Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1931. / Includes bibliographical references.

The armed conflict in Syria is complex and bloody. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of how and why the conflict started in Syria. The purpose of the study is to identify the key actors in the conflict, both internal and external actors and the impact of these actors in the Syrian conflict and what role they have played to achieve their goals. Furthermore, this paper also seeks to explore the changing character of conflict over time and the main obstacles for the peace in Syria. The study’s method is a comparative case study. A comparison between 2011-2017 is used to draw general conclusions. The theoretical framework to analyze are realism and liberalism. The materials used for this study are books, articles and documents etc. In conclusion, this paper finds that Assad's family has ruled Syria with an iron fist for many decades and a lack of freedom and economic problems caused protests  against Assad’s rule. The nature of war has changed in the period 2011 to 2017. Syria was a state of war of all against all. Syria was divided between many actors and they strove for power and dominance. The main obstacles to peace, there are various divisions within the opposition and most of them living abroad and  the external actors has impacted conflict. The reform of the United Nations Security Council  is a prerequisite for peace in Syria. The UN should send peacekeeping forces to Syria and Syria needs a Marshall Plan.

The extensive literature on public open space illustrates that it is of great importance to the quality of life. This is particularly true in Syria where public open spaces play a critical role in the urban structure of cities and in the inhabitant’s daily existence. There is published evidence that improving the quality of public open spaces requires a comprehensive analysis of these spaces in order to be able to evaluate their quality. This thesis is concerned with investigating and evaluating public open spaces in Hama, Syria both in terms of the quality of the spaces themselves and the process of creating and managing these spaces in order to offer suggestions for improving the quality of life in Hama through improving the quality of its spaces. The research strategy, the social spatial approach, involves understanding the investigative context as: (a) a social phenomenon, by exploring the residents’ perceptions, professionals’ perceptions and users’ behaviour, (b) a spatial phenomenon, by exploring the physical and spatial structure of Hama. The research adopts a case study method choosing three parks as examples for their distinctive features, and a range of different qualitative and quantitative techniques are applied systematically to these parks and their wider context. These techniques comprised: a questionnaire survey with residents in Hama; observation and behavioural mapping in the parks; semi-structured interviews with professionals involved in the design and management process; land use and urban form surveys; space syntax applied at micro and macro scale; and a desk-top study of documents. The findings of the evaluation illustrate that the qualities of the three selected parks could be enhanced. In addition, they show the there is scope for a participatory process of design and management to ensure that the final delivery of new parks and the development of existing ones meet the users’ expectations. The research draws a number of conclusions, which are developed into a set of general recommendations. Two of the key suggestions are (a) the provision of good quality public facilities which meet residents’ needs in the parks (b) the provision of training programmes by Hama City Council for those involved in the development and delivery process of public open spaces. Both are vital if the quality of the public open spaces is to be improved.

The discourse regarding US/Russia relations focuses intensely on the competitive nature between these two powers. Policy makers echo strategies of the past by making recommendations which embrace competitiveness and mutual mistrust as unavoidable characteristics for future relations. Although these perspectives are not entirely misled, they fall short of illustrating the finer nuances of relations. This paper offers an extensive analysis of three instances of cooperation between the US and Russia in Syria between 2011 and 2017 in order to offer concrete observations about how these antagonistic powers work together. The analysis shows that although the US and Russia are competitive and often have opposing agendas, this does not necessarily prevent them from cooperative engagement that produces substantive results. Their polarity can even contribute to more effective cooperation. This paper also draws conclusions about what circumstances improve the effectiveness of US/Russia cooperation and makes recommendations for future mutual efforts in Syria.

Jamal ad din Abu'Abdullah Muhammad b. Salim b. Nasrallih b. Salim b. Wasil was born in Hamah on 2 Shawwal, 604. He was brought up there, and educated at Jerusalem, Damascus and Aleppo. He spent seventeen years in Egypt, (642-659), and was there at the time of St. Louis' Crusade, and of the beginning of the Mamluk dynasty. He resided at the courts of several of the leading Ayyubid princes of the Seventh Century, A.H. (Mu'azzam of Damascus, Nasir Daud of Kerak, Ayyub of Egypt, Muzaffar II of Hamah, and his two successors), and he knew intimately many of their leading courtiers, soldiers and scholars. In the latter part of his life he was for many years chief Qadi of his native city, where he died on the 22 Shawwal, 697.;His great work, the Mufarrij al Kurub, fi Akhbar Bani Ayyub, was written towards the end of his life, and contains the history of the Ayyubids from their first appearance until 659. Ibn Wasil had devoted much of his life to the study of History, and had written at least one and probably more books on the subject already, so that the Mufarrij combines the merits being written by a first-class historian and a close observer of most of the events he relates.;The Seventh Century, A.H. was a great period of scholarship, and especially was this so in Syria. Damascus and Aleppo were at this time replacing Bagdad as centres of learning, under the patronage of the Ayyubid princes. Up to the end the Sixth Century, almost all the leading scholars had studied in Bagdad, but with the founding of Madrasas in large numbers by Nur ad din and Saladin, the Syrian cities (1) became increasingly a gathering place for men of learning. Particularly rich was this period in historians. While Ibn Wasil was growing up, there was a flourishing school of historians at Aleppo, another at Damascus, and in his own town of Hamah there were at least three historians at work. As the century went on, the work of Baha ad din b. Shaddad and Ibn abi Tayy was carried on in Aleppo by Kamal ad din b. al 'Adim and Izz ad din b. Shaddad. In Damascus, the three great historians, Abu Shama, Sibt b.al Jauzi and Ibn Khallikan were all writing their books a few years before Ibn Wasil composed the Mufarrij, and Ibn abi Usaibi'a belongs to the same period. Ibn Wasil is the last of the great historians of the century, and was himself the master of his successor, Abulfida. The Egyptian school of historians does not appear until the beginning of the Mamluk dynasty, and it is to the Syrian historians that we look for our knowledge of the Ayyubid dynasty. Of these Ibn Wasil was in the best position to give first hand information on the later period.;The style of these Seventh century histories is clear and concise, and Ibn Wasil snares this characteristic. The flowery eloquence of the lives of Saladin was looked upon with some contempt, as "a characteristic of the writers of former times, whom, you will observe, have much talk and little meaning, expressing themselves metaphorically. This is not really good style" (1) This is Abu Shama's opinion, and Ibn al Athir says much the same in his Preface to the History of the Atabeks. He has resolved, he says, not to write at length because of "the preference people have in our time for brevity." (2) This last word, (Ikhtisar), indicates the character of much of the work of scholars of this time, including Ibn Wasil. Many books were merely summaries of previous works on a subject, whether history or some other branch of learning, and Ibn Wasil's first historical work was a "Mukhtasar", to be followed by a longer "Tarikh Kabir". Besides this he wrote Mukhtasars of the Kitab al Aghani, of a work on theology by Fakhr ad din ar Razi, and of Ibn al Baitar's book on medicine. Three others of his works were commentaries on previous books, (Chapter X.).

