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The Origins of the Syrian Conflict Updates Staffآخرأخبار الموظفين Q&A with Professor Marwa Daoudy on her new book exploring climate change, human security, and the Syrian conflict

What made you want to write What are the major conclusions that you draw in this book? your book?

Over the past few decades, a new narraI argue that government policies were at the heart of Syria’s vulnertive has emerged that seeks to link climate abilities prior to the conflict. Political and socio-economic factors Profile Member Board المجلس األستشاري change with political and social unrest. More recently, this climate-conflict narrawere ultimately more important than a climate-induced drought in the build-up to the uprising, a lesson that may find application in tive has been applied to the Syrian case. other case studies around the world on the interaction between cliAccording to this logic, climate change mate change and human insecurity.  THE ORIGINS OF caused the 2006-2010 drought in Syria, THE SYRIAN CONFLICT Climate Change and Human Security Dispatches برقيات the drought caused agricultural failure, agricultural failure caused poverty, and the resulting displacement and discontent culminated with the 2011 uprisings. I wanted to question this narrative Dr. Marwa Daoudy is Assistant Professor of International Relations at CCAS. Her book, The Origins of the Syrian Conflict: Climate Change and Human Security, was published by Cambridge University Press in March. both conceptually and empirically as it obfuscates the responsibility of decisionEllen Fleischmann (MAAS, makers and denies agency to vulnerable Georgetown PhD ‘96) MARWA DAOUDY migrants who suffered from drought, The Nation and Its “New” Women: Public displacement and then conflict. I also want to show that while global warming is real and international action is ur Events المناسبات العامة The Palestinian Women’s Movement, 1920-1948 University of California Press, 2003 gently needed, climate change was not what was at the forefront of the minds of Syrians in 2011. Instead, most people were focused on a moral ideal: the end of repression and social injustice.

How did you conduct your research?

Outreach Education تعميم التثقيف التربوي My book draws on field research and my own background as a Syrian scholar to present primary interviews with officials and citizens, activists, and refugees, and the research of in-country Syrian experts to provide unique insight into Syria’s environmental, economic, and social vulnerabilities leading up to the 2011 uprisings. In doing so, I

Anita Fabos (MAAS ‘88)

“Brothers” or Others? Propriety and Gender for Muslim Arab Sudanese in Egypt Berghahn Books, 2008 identify the ideological and policy drivers of human insecurity that impacted Syria’s water and food security. I explore how ideology shaped the policy decisions of the Syrian government under Hafez In the Headlines al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad and how these policies significantly contributed to the vulnerability of the rural population in the deالعناوين في cades prior to 2011. Moreover, I design a multi-layered framework called Human Environmental Climate Security (HECS) to consider !Mabrouk the role of economic and sociopolitical factors since the 1960s. This framework seeks to move beyond deterministic narratives that focus on population growth and resource scarcity to instead position vulnerability and sustainability at the center of environmental risk. It defines climate security as a series of threats and vulnerabilities posed not only by variation in climate conditions but also by political decisions that impact human and ecological life. Working in connection مبروك

Abla Amawi (MAAS ‘86)

Against All Odds: Jordanian Women, Elections and Political Empowerment Al Kutba Institute for Human Development and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 2001 with the concept of vulnerability, resilience is a critical component of a community’s susceptibility to climate insecurity, but in Syria, resilience was relatively low due to poor governance, institutional weaknesses and a sudden shift to neo-liberal policies. 4 Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University Research Faculty: هيئة التدريس أبحاث