Dr. Marika Sosnowski

This article examines the role of siege warfare and population control in the coercive counterinsurgency strategy used by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad to effectively crush the revolution that began in 2011.

During the civil war in Syria, various actors issued legal identity documents. The disadvantages of this web of interlocking documents for people's – especially women’s – parental, inheritance and property rights are analysed in this GIGA Focus Middle East.

With contributions from different stakeholders this volume rejects the idea that statelessness is a problem. It argues that the reality of statelessness helps to uncover a more fundamental challenge: the problem of citizenship.

The consequences of ceasefires can be diverse, and are not necessarily positive. In this GIGA Talk, scholars and distinguished practitioners will discuss how research and experience from Syria can provide insights and practical strategies relevant for negotiating ceasefires in Ukraine.

This talk begins to rectify this by adding to scholarship on citizenship and rebel governance to question how non-state actors in Syria are going about establishing legal identity; what non-state issued documents this results in; and, the interplay between Syrian state and non-state based documentation systems.