The Syrian Civil War and Protracted Social Conflict

When the anti-government protests began in Syria, the civil uprising was mostly perceived as a struggle for democracy and freedom by international community. However the civil uprising rapidly turned into a full scale civil war with rising violence and conflict in Syria became more complicated. The conflict in Syria appeared in different forms including political and ideological struggle, armed clash, sectarian violence, communal massacres, and international/regional rivalries. Despite this complex conflict in Syria, the American-Lebanese political scientist Edward Azar‟s concept of protracted social conflict (PSC) presents to us a convenient way to describe it. Azar used concept of PSC to describe conflicts taking place in deeply divided societies with dynamics generated by internal factors as much as external ones. This paper aims to analyze relationships between emergence or extension of conflict and selected variables such as social identities, socioeconomic status, psychological factors, foreign interference and disintegration of state authority by considering the theory of PSC.