This thesis applies the concept of religious (national) identity to the cases of Saudi Arabia, Iran and their proxy allies - state and non-state actors - in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. The aim was to show that in the Middle East, Sunni and Shiite affiliations matter in the relationship between the regional powers and respective proxies, as opposing to realist statement that alliances, conflicts and political developments are only governed by pragmatic power interests. Additionally, the work examines whether religious national identities have impact on the dynamics of proxy conflicts. Overall, the objective was to establish comprehensive image of how ideational/constructivist and pragmatic/realist factors work in combination to influence alliances, enmities and conflicts in the Middle East. Using qualitative methods of research, religious (national) identities of Saudi Arabia, Iran and their allies in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen were constructed so as to create ideational and realist points of departure, and then interlinked to show how convergence of religious identities helps in creating durable alliances if used in targeted manner as a strategic tool which can help safeguard national interests. The work shows notable differences in the use of this tool between Saudi Arabia and Iran, suggesting that it...

The aim of this thesis is to answer the question of why rebel groups engage in conflict with each other despite sharing an identity. Previous research suggests that a shared identity should promote cooperation, but recent conflicts between rebel groups in Syria seem to suggest that shared identity can instead be a cause for rivalry. This thesis investigates this puzzle by using Pischedda’s theory on windows of opportunity and vulnerability and Hafez theory on proxidistant ideologies. The cases of the thesis are the conflicts between Ahrar Al-Sham and IS in 2014 and between Ahrar Al-Sham and the Al Nusra Front in 2017. The results indicate that shared identity does cause rivalry, and both theories receive support for their explanation of inter-rebel conflict. All three rebel groups are labeled as extremists, which supports Hafez theory that extremist groups are more likely to engage in conflict with rivals. The military strength and the possible costs of attack of the rebel groups seem to support Pischedda’s theory that rebel groups use specific windows in time to attack their rivals. There are however some problems that neither theory can explain, such as Ahrar Al-Shams friendly relationship to Al Nusra between 2014 and 2017. This thesis provide insight into the understudied field of inter-rebel conflict of War Studies by highlighting the importance of identity.

Fragments d’Alep est le récit d’une navigation à travers des images de guerre. Celle-ci débute en 2016, année d’intensification et de conclusion de la guerre civile d’Alep. Elle tente de retrouver les moments marquant de la constitution d’un imaginaire de guerre et du monde arabe par son auteur. Imbriquée dans une mémoire technique où l’histoire de la représentation du Moyen-Orient semble déterminée par les transformations liées à l’ère du numérique, cette navigation devient le lieu de digression qui souhaite interroger les images de guerre à travers les textures des écrans qui les ont diffusées. / Fragments of Aleppo draws a navigation through images of war. It begins in 2016, year of the intensification and conclusion of the civil war in Aleppo. It is an attempt from the author to find the key points of the building of the collective imagination as regards war and the Arab world. Embedded in a technical memory where the history of the representation of the Middle East seems determined by the transformations engendered by the digital age, this navigation becomes a site of digression that wants to interrogate images of war through the texture of the screens that broadcast them.

In the era of the Arab Spring, the people of Libya and Syria have fought for freedom and democracy. This essay aims to examine and analyze how The United Nations Security Council works to solve international problems in the world.   The main questions of my study are:   - How did the UN work on the basis of R2P in Libya and Syria?  - Why could the UN Security Council to agree on R2P in Libya but not in Syria?  Under the Arab Spring as the context, the purpose of this essay is to study the role of the United Nations UN in Syria and Libya. So, I highlight to the role of UN in R2P Responsibility to Protect in Libya and Syria. In 2011, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1973, which established a no-fly zone over Libya. The UN’s actions in Libya succeeded to remove the dictator Muammar Al-Gaddafi by R2P's principle, while The UN failed to remove dictator Bashar AL-Assad in Syria. The purpose of the R2P in Libya was to establish a no-fly zone and safe areas to protect civilians, but this led to the overthrow of Al-Gaddafi's regime in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1973.  I have used the theory of Realism and Liberalism to adapt them with my own theory to achieve the aim of my essay. In this paper, I used also content analysis as a guide of Method to reach conclusions. The materials used for this essay are documents, books and articles etc.  The results of my study are that the most important reason for Russia and China to use their veto in the UN Security Council is fear for the misuse of the international resolution to overthrow the regime in Syria. And thus, harm the very strong Chinese and Russian interests in Syria.

