International Conference – 23rd and 24th of May 201 (Auditorium O100)
Organized by the Centre for Contemporary Middle East Studies, University of Southern Denmark. The conference has received funding from the Danish Institute in Damascus
Practical organizers : Martin Beck, Dietrich Jung and Peter Seeberg, Centre for Contemporary Middle East Studies
At the end of the First World War, the international Great Powers together with regional clients established a new political order in the Levantine territories of the previous Ottoman Empire. Although heavily disputed and challenged by different actors, in the end this new political landscape of modern national states has largely remained unchanged until today. However, the contemporary Syrian civil war raises the question as to whether the events of the so-called Arab spring will not only lead to processes of regime change, but possibly also to the transformation of the state system in the Levant and its political, social and ethnic foundations. The continuing dismantlement of the Syrian state is knitted into regional conflicts such as the Kurdish question, the sectarian struggle in Iraq, the future of the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan and the Israel-Palestine conflict. In taking the war in Syria as its central point of reference, the conference will try to explore its potential for a more radical political transformation of the Levant.
