Suchergebnisse

AbstractUpon request from the newly established Ba'athist leadership in Syria, the German Democratic Republic sent dozens of special advisors to Damascus between 1965 and 1972 to help set up the state institutions that would move Syria from being a predominantly agricultural country to an agro-industrial one: reforming the decision-making process of national government in Damascus, setting up central planning over production and distribution and enforcing land reform were some of the key issues dealt with by East German and Syrian officials. The encounter proved highly important because the two regimes came close enough to assess their mutual assets and limits upon which they would establish a long-lasting partnership, whose institutional legacy featured in Syrian formal politics as late as the 2000s. State institutions, mass organisations and public enterprises thus became the main avenues for these two 'Easts' to interact during the Cold War.

The article reviews Russia and China's engagement with the Middle East and North Africa since the 1990s and assesses the scale and depth of their cooperation and competition in the region. The article argues for the development of a de facto convergence between the two states, with Russia at the forefront of diplomatic and military initiatives, and China supporting the latter's actions in bilateral and multilateral relations with MENA partners. The regional crisis unleashed by Arab Uprisings have boosted such a cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, both in respect to their regional partners and Western rivals. And yet, they have also highlighted the different relevance that the region deserves in their respective international relations. On the background of the existing literature, the analysis of official statistics as well as of historical precedents, the two countries are analysed and compared along the topics of economy and politics-diplomacy.

A discussion of modernization in Syria, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the German Democratic Republic.

Since 2001, the United States and Europe have been stuck in the quagmire of the policy of confrontation in the Middle East, without either having reaped the expected benefits. Despite all the difficulties, Syria closed ranks in its internal political life and withstood the pressure, taking advantage of all the opportunities afforded by the changing international system. Damascus does not appear to have yielded much in its. Diplomatic and economic claims; if it did so, it was due to the consequences of the political change that took place in the ruling elite, not because of pressure from the West. In addition to the historical legacy of Arab nationalism in Syrian policies, we can talk of the "domestication" of neo-liberalism. This process occurs in a moment when the main western promoters of neo-liberalism have lost much of their power of coercion. Adapted from the source document.

There have been quite a lot of attempts to find out exactly what the impact of the Cold War on the Middle East was, and this from different disciplinary perspectives. This volumes tries to integrate the historical debate with new fresh insights thanks to