Levant in Turmoil

Martin Beck is Chair of Contemporary Middle East Studies at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense. He has published extensively on Middle Eastern affairs. Dietrich Jung is Professor and Head of Department at the Centre for Contemporary Middle East Studies, University of Southern Denmark. He has published widely on wars and conflicts in the Middle East, as well as on modern Islam. Peter Seeberg is Associate Professor and Director of the DJUCO-project, an academic cooperation project in Amman, Jordan, since 2009 funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (www.djuco.org).

"This excellent volume brings together a multiplicity of experts offering diverse perspectives on the crisis which has engulfed the Levant in the post-2011 period. The Syrian civil war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are meticulously examined and placed in their regional and international contexts. Contemporary developments are analysed in light of their historical antecedents and sectarianism interpreted within its proper political and socio-economic framework. The book offers an informative and measured assessment of the current political transformations of the state system in the Levant and the broader Middle East region and will make a distinct contribution to debate among specialists and the general public alike." - Katerina Dalacoura, Associate Professor in International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK "[This book], edited and written by a group of prominent Middle East experts, is an outstanding contribution to the still very small market of serious and meaningful publications on current developments in Syria and the Levant. Although scholarly in style and content, I am sure that it will also attract a much broader non-academic audience." - Henner Furtig, Director, GIGA Institute of Middle East Studies, Hamburg, Germany

• ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgments Introduction: Political Turmoil and Social Transformation in the Levant; Martin Beck, Dietrich Jung, and Peter Seeberg1. Syria's Civil War and the Reconfiguration of Regional Politics; Fred H. Lawson2. Deadly Implications: The Rise of Sectarianism in Syria; Peter Sluglett3. Conflict, Governance and Decentralized Authority in Syria; Samer N. Abboud4. The Syrian Refugee Crisis And Its Impact On Jordan: In Reference to the Regime's Structural Deficits; Simone Hüser5. The Crisis in Syria, International and Regional Sanctions and the Transformation of the Political Order in the Levant; Peter Seeberg6. The 'Syrian Effects' and the Regional Quest for Human Dignity in the New Syrian, Egyptian and Tunesian Constitutions; Mervat F. Hatem7. Israel and a Palestinian State: Redrawing Lines?; Lorenzo Kamel8. Failed Attempts or Faliures to Attempt? Western Policies toward PalestinianStatehood; Martin Beck9. Turmoil in the Levant: Inconclusive Conclusions; Dietrich JungContributor Bios Index