Introduction

This chapter explores the significance and challenges of externally driven and adaptive peacebuilding approaches using a case study of the Syrian conflict. As discussed in Chap. 2, an adaptive approach promotes and facilitates locally deriven peacebuilding initiatives inside a conflict-affected country and supports and encourages self-organized processes that sustain peace through the broad participation of society, communities, and people. However, in the case of the Syrian conflict, a self-sustaining locally driven national peace process is absent. Instead, peacemaking in Syria has been characterized by multiple externally driven initiatives linked to the many opposing parties and their international backers. One can say that in terms of the traditional phases of peace processes, that is, prevention of the conflict, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and post-conflict peacebuilding (UNSG 1992; UNGA and UNSC 1995, 2000), the Syrian conflict remains stuck in the peacemaking phase.

Therefore, in order to consider peacebuilding approaches in the Syrian conflict, it is important to understand peacebuilding as a concept that bridges the entire conflict spectrum—as understood in the United Nations (UN) sustaining peace resolutions adopted in 2016 (UNSC 2016)—and not just the post-conflict phase. It should be noted that in the Syrian conflict, no national-level peace agreement has been achieved yet, and this chapter thus discusses the externally driven and locally driven peacebuilding initiatives in the context of an ongoing and unresolved conflict situation. Thus, with the understanding that adaptive peacebuilding (de Coning 2018) explores an alternative to the liberal peace approach, one that embraces a context-specific, participatory, and emergent approach to peace, as opposed to a top-down and predetermined approach, this chapter identifies the outcomes achieved to date and the challenges lying ahead, even in the context of a Syrian conflict that is not moving toward an end-state. Based on the above discussion, this chapter aims to answer two questions: (1) What externally driven and adaptive approaches to peacebuilding can be identified in the Syrian conflict? (2) How have these two approaches worked and what have they achieved?

In order to answer these questions, the chapter is organized as follows. Section “The Complexity of the Conflict” provides an overview of the complexity of the Syrian conflict during 2011–2019 at the international, regional, and national levels. Immediately after the disturbance in the provincial capital that sparked the conflict, the permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council (UNSC) took an interest in Syria, and so did the countries in the Middle East region. Furthermore, they had divergent interests and supported different parties to the conflict. This affected the UN Special Envoy’s mediation process and the parties’ behavior in relation to the conflict and contributed to its complexity and prolongation. Domestically, the government, many opposition groups, and local communities and authorities negotiated humanitarian ceasefires in many areas, and some were achieved. These ceasefires, especially after the government gained a certain upper hand in the conflict, have also been criticized by some as a de facto surrender (Adleh and Favier 2017; Hinnebusch and Imady 2017; Sosnowski 2020). However, it has yet to bring the country under control.

Section “Externally Driven Peacebuilding Approaches” analyzes the various attempts by external actors to resolve the conflict. All four UN Special Envoys employed adaptive approaches in that they experimented with different ways to make peace and learned from and adapted their approaches along the way. While some approaches achieved results, overall, they were affected by international and domestic constraints and thus had limited success in terms of achieving a sustainable ceasefire. On the other hand, the responses of the P5 and other countries in the region were contested; they essentially supported the desired direction of conflict termination for just one party to the conflict. In terms of reducing violence, the support to the government was more effective than that of the opposition, but both influenced the UN-oriented adaptive mediation initiatives.

Section “Diverse Locally Driven Approaches Toward Peacebuilding” discusses two programs that represent Syrian-led initiatives that could be examples of adaptive peacebuilding. The first is the Civil Society Support Room (CSSR), officially launched under the leadership of the third UN Special Envoy in 2016, when the peace process between the parties began. The second is the National Agenda for the Future of Syria (NAFS) program, established by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN ESCWA) in 2012, although it was not intended to be a peacemaking initiative. In contrast to the externally driven peacemaking approaches discussed in section “Externally Driven Peacebuilding Approaches,” this section examines the significance of, and challenges associated with, locally driven peacebuilding initiatives.

