Responses to international changes: A neoclassical realist analysis of Syrian foreign policy, 1990-2005


Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2012

Öğrenci: DUYGU DERSAN

Danışman: MELİHA ALTUNIŞIK

Özet:

This work aims to analyze the responses of Syria to two international changes comparatively. After the end of the Cold War, US initiated a foreign policy doctrine based on American hegemony. This policy was firstly manifested in the war on Iraq as a response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on January 17, 1991. It was noteworthy to see Syria aligning with the US during the Gulf War (1990-1991), as the country had been allied against the US during the Cold War period. Syria was also the first state accepting US proposal for a peace conference known as Madrid Peace Conference. All these developments reveal that Syria had been cooperated with the US in the aftermath of the Cold War. The second international change analyzed within the framework of this study is the September 11 events. Following the September 11 attacks, the US declared a “war on terror” to recover its superpower position and intervened in Afghanistan and then Iraq. In that process, Syria opted for countering the US and became the leading critique of the invasion of Iraq. This study examines the different responses of Syria to the end of the Cold War and the post-September 11 period through using neoclassical realism as a model.