Fighters affiliated with Syria's new authorities, which succeeded the regime of Bashar al-Assad, take part in a military parade in the capital, Damascus, on Dec. 27, 2024. (Credit: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP)
The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government on Dec. 8, 2024, brought more than five decades of tyrannical rule by the Assad family to an end and opened a contested transition under forces led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.As Syria’s new authorities seek to consolidate power, questions of political legitimacy, citizenship, sectarian belonging, and women’s place in public life have acquired renewed urgency. The transition has also raised a broader question: how much of the former regime’s authoritarian culture survived the fall?Dr. Rahaf Aldoughli is a Lecturer in Middle East and North African Studies at Lancaster University. Her research focuses on nationalism, sectarianism, authoritarianism, gender and political violence in Syria and the wider Middle East. She is the author of "Romanticizing Masculinity in Baathist Syria: Gender, Identity,...
The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government on Dec. 8, 2024, brought more than five decades of tyrannical rule by the Assad family to an end and opened a contested transition under forces led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.As Syria’s new authorities seek to consolidate power, questions of political legitimacy, citizenship, sectarian belonging, and women’s place in public life have acquired renewed urgency. The transition has also raised a broader question: how much of the former regime’s authoritarian culture survived the fall?Dr. Rahaf Aldoughli is a Lecturer in Middle East and North African Studies at Lancaster University. Her research focuses on nationalism, sectarianism, authoritarianism, gender and political violence in Syria and the wider Middle East. She is the author of "Romanticizing Masculinity in Baathist Syria: Gender,...
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