The final section summarizes the implications and challenges of externally driven and adaptive approaches to peacebuilding. It points out that in complex and protracted conflict cases such as the Syrian conflict, adaptive approaches contribute to preserving peoples’ networks. This chapter is based on empirical information obtained from semi-structured interviews with UN ESCWA staff, current and former NAFS experts, an international NGO operating the CSSR, and donor officials, as well as a literature review.

The Complexity of the Conflict

International and Regional Context

The Syrian conflict involves a large number of external actors at the international and regional levels. In fact, the Syrian conflict has been the focus of the P5’s attention (UNSC 2011b) since shortly after the first disturbance in the capital of the southern province in 2011, which marked the beginning of a protracted conflict. At this time already, the P5 of the UNSC was at odds over which parties to the conflict to support: the US, the UK, and France supported the opposition, and Russia and China supported the government (UNSC 2011b). The three Western countries supported the opposition group which came to demand the president’s resignation and the establishment of a transitional government (UNGA 2012a). On the other hand, the Russian approach respected Syrian sovereignty and accused the West of seeking regime change (Allison 2013; Averre and Davies 2015). As a result of these opposing approaches to Syria among the P5, the application of Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which leads to military intervention, has never been on the UNSC’s agenda, nor has a resolution been adopted to hold the government accountable for protecting its people (UNSC 2011c; UNGA 2012a). Russia, with support from China, continued to refuse to adopt any resolution that undermined Syrian sovereignty. In this way, Russia successfully blocked the West from using the kind of liberal peace or determined-designed peacebuilding approach it used in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

France, the UK, and the US joined the “core group,”Footnote 1 which supported the opposition in stepping up their offensive in response to the failure to adopt UNSC resolutions. The core group led international ministerial meetings to politically support the dissident National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (SOC) (MOFA 2012). However, the core group members kept diplomatic relations with the government, and the support of the members to the SOC was not unanimous. For example, Saudi Arabia and Qatar each supported different factions of the SOC (Oweis 2014; Carter Center 2013, 9), which may have hindered the SOC’s ability to develop strong, unified leadership. Furthermore, Turkey provided SOC with its headquarters. On the government side, in addition to Russia, Iran has also consistently supported the government since the outbreak of the conflict (Abdo 2011). The SOC had a weak domestic base in Syria and could not unite the opposition. In sum, there have been discrepancies among countries involved in the Syrian conflict and among countries supporting the opposition at the international and regional levels. Thus, international relations surrounding Syria were tense, and there were multiple externally driven peacebuilding approaches that hindered building a consensus among the countries involved.

After more than four years of stalemate, the conflict dynamics changed. In September 2015, Russia launched airstrikes in the Syrian territory at the request of the government to clear out the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Meanwhile, the UN-led peace process among the parties to the conflict began in 2016. This process did not emerge from local actors but can be understood instead as an externally driven initiative to try to negotiate a peace agreement in Syria. However, this negotiation for a ceasefire did not succeed. The Russian airstrikes affected the opposition groups (Roth et al. 2015; Council of the European Union 2015) and resulted in the government’s dominance in the conflict. The government recaptured many areas it had lost by mid-2019 (Lundgren 2019). But the US-backed Syrian Democatic Forces (SDF) and the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (TFSA) have controlled northern Syria effectively. Thus, the context of the conflict has changed since 2015, from an opposition offensive to a certain government dominance. The presence of Russia and Iran supporting the government, and Turkey became more prominent.

Throughout this period, the UN has been mediating for nearly a decade, successively appointing four special envoys from 2012 after the Syrian government rejected the initial peacebuilding model of establishing a transitional government which suggested the president’s stepping down (UNGA 2012a). As mentioned, so far, no effective peace agreement has been reached between the parties. Therefore, an effective peacebuilding approach will have to respond to the changing domestic context of conflict. With the government gaining a certain upper hand in the conflict, the initially proposed determined-designed peacebuilding approach that focused on regime change was even less likely to succeed.

