Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook365 pages4 hours
Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria
By Lisa Wedeen
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Treating rhetoric and symbols as central rather than peripheral to politics, Lisa Wedeen’s groundbreaking book offers a compelling counterargument to those who insist that politics is primarily about material interests and the groups advocating for them. During the thirty-year rule of President Hafiz al-Asad’s regime, his image was everywhere. In newspapers, on television, and during orchestrated spectacles. Asad was praised as the “father,” the “gallant knight,” even the country’s “premier pharmacist.” Yet most Syrians, including those who create the official rhetoric, did not believe its claims. Why would a regime spend scarce resources on a personality cult whose content is patently spurious?
Wedeen shows how such flagrantly fictitious claims were able to produce a politics of public dissimulation in which citizens acted as if they revered the leader. By inundating daily life with tired symbolism, the regime exercised a subtle, yet effective form of power. The cult worked to enforce obedience, induce complicity, isolate Syrians from one another, and set guidelines for public speech and behavior. Wedeen‘s ethnographic research demonstrates how Syrians recognized the disciplinary aspects of the cult and sought to undermine them. In a new preface, Wedeen discusses the uprising against the Syrian regime that began in 2011 and questions the usefulness of the concept of legitimacy in trying to analyze and understand authoritarian regimes.
Wedeen shows how such flagrantly fictitious claims were able to produce a politics of public dissimulation in which citizens acted as if they revered the leader. By inundating daily life with tired symbolism, the regime exercised a subtle, yet effective form of power. The cult worked to enforce obedience, induce complicity, isolate Syrians from one another, and set guidelines for public speech and behavior. Wedeen‘s ethnographic research demonstrates how Syrians recognized the disciplinary aspects of the cult and sought to undermine them. In a new preface, Wedeen discusses the uprising against the Syrian regime that began in 2011 and questions the usefulness of the concept of legitimacy in trying to analyze and understand authoritarian regimes.
Unavailable
Read more from Lisa Wedeen
Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Authoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Ambiguities of Domination
Related ebooks
Archive Wars: The Politics of History in Saudi Arabia Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Keywords for Capitalism: Power, Society, Politics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Optimist: A Social Biography of Tawfiq Zayyad Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPolitics for Everybody: Reading Hannah Arendt in Uncertain Times Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPolitical Peoplehood: The Roles of Values, Interests, and Identities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHolocaust Memory and Racism in the Postwar World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCosmopolitan dystopia: International intervention and the failure of the West Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsISIS: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Politics of Non-state Social Welfare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIs There a Middle East?: The Evolution of a Geopolitical Concept Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhose Ideas Matter?: Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsActivists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Social Laboratory: Subjects of Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Egypt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSocial Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa: Second Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSextarianism: Sovereignty, Secularism, and the State in Lebanon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Invitation to Laughter: A Lebanese Anthropologist in the Arab World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Arab Human Development in the Twenty-first Century: The Primacy of Empowerment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hannah Arendt and the Uses of History: Imperialism, Nation, Race, and Genocide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArab Spring Dreams: The Next Generation Speaks Out for Freedom and Justice from North Africa to Iran Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Political Communication in the Arabian Gulf Countries: The Relationship Between the Governments and the Press Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Arab Spring and the Gulf States: Time to embrace change Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA History of False Hope: Investigative Commissions in Palestine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy Yemen Matters: A Society in Transition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDecolonizing 1968: Transnational Student Activism in Tunis, Paris, and Dakar Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Politics For You
The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The U.S. Constitution with The Declaration of Independence and The Articles of Confederation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race: The Sunday Times Bestseller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago: The Authorized Abridgement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capitalism and Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essential Chomsky Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear: Trump in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Ambiguities of Domination
Rating: 4.1666665 out of 5 stars
4/5
3 ratings0 reviews