Local Intermediation as a Conflict Management Strategy in the Syrian conflict: The Case of Erbeen in Eastern Ghouta

This article investigates how the Syrian state agents intervened to pacify early calls for the uprising and then handled armed conflict in communities characterized by thick social networks. It analyses how state agents deployed different peace and war strategies, including by capitalizing on their pre-conflict links to local communities, in their conflict management strategy to regain political and military control over a city of significant importance. Focusing on local intermediation as a peace strategy in the arsenal of the state, the article demonstrates the centrality and importance of local elite’s role and how their activities enable the state agents’ strategy. The article contributes to the academic debate in peace and conflict studies on ‘non-liberal’ conflict management from the vantage point of local intermediation.