Domestic Context

Inside the country, there is a much more complex context to take into account. The 2011 unrest in one provincial city spread across the country, while the UNSC failed to reach a consensus to take action. In June 2012, the president himself acknowledged that Syria was in a state of civil war, and the UN Human Rights Council successively concurred (BBC News 2012; UNGA 2012b). The government became weaker in the northern and northwestern areas of the country near the border with Turkey, and the southern part near the border with Jordan, due to armed group offensives. The creation of local councils (LCs) was an attempt to fill the administrative vacuum resulting from the conflict in these areas, an arrangement that peaked at about 700 councils (The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue 2014). The emergence of these alternative administrative structures after the government’s withdrawal from an area is evidence of the fact that the government had functioned to some extent before the conflict and provided public services to the Syrian people, and these services needed to be maintained. For example, Syria had a 99% school enrollment rate in 2008, a vaccination rate of over 87.8% in 2006, a 92% rural electrification rate in 1992, and a 92% access to safe water in 2007 (Hinnebusch 2002; UNDP and Syrian Arab Republic 2014). The need to maintain pre-conflict public services is, therefore, a natural reason why people tried to organize alternative administrative structures.

On the other hand, governance structures in the opposition-held areas were not stable. More than 4000 armed opposition groups were not united as a force against the government, by themselves or under the SOC (Sayigh 2013; Carter Center 2013, 24). Among them were radical militant groups such as ISIL. In some areas, fragmented armed opposition groups fought each other over the expansion of areas under their control, resulting in frequent changes of rulers and the government’s attempts to maintain its influence even after its withdrawal (Khalaf 2015; Favier 2016; Abboud 2018). Under these circumstances, the LCs had to maintain relations with the government, the opposition, and even various armed groups.

While the fighting intensified, both the government and the opposition groups participated in ceasefire negotiations at the local level. Negotiations were between government forces, armed opposition groups, and influential local people and civil society groups. From 2011, when the conflict broke out in some areas, such negotiations were sometimes mediated by the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) during its around four months of deployment in 2012 (Turkmani et al. 2014). By 2014, fifty ceasefire agreements had been reached (Stone 2016). In some cases, after the ceasefire, the opposition could hold some control because it had a clear decision-making chain, or the opposition had facilities such as highways or water purification plants that the government wanted to secure (Turkmani et al. 2014). Such pragmatic ceasefire negotiations, often initiated and led by local actors, serve as examples of adaptive, context-specific, and locally driven peace initiatives. In some cases, however, the terms of the ceasefire were broken.

Turkmani et al. (2014) also argue that in such local-level ceasefires, neutral mediators, Syrian or otherwise, could play an important role. On the other hand, since Russia began the airstrikes in late 2015, the government has gained a certain upper hand in the conflict. Some previous studies have argued that the ceasefire negotiations were effectively a process of surrender by the opposition (Adleh and Favier 2017; Hinnebusch and Imady 2017; Sosnowski 2020). In such a complex context, it was unlikely for both parties to reach a mutual agreement, and in 2016, the UN initiated a peace process.

Since 2016, the government has regained many lost territories, but this process involved not only government forces. The pro-government militia, while it did not always follow the terms of a ceasefire and was sometimes against government forces, played an important role (Turkmani et al. 2014; Sosnowski 2020). In 2017, the SDF defeated ISIL and took control of Raqqa—a provincial capital in the north of the country. Lundgren (2019) also points out that the establishment of four de-escalation zones in Syria agreed at the so-called Astana talks hosted by Russia, Iran, and Turkey had contributed to the government’s territorial recovery to some extent by mid-2019. As a result, the government could redirect its military power from the de-escalation zones to other areas. The LCs decreased to 400 in 2016 (Hinnebusch 2018), and the fatalities in the conflict also decreased from around 77,000 in 2014 to 11,000 in 2019 (UCDP n.d.).

