Local intermediation and authoritarian resilience in Syria: the case of Eastern Ghouta

The story of how the Syrian government has managed to survive the Syrian conflict is arguably a prime case in point of authoritarian resilience. Although inheriting a devastated country of global pariah status, the Assad government remains in power after years of conflict; and it continues to consolidate power and control over its territories and populations. As of 2016, onwards, the Assad government turned the tide on its opponents and managed to recapture many rebel-controlled areas. This was accompanied by the return of Syrian state institutions and representatives to areas that had been outside of the government’s control for years. How did this happen? What role did local actors play in this process? And how did the process of ‘state return’ unfold at the local level? Arguing that Syrian state agencies do not simply ‘return’ to recaptured territories, nor do they solely depend on violence in this process, this article investigates how representatives of the central state capitalized on the intermediation efforts of local elites’ role and how the latter’s activities enable the state return to Eastern-Ghouta in the countryside of the Syrian capital, Damascus. The article contributes to the academic debate in authoritarian resilience in (post-conflict context from the vantage point of local intermediation.