Esta pesquisa objetiva produzir uma narrativa histórica da Síria com ênfase no período de 2000 até 2011. O interesse é investigar como se formou a oposição política ao regime de Bar al-Asad durante a primeira década do século XXI e quais as relações dessa oposição política com a atual insurreição síria, que se iniciou em 2011, verificando as origens dessa oposição nos anos anteriores à ascensão de Bar al-Asad à presidência. A primeira parte conta como se organizaram grupos políticos na Síria desde o final do século XIX até o final do século XX. A segunda parte narra a ascensão de Bar al-Asad ao poder no ano 2000 e sua relação com os grupos oposicionistas durante toda a década de 2000 a 2010, e constitui o cerne da investigação. A terceira parte narra como a insurreição síria tomou forma ao longo do ano de 2011, iniciando-se de forma pacífica e evoluindo para o confronto armado. Para a composição da narrativa, a maior variedade possível de fontes de informação foi analisada com a finalidade de trazer informações atualizadas e de diversos pontos de vista: buscamos organizar os fatos, narrá-los de maneira concisa e indicar suas fontes. Apresentamos como resultado de nossa investigação uma história social, combinando narrativas acadêmicas, historiográficas, políticas e artísticas para produzir um texto informativo e respeitoso que contribua com o debate acerca da história da Síria, sua cultura e sua sociedade. / This research aims to produce a narrative history of Syria, with emphasis on the period from 2000 to 2011. Our main interest is to investigate how the political opposition to the regime of Bar al-Asad was formed during the first decade of this century; and the relations of that political opposition to the current Syrian uprising, which began in 2011, verifying the origins of the opposition in the years before the rise of Bar al-Asad to the presidency. In the first part, we explain how political groups in Syria organized themselves since the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. In the second part, which constitutes the core part of this research, we present the rise of Bar al-Asad to power in 2000 and its relationship with the opposition groups throughout the decade. The third part shows the Syrian uprising taking shape along the year 2011, beginning peacefully and evolving into armed confrontation. For the composition of the narrative, the widest variety of sources of information was analyzed in order to bring up to date information and different points of view: we sought to organize the facts, narrate them concisely and indicate their sources. We present as a result of our investigation a social history, combining academic, historiographical, political and artistic narratives to produce an informative and respectful text to contribute to the debate about the history of Syria and its culture and society.

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Dans les sociétés en voie de développement comme la Syrie et l'Egypte, les assurances sociales constituent un pilier important dans les mesures où elles jouent un rôle important dans le financement de la croissance économique / In developing societies like Syria and Egypt, social insurance can play an important role in the in the financing of economic

The topic of this dissertation is the alliances of a regional power. The framework used to explain this central aspect of International Relations is the realist one, and particularly the work of the Classical Realist Arnold Wolfers. The regional, state and domestic dimension are integrated in order to provide an “updated realist” interpretation of alliances, why states form them, maintain them or break them. This dissertation seeks to recover the concept of state's goals that was central to Classical Realism and then “abandoned” when Neorealism became the dominant Realist paradigm. The case studies used in this research is Syria during the 1970-1989 phase and particularly five pivotal relations: the Egypt 1973 war alliance, the 1978 failed détente with Iraq, the 1979 Damascus-Tehran alliance, the regional client-superpower alliance with the USSR and finally the relation with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. By analysing Syria's foreign policy and particularly these five relations this dissertation show how a framework based on realism provides a coherent and insightful interpretation of a regional power's foreign policy.

This thesis deals with the future of the concept of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and focuses on prospects of the concept after the conflicts in Libya and Syria. Concept of R2P was developed in 2001 as a reaction to the genocide in Rwanda and Srebrenica and attempts to bring an answer to the question, how to react in the situation when a sovereign state fails to protect its population against crimes under international law. In this thesis I examine the application of the concept in Libya and reasons why it was not applied to a similar situation in Syria. I also deal with the subsequent debate which was held on the international stage after experience with these conflicts and I analyse proposals, which were brought into this debate focusing on how to move the concept forward or modify it. I therefore examine the Brazilian concept of the Responsibility while Protecting (RwP), the question of adoption of guidelines for the intervention according to the R2P, the topic of monitoring and accountability of the intervening state, the Responsibility not to veto and the issue of limiting the use of veto in UN Security Council, the possibility of involvement of UN General Assembly in the R2P, the question of prevention and the topic of unilateral non-forcible measures. The unilateral non- forcible measures,...