The third UN Special Envoy, de Mistura, recognized that regime change would not occur (Miles 2017). Thus, the Syrian conflict continues to be a situation where the government is gradually strengthening its dominance through ceasefires and using its military force rather than focusing on peacemaking or peacebuilding. However, it has yet to bring the country under control, and the SDF and the opposition, TFSA have effectively taken control of northern Syria. Therefore, the Syrian conflict has followed a complex path that hinders the self-organization of the conflict parties. A decade of the Syrian conflict has culminated in the deterioration of the economic and social infrastructure, causing more massive damage than in other conflicts, with more than a third of the population forcibly displaced as refugees or internally displaced persons, and more than half of the population in need of some form of humanitarian assistance (OCHA 2014; OCHA and Government of Syria 2013a, 2013b).

Context of the Syrian Conflict

At the international level, the Syrian conflict involves at least three types of international actors: the United Nations, as a neutral mediator; France, the UK, and the US, which support the opposition groups; and Russia, which supports the government. In addition, regional actors such as the Arab League are also involved. Saudi Arabia and Qatar support the opposition and have consistently opposed Iran, which supports the government. Turkey supported the opposition and then moved closer to Russia as SDF started contributing to the combat against ISIL and expanding its territory. Turkey has intervened together with TFSA in northern Syria repeatedly to combat SDF.

The complexity of the Syrian conflict lies in the fact that both at the international and regional levels, many countries supported either the government or the opposition, and, in some cases, different opposition factions. The fact that countries that supported the opposition were not unanimous may have influenced the division of the opposition. This situation basically worked to the advantage of the government and the countries supporting it, leading to the government’s recovery and a certain dominance after 2016. However, the government also lacks the strength to pacify the entire country with its own forces alone and is trying to regain its fragile control with the help of militias, Russia, and Iran. The power tensions among the countries surrounding Syria—at both international and regional levels—have reduced the chances of finding a Syrian domestic solution and have prolonged the conflict. They have also discouraged the parties to the conflict from engaging in non-military means of conflict resolution, such as mediation, hindering the achievement of a lasting peace agreement, which is the goal of traditional peacemaking and would pave the way for more concrete peacebuilding programs.

Externally Driven Peacebuilding Approaches

Arduous Mediation

Mediation efforts in the Syrian conflictFootnote 2 by international peacebuilding actors, such as the United Nations, have thus been difficult due to the complex and protracted context of the conflict. In mid-2011, when the UNSC failed to take a unified response to the Syrian conflict, the League of the Arab States (LAS) initiated a mediation process between the parties to the conflict at its behest. The LAS has traditionally adhered to the principle of non-intervention in state sovereignty, but due to the Arab Spring and the intervention in Libya under Chapter VII of the UN Charter (UNSC 2011c), the LAS changed its stance and came out in support of the opposition groups (Küçükkeleş 2012). First, the LAS urged the government to engage in dialogue with the opposition, and when this did not happen, it suspended Syria’s membershipFootnote 3 and imposed economic sanctions (Batty and Shenker 2011). The LAS then proposed that the Syrian government establish a transitional government and transfer presidential power (UNSC 2012). The United Nations General Assembly backed this strategy for peacebuilding by adopting Resolution (UNGA 2012a), but the government rejected it (Mroue 2012). The government’s rejection of this peacebuilding approach reflects the confrontation within the P5 and the view that the president had garnered a certain level of domestic support at that time (Steele 2012; McDonald 2012). Therefore, a peacebuilding approach to ending the conflict based on the formation of a transitional government and the president’s ouster seems to have been externally driven and deterministic and consequently unsuccessful.

