Text

theses

What explains alignment behavior in Syrian foreign policy? Structural realists argue that, like all states, authoritarian states pursue their national interests in an anarchic world by balancing power or threats, informed by the distribution of material capabilities. Hence alliance choices, according to structural realists, are driven, necessarily, by regional threat assessments. Weak states in such an anarchic system, lacking ability to balance, would bandwagon with the powerful state. Liberals argue that domestic characters of states influence foreign policy behavior. Non-democratic states lack democratic institutions, which erodes the concept of “national interest”. Liberals therefore argue that authoritarian states’ foreign policies are irrational, unpredictable and driven by ideology geared solely towards regime survival. This dissertation motivates a resolution to this puzzle by arguing that Syria’s state national interest was defined through a foreign policy that dealt with the domestic distributional dilemma, and simultaneously sought external security and regime survival. The alignment choices in Syrian foreign policy are best explained through a neoclassical realist approach that combines state and systemic level variables. Decision-making process analysis of the political relevant elite in Syria will ground the dynamic that links state and systemic factors in a coherent rational foreign policy. This project worked towards testing the neo-classical realist theory of foreign policy in the Syrian case, and performing initial plausibility checks by examining Syrian foreign policy alignment choices between 1970 and 2010 through a number of case studies. Liberals fail to explain Syrian foreign policy behavior during the period in question, while neoclassical realism approach sheds more light on Syria’s foreign policy behavior in general, and alignment choices in particular. Methodologically, this project employs the historical analysis approach. Process tracing, in each case study, draws on elite interviews, local and regional press accounts, economic databases, military disputes data sets, memoirs, and U.S. National Security archives.

ETD_5635

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Ghaidaa Hetou

doi:10.7282/T3M32T29

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.