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Statelet of Survivors | The Making of a Semi-Autonomous Region in Northeast Syria

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Publisher

Oxford University Press, 2024

ISBN

9780197621035
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Overview

Chapters

A remarkable examination of an understudied aspect of the Syrian conflict that traces the genealogy of one of the most radical social experiments in self-governance of our time.

Syrian Kurds and their Arab and Christian allies have embarked on one of the most radical experiments in self-governance of our time. In defiance of the Assad regime, the Islamic State, and regional autocrats, this unlikely coalition created a statelet to govern their semi-autonomous region. In Statelet of Survivors, Amy Austin Holmes charts the movement from its origins to what it has become today. Drawing from seven years of research trips to northern and eastern Syria, Holmes traces the genealogy of this social experiment to the Republic of Mount Ararat in Turkey, where a self-governing entity was proclaimed in 1927 based on solidarity between Kurds and Armenian genocide survivors. Founded by survivors of modern-day atrocities, the Autonomous Administration does more to empower women and minorities than any other region of Syria. Holmes analyzes its military and police forces, schools, the judicial system, the economic model it has implemented, and strategy of empowering women who were once enslaved by ISIS. An in-depth examination of the region Kurds call Rojava, this book tells the remarkable story of the people who both triumphed over ISIS and created a model of decentralized governance in Syria that could eventually be expanded if Assad were to ever fall.

About the Author

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Amy Austin Holmes

Public Policy Fellow;
Research Professor of International Affairs and Acting Director of the Foreign Area Officers Program, George Washington University
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Middle East Program

The Wilson Center’s Middle East Program serves as a crucial resource for the policymaking community and beyond, providing analyses and research that helps inform US foreign policymaking, stimulates public debate, and expands knowledge about issues in the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.  Read more