Violent Non-state Actors and the Syrian Civil War

Ozden Zeynep Oktav is a Professor at İstanbul Medeniyet University in the Department of International Relations. She is the author of the books entitled Turkey in the 21st Century Quest for a New Foreign Policy (2011),  Limits of Relations with the West: Turkey Syria and Iran (2008), The Changing Dynamics of the Arab Gulf and Saudi Arabia-US-Iran Relations (2011) and the co-editor of Turkey in the 2000’s: Opportunities, Risks and Crises (2015), GCC-Turkey Relations: Dawn of a New Era (2015). She published many articles on Turkey-Middle East relations. She was awarded the Government of Turkey, Council of Higher Education scholarship in 2011 and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey scholarship in 2013. She was a visiting Researcher at Cambridge University, UK and St. Andrews University, Scotland, UK in 2011 and 2013 respectively.Emel Parlar Dal is an Associate Professor at Marmara University’s Department of International Relations. Having completed her graduate studies at Paris Sorbonne University, she conducted research at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva in 2010-2011 and at St. Anthony’s College Middle East Centre, Oxford University in 2013. Her articles have covered, inter alia, Turkish foreign policy, Turkey as an emerging power, Turkey’s global governance policies compared with those of the BRICS, Turkey-Middle East relations and the role of violent non-state actors, and Turkey’s development cooperation policies in Africa compared to China’s. Her recent publications have appeared in Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Third World Quarterly, Turkish Studies, International Journal and Perceptions and she recently edited a special issue on MIKTA for Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis with Professor Andrew Cooper from University of Waterloo. She is the editor-in-chief of Rising Powers Quarterly.Ali Murat Kurşun is a research assistant at Marmara University’s Department of International Relations. He completed his MA degree at Istanbul Bilgi University with a thesis on the critical history of the Middle Eastern borders and he is currently a PhD candidate. His recent publications have so far appeared in SSCI journals such as Global Policy and International Journal. He is the deputy editor of Rising Powers Quarterly.

• Chapter 1: Reframing and Reassessing the VNSAs in Syrian Conflict: An Introduction.- Part 1: Actorness.- Chapter 2: Contested Geographies: How ISIS and YPG Rule ‘No-Go’ Areas in Northern Syria.- Chapter 3: Making Sense of the Territorial Aspirations of ISIS: Autonomy, Representation, Influence.- Chapter 4: How to Profile PYD/YPG as an Actor in the Syrian Civil War: Policy Implications for the Region and Beyond.- Chapter 5: The Islamic State versus the Popular Protection Units: Reciprocal Mobilization of Violent Non-State Actors in the Syrian Civil War.- Part 2: Powerfulness.- Chapter 6: ISIS as an Actor Controlling Water Resources in Syria and Iraq.- Part 3: Effectiveness.- Chapter 7: ’Surrogate Warfare’ in Syria and the Pitfalls of Diverging US Attitudes Towards ISIS and PYD.- Chapter 8: External Actors and VNSAs: An Analysis of the United States, Russia, ISIS and PYD/YPG.- Chapter 9: The EU’s Stance Towards VNSAs in dealing with the Syrian Crisis and its Effects.- Chapter 10: Understanding Iran’s Approach to Violent Non-State Actors: ISIS and YPG Cases.- Chapter 11: The Contagion of the Syrian Civil War into Turkey Under the Impact of ISIS and YPG Cases: Conditioning Factors and Diffusion Mechanisms.