Quick Thoughts on Sanctions and Elite Factionalization in Syria: A STATUS/الوضع Conversation with Samer Abboud

Quick Thoughts on Sanctions and Elite Factionalization in Syria: A STATUS/الوضع Conversation with Samer Abboud

Quick Thoughts on Sanctions and Elite Factionalization in Syria: A STATUS/الوضع Conversation with Samer Abboud

By : Status/الوضع Audio-Visual Podcast Hosts

In this Quick Thoughts conversation for Status/الوضع, Samer Abboud outlines the impact of sanctions on the rise of social actors in Syria who facilitate transactions as intermediaries and assist in providing access to parts of the country afflicted with conflict. As producers and distributors, these elite networks are helping provide access to otherwise unreachable areas in the country. Much of this involves close coordination with armed groups to ensure transfer of goods, products, personnel, etc., making them an integral lifeline for many communities and locales. Before the conflict, much of these groups constituted middle to lower strata. But with the war raging, many of the elite business leaders with the ability to leave have already departed. Those that remained, the new business class, are imperative interlocutors. Abboud expects them to play a significant role in any future of Syrian reconstruction. 

Samer Abboud is an associate professor of international studies and currently holds the Franklyn and Evelyn ’42 Steinbrucker Endowed Chair (2015-2017) at Arcadia University. He is the author of Syria, the forthcoming book on the Syrian conflict (Polity). 

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What's Trending? (Summer 2015): A STATUS/الوضع "Quick Thoughts" report by Laila Shereen Sakr

"What is Trending on Social Media in the Middle East?" is a regular feature of the Quick Thoughts special segment on Status. It offers insight into subjects that dominate online discussion in the Middle East. With every Issue, we will talk to Laila Shereen Sakr, who monitors, collects, and analyzes social media trends for R-Shief.

The data visualizations for this episode (below) illustrate the patterns of hashtag use in the Middle East pertaining to various topics in Summer 2015 (mid-June through mid-August). Created by R-Shief, these visualizations show the top five hashtags for this period from a set of two thousand hashtags being tracked. 

Laila Shereen Sakr`s interview, which can be found in the player below, explains these visualizations, highlights the most compelling aspects of these trending hashtags, and offers insight into how they should be understood.

For more on what defines a trend, see the first "What`s Trending?" report on Jadaliyya.

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