The regime’s adaptation to civil war: institutionalizing sectarianism?

This chapter examines one major outcome of sectarianization, the change in the character of the ruling Syrian regime. It first seeks to explain how the regime managed to survive in spite of its sectarian demographic disadvantage, specifically, how it structurally adapted itself to fight civil war. Examined are the regimes’ strategy, changes in the composition of the elite; the co-optation of the minorities, how the army was kept largely loyal; militiafication, the war economy, reconciliation deals and population re-engineering and how, together, these practices led both to the preservation and de-centralization of regime power. In parallel, it assesses how far regime adaptation could be said to “institutionalize” sectarianism in a more exclusionary form of rule dependent on sectarianization and also reproducing it.