Triple relations: The society, armed forces and civil authority in the context of political transition: The case of Syria

Abstract

The study of civil-military relations, from the standpoint of political science, gains particularly relevance in the periods of transition, i.e. the attempt to change the existing regime through protests or rebellion of the dissatisfied masses. How the armed forces will react, i.e. whether they will remain loyal to the regime or take the demonstrators' part, depends, inter alia, on the closeness of the ties between the armed forces and society. The ethnic, national, religious and other structure of the armed forces, their main mission, the position in relation to the security services, as well as participation in the implementation of repressive measures, are some of the indicators of the relation between the armed forces and society. The objective of this paper is to study the impact of the social structure of the armed forces on their decision to (not) support the protests, based on the following hypothesis: If the structure of the armed forces is mostly composed of members of the ruling ethnic, sectarian, tribal and similar groups, it is more likely that they will support the regime. The hypothesis was tested on the case of Syria, where the armed forces decided to stay with Bashar al-Assad, which was analyzed through their sectarian-Alawite character, i.e. the identity of the Alawites religious sect, the main features of the Assad rule and the armed forces position in that regime. Using the case study method, it can be concluded that the case of Syria shows that if the social structure of the armed forces is a reflection of the structure of the ruling elite, they remain loyal to the regime because their survival depends on that regime.

Keywords

• armed forces
• transition
• syria
• bashar al-assad
• alawites
• military