Since 2012, the UN has continued to appoint Special Envoys for Syria. Under the mediation of the first Special Envoy, Kofi Annan, the participants in the international conference held in June 2012 agreed to the Geneva Communiqué, which has become the primary document for the peace process (UNSC 2015). This document states that a transitional government will be created but that the existing governance structure will remain in the confidence of the Syrian people and makes no mention of the transfer of presidential powers (UNGA and UNSC 2012). While it can be argued that the international conference itself was externally driven, as the parties to the conflict did not participate, the document itself can be considered a compromise between a determined-designed and an adaptive approach. Second, although nationwide ceasefires were rarely established during the period analyzed in this chapter, small-scale ceasefires of limited area and duration, as mentioned in section “The Complexity of the Conflict,” were sometimes established to provide humanitarian assistance, and successive special envoys since the second Special Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, have supported such bottom-up ceasefires. Small-scale ceasefires have contributed in some way to saving lives, even when a nationwide ceasefire is hard to achieve. In addition, many valuable mediation activities have been developed by international NGOs (de Coning et al. 2022). Thus, although limited by externally driven approaches and the deterministic direction of ending the conflict, there have been adaptive mediation approaches in Syria implemented amidst systemic and domestic constraints resulting from its context.

International Responses

In parallel with the mediation efforts of the first two special envoys, the US and some other members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) provided stabilization assistance to the LCs. This assistance was aimed at forming new governance structures in preparation for establishing a transitional government based on liberal values and state-building in the areas the government had withdrawn from (The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue 2014; Brown 2018). Humanitarian assistance accompanied state-building assistance and contributed, to a certain extent, to saving lives in the opposition-held areas that were considered more difficult to access than the areas on the government side. However, assistance to establish a new governance structure in the absence of a ceasefire agreement is different from peacebuilding assistance based on the mutual consent of the parties to a conflict.

Khalaf et al. (2014) argue that stabilization assistance was accepted primarily because of the livelihood needs of the population. In other words, many LCs were interested in maintaining community-level governance functions to sustain the livelihoods of their residents rather than in the proposed democratic governance structure. As dissident forces remained unintegrated, building new governance structures in preparation for the formation of a transitional government became difficult to achieve. Reflecting this context of the conflict, assistance to prepare for a transitional government could not generate or promote the necessary changes from within and beyond the community and remained an externally driven peacebuilding approach.

On the other hand, Russia’s approach to conflict resolution was consistently supportive of the government. Not satisfied with the functioning of the UNSC, Russia initiated the Astana talks with Turkey and Iran after 2017. This involved a more inclusive range of armed opposition groups and resulted in face-to-face negotiations between the parties, which had not been achieved through UN mediation (Lundgren 2016; Cengiz 2020). On the other hand, as discussed in section “The Complexity of the Conflict,” the Astana talks supported the adoption of local ceasefires promoted by the government and the territorial recapture that accompanied it (Lundgren 2019). Russia’s response backed state sovereignty and adapted to the new context of the conflict. Lundgren (2019) argues that the establishment of the Constitutional Committee, proposed during the Russian-led dialogue in Sochi (UNSC 2018), also aimed to exclude issues such as a transitional government and the transfer of presidential powers from the peace process.

The mediation of the third and fourth Special Envoys, Staffan de Mistura and Gier O. Pedersen, resulted in the establishment of a Constitutional Committee in 2019, a pragmatic adaptation to Russia’s response and the changed conflict context after 2015. Moreover, the contribution of these two special envoys to adaptive peacebuilding was their civic engagement in the peace process, further discussed in the next section. The Constitutional Committee owes much to their involvement, including the fact that one-third of its members are citizens’ representatives, in addition to the government and the opposition representatives (Pedersen 2019). In sum, Russia’s pragmatic support to the government prevented the turn of the government and directly impacted the context of the Syrian conflict. The two special envoys conducted their mediation activities adaptive to this context.

