-making need not always be precarious; these actors help in developing the democratic legitimacy of a constitutional regime. Particularly for Tunisia, this research calls into question assumptions concerning judicial decision-making, constitutional identity, and the rule of law. Due to the engagement of INGOs, these important concepts are seemingly altered. This research is based on four months of fieldwork in the summer of 2016 in Tunisia. Interviews were conducted with INGOs, local NGOs, and constituent members.