The literature on rebel cohesion/fragmentation currently presents valid macro-level explanations for rebel group cohesion/fragmentation, yet no model currently exists exploring non-utility-based motivations regulating pro-group behaviour. This thesis tests the assumptions of a novel social psychological framework – Identity Fusion Theory – on rebel cohesion. Using a primarily quantitative approach applying a logistic regression model to primary data gathered on the Syrian Civil War, and a smaller qualitative element comparing groups with “fused” and “non-fused” memberships during the war, the thesis tests the hypothesis that “groups with highly fused memberships will be less likely to fragment during the course of a civil war than groups with non-fused memberships”. The results of the analysis show a strong, positive relationship between fused memberships and rebel cohesion. The results of the thesis are to some extent limited by potential omitted variable bias (suggested by high R2 values) and the use of Syria as the only population from which to sample. Nevertheless, the relatively large number of observations in the dataset (63) as well as heterogenous nature of groups involved suggest the findings are generalisable. In conclusion, we did find a positive relationship between fusion and rebel group cohesion. The main implications of this thesis being that future academic research may benefit from focusing on social psychological factors when examining rebel dynamics while policymakers potentially shape better responses to insurgencies and rebellions.

This study focuses on the similarities and differences between Russian and Anglo-Saxon strategic narratives in relation to the interventions in Syria 2015 and Libya 2011. The aim is to investigate the imitation theory further as it has been described by Krastev and Holmes (2019) and if it is possible to claim that the Russian regime has used imitated strategic narratives from the United States and the United Kingdom as a soft power tool in the Syrian intervention. By using narrative analysis, 12 speeches made by Putin, Medvedev, Lavrov, Camron, and Obama have been analyzed in order to find similarities and differences between Anglo-Saxon and Russian strategic narratives in connection to interventions in countries affected by the Arabic Spring. The results show indication of imitation from the Russian side regarding themes such as the United Nations and people’s right to choose their own governanc

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the Russian Federation plays an important role in the debate over humanitarian interventions. These are defined by the Responsibility to Protect principle that allows international military intervention into internal political crisis of other countries in case the security of civilian population is in danger. Russia sent its army to Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014 referring to this principle. However, it was Russia's reluctance to approve any intervention that governed the diplomatic negotiations during the Libyan civil war in 2011. The importance of the problem of various understanding of the R2P principle by different world powers is still crucial and is also clearly visible on the ongoing conflict in Syria. This thesis focuses on the approach of the Russian Federation to the Responsibility to Protect principle. It determines general factors that influence the issue of humanitarian intervention in the framework of Russian foreign policy, and puts Russian attitude to the overall context of the discussion about this principle. The thesis confirms the assumption that the R2P principle has become a Russian foreign policy instrument, which has been misused within the Russian sphere of interest and used to obstruct the interventions initiated by the...

