Charities and Politics in Bashar al-Asad’s Syria

Trained as a political scientist and as an Arabic philologist, and having resided for years in Egypt, Syria and Tunisia, Laura Ruiz de Elvira is a research fellow at the IRD (Ceped, Université Paris Cité). She received her PhD with distinction from the EHESS (Paris) and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2013. A specialist in charitable practices, social policies, social movement studies, and authoritarianism, particularly in Syria and Tunisia, she is the Principal Investigator of the ERC StG project LIVE – AR (The Subsequent Lives of Arab Revolutionaries). She has co-edited Les mondes de la bien-faisance (CNRS Editions, 2021) and Clientelism and Patronage in the Middle East and North Africa (Routledge, 2018). She is also the author of Vers la fin du contrat social en Syrie (Karthala, 2019) and Civil Society and the State in Syria: The Outsourcing of Social Responsibility (Lynne Rienner, 2012; with Tina Zintl). Keith Hodson is a translator and proof reader. He has worked with numerous French scientific research institutes and his translations include The Theory of Change and Response by Véronique Petit and Yves Charbit, Labour: A Heterodox Approach by Jean Vercherand and The conditions of efficiency of a PPP for public finances by Alain Bonnafous.

This study provides a powerful and much-needed correction to those studying the Syrian uprising and war with little appreciation of the pre-2011 era. Laura Ruiz de Elvira is the person to do it as her research on the country encompasses nearly two decades. Charities and Politics in Bashar al-Asad's Syria presents a narrative that is illuminating, heartbreaking and hopeful all at once.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsNote on TransliterationList of Abbreviations Introduction: Syrian Charities as a Scientific Object1. Syrian Charities in the Twentieth Century2. Civil Society and Charitities in Bashar al-Asad’s Era3. Collective Action and Funding Strategies of Syrian Charities4. Getting Committed in Syrian Charitable Associations5. Local Strategies through a Hirschmanian Lens6. Participation and Outsourcing: A New Grammar of Public Action in Syria7. The State as Conceiver, Legislator and Manager8. The Controlling, Disciplining and Repressive StateConclusion: The Syrian Uprising or the Unravelling of the Social ContractAppendix 1 Map of the Population of the Main Syrian CitiesAppendix 2 Summary Table of the Syrian Associations VisitedAppendix 3 Signs and Banners from Syrian CharitiesAppendix 4 Brochures from Syrian CharitiesAppendix 5 Products of Syrian CharitiesAppendix 6 Extracts from the English Version of the Tenth Five-Year Plan of the Syrian Arab Republic (Chapter 6, Section 4)Appendix 7 Reports and Balance Sheets from Syrian CharitiesAppendix 8 Table of Public Finances (2003–9)Appendix 9 Syrian PressReferencesIndex