(WP) As Syria’s civil war drags on, there seems to be no viable solution in sight. To the non-specialist eye, the conflict is an indecipherable mess of rival militias, peoples and faiths. As in many conflicts, observers have taken it upon themselves to offer definitive accounts and simple solutions. One such oversimplification is the growing tendency to compare Syria’s conflict to the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. […]
Harris Mylonas and other scholars have shown that the construction of ethnic identity emerges primarily in response to political incentives. Mylonas argues that the construction of national identities occurs primarily when state-building elites feel threatened by competitors or new modes of political thinking and organizing. Building on the work of Benedict Anderson, Mylonas also shows that “who counts” as a member of the nation is fluid and contingent on external factors, not ancient definitions of tribes that extend back thousands of years. […]
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