Le trafic d’objets culturels est une manne illicite qui approvisionne partiellement le marché de l’art. Ce commerce clandestin se veut d’ampleur internationale bien que certains pays se trouvent plus touchés que d’autres. Afin de limiter ces pratiques et les conséquences irréversibles qu’elles entraînent, la communauté internationale tente depuis la seconde moitié du XXe siècle de mobiliser la population et de produire des instruments juridiques en faveur de la protection de l’héritage mondial. Pourtant, en août 2015, une cargaison de quatre-vingt- trois objets culturels d’origine syrienne est livrée au port de Long Beach, en Californie. Le chargement en provenance de Turquie s’avère alors composé de poteries, mais aussi de trois mosaïques, dont une pièce datée entre le IIIe et le IVe siècle de notre ère. Saisie et confisquée à son propriétaire par la justice américaine, cette mosaïque ne sera néanmoins jamais retournée à son pays d’origine. L’objectif de cette étude est d’analyser et de comprendre le cheminement d’un objet culturel illicite. Cependant, le trafic demeure un phénomène complexe et ses ramifications sont nombreuses. Afin de rendre cette étude intelligible, notre mémoire se divisera en trois axes autour d’une étude de cas. Le contexte dans lequel se place la fresque est examiné au premier chapitre. Celui-ci met en lumière l’impact d’un environnement instable sur les crimes perpétrés contre l’art. Il implique aussi une analyse globale des intermédiaires participants au trafic et apporte une analyse formelle et iconographique de la fresque. Ensuite, et pour comprendre le cheminement de l’objet d’art jusqu’aux États-Unis, le second chapitre de cette étude participe à un court état des lieux du marché de l’art dans toutes ses nuances : soit du marché licite dit « blanc » au marché « gris » ou encore « noir ». Il dévoile alors l’importance des technologies dans l’expansion du trafic illicite d’objets d’art. Enfin, le dernier chapitre étudie les institutions internationales majeures ainsi que leurs actions en faveur de la protection du patrimoine culturel. Cette section dresse la chronologie des différents instruments juridiques qui auraient pu prévenir l’exportation illicite de la mosaïque ou qui pourraient encore actuellement permettre son retour en Syrie. Mais ces outils sont-ils suffisants ? / Trafficking in cultural objects is an illicit source of income that partially supplies the art market. This clandestine trade is international even if some countries are more affected than others. In order to limit these practices and the consequences they generate, the international community has been trying since the second half of the 20th century to mobilize the population and to produce legal tools for the protection of the world's heritage. However, in August 2015, a shipment of eighty-three objects of Syrian origin was delivered to the port of Long Beach, California. The shipment sent from Turkey was composed of pottery, and three mosaics, including one piece dated between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. This mosaic has been seized and confiscated from its owner by the District Court of California but has never been returned to its country. The purpose of this study is to analyze and understand the path of an illicit cultural object. However, trafficking remains a complex phenomenon and its ramifications are countless. In order to make this study intelligible, our dissertation will be divided into three chapters that will anchored into a case study. The historical context of the mosaic is studied in the first chapter. It highlights the impact of an unstable environment on crimes against art. The chapter also provides a global analysis of the intermediaries involved in the traffic and provides a formal and iconographic analysis of the mosaic. Then, in order to understand the journey of the artifact to the United States, the second chapter of this study focuses on established yet illicit practices of the art market, both the legal « white » market and the illicit or «black» market. It also underlines the importance of technology in the expansion of the illicit traffic of art objects. Finally, the last chapter studies the international institutions and their pronoucement (if not always their actions) in favor of the protection of cultural heritage. This section creates a history of the different legal instruments that could have prevented the illicit export of the mosaic or that could still currently allow its return to Syria. But are these tools efficient ?

This study examines political engagement among Syrian students at the University of Jordan who are either refugees, asylum seekers or children of Jordanian mothers. By adopting Ekman and Amnå’s conceptualization of political participation and analysing 15 semi-structured interviews, I find that the Syrian students are both engaged in manifest and latent forms of political participation. The engagement is mostly canalised through individual activities rather than collective activities. Most importantly, the engagement is less common in domestic issues than non-domestic issues. When the students are engaged in domestic issues, it is mostly in latent forms of political participation and in private activities not risking revealing their opinions to the general public. Interestingly, I find that the students are interested in Jordan public affairs but that this interest is not transformed into political action aiming to affect Jordanian political decisions. The pattern of political participation in several ways corresponds with the students’ perceptions of risks. The Syrian students associate political engagement in Jordan with perceived risks such as being deported back to Syria or facing racism. Respondents expressed that they were not politically engaged because of the risks that it could entail and engagement in activities connected to Jordan public affairs seems to be perceived as more of a risk compared to being engaged in non-domestic issues. This seems to be particularly true for activities carried out in public. My findings are important as they shed light on political engagement in authoritarian contexts in the Global South and among marginalised non-citizens.

This paper analyzes the influence of Russian elite clans on Russian foreign policy-making. The goal of this paper is to discover the missing link that connects the changes in the International System to the formation of Russian foreign policy, more specifically the Russo-Georgian War, the occupation of Crimea, and the intervention in Syria. Therefore, the theory of neo-classical realism is applied to a systematic process analysis in order to trace the chain of causal relations in which the struggle of elite clans influences foreign policy-making. The combination of neo-realism and state capacity analysis complements the approach of neo-classical realism. This paper argues that the beliefs of the elite clans play an important role in shaping Russia’s foreign policy. The elite clans struggle to establish themselves and consolidate their power within the Russian government structures, which affected the shift from pragmatism and a multipolar approach to a transimperialist approach in Russian foreign policy.