Divergent Peacebuilding Approaches

The intervention of the international actors was thus in discord. The UK, France, and the US favored the ouster of the president and the formation of a transitional government early in the conflict, but failed to achieve consensus among the parties to the conflict and the countries involved. The assistance to promote a new governance structure with liberal values was not always welcomed. This determined-designed peacebuilding approach had to compromise with the changed context of the conflict after 2015. On the other hand, despite being externally driven—in that the opposition and its supporters disagreed—the pragmatic responses by Russia and other Syrian government supporters have worked to the government’s relative advantage and contributed to reducing violence and casualties. For example, one interviewee pointed out the role of the government, for example, in public works when rebuilding the country (NAFS Member 1 2020). As a result, the governance of the sovereign state that functioned before the conflict has been gradually reconstructed with a fragile basis (Hinnebusch 2018). Simultaneously, the Syrian holistic system looks to reorganize itself, being able to engage in self-organization even amidst a complex context.

However, the responses and peacebuilding approaches argued in this section were not based on a peace agreement or mutual consent between the conflict parties. The UN mediation remained within the framework of determined-designed approaches. Although the special envoys attempted to implement an adaptive approach, the confrontation between the core group, and Russia and Iran, influenced the character of their mediation initiatives.

Diverse Locally Driven Approaches Toward Peacebuilding

The Significance of Citizen Engagement Programs

This chapter views peacebuilding as a broad concept that includes the period of the conflict, rather than limiting it to the post-conflict period. This broad concept of peacebuilding can embrace citizens’ participation in the programs toward peacebuilding initiated in 2012 and later. Two cases are worth mentioning here as examples of adaptive peacebuilding in Syria: the CSSR and the NAFS Programme. The predecessor of CSSR was the Syrian Peacebuilding Advisory Unit, which was set up in 2014 to exchange views with Special Envoy Brahimi responding to the lobbying efforts of Syrian civil society organizations (Turkmani and Theros 2019). The unit evolved into the CSSR under the leadership of Special Envoy de Mistura in 2016, at the same time as the peace process between the parties began. The CSSR was initially composed of more than ten people as a resource for the special envoy. Gradually, the CSSR gathered and increased its members. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down its activities, the number of members increased to hundreds (NOREF 2021). It has opened its doors to a wide range of ordinary citizens and consists of people from various professional fields, including constitutional and legal experts, university professors, economists, and former government advisors (Turkmani and Theros 2019). The Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution (NOREF) and the Swiss Peace Foundation (Swisspeace) both support the CSSR and are based in countries that are not core group members. The CSSR is a public consultation system that can be directly linked to the peace process (NOREF 2021) and thus is considered a groundbreaking example of adaptive peacebuilding, driven by the high motivation of the Syrian people who were divided by the conflict.

The importance of the CSSR lies in its diverse functions. It contributed to ensuring humanitarian access based on ground information in the midst of a dire conflict (Turkmani and Theros 2019). The members are able to contribute because they are locally based and have their networks in the country. Secondly, it is groundbreaking in that the UN has established a mechanism for the input of civil society knowledge into the peace process (NOREF 2021). The CSSR is able to exchange ideas in line with the matters discussed in the peace process and provide relevant inputs to the context on the ground. Therefore, the peace process can reflect the views and needs of citizens. It is also evidence of the growing recognition of the importance of the role of civil society in the peace process, urged by the endogenous and sincere quest of the Syrian people for participation. Third, the CSSR provides a constant forum for exchanging ideas among Syrians divided by the conflict, regardless of their political views or where they are based. The exchange of ideas is thus not limited to Geneva but extended to a wide range of locations like Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. Moreover, the platform focuses on listening to each other’s different opinions rather than on aiming to build any kind of solution (NOREF 2021). This adaptive approach allows Syrians from different situations and with different views to participate in the CSSR. In this way, there is an expectation that the members will become closer to each other. In fact, the CSSR has contributed to building a network of Syrians (Turkmani and Theros 2019; NOREF 2021), and, as such, the CSSR has come to function beyond its original purpose of being a resource for the special envoys in the peace process. In a sense, an adaptive peacebuilding approach to the conflict context has come to contribute to the self-organization of a holistic system through networks and trust.

In terms of building networks among Syrians, the NAFS also deserves special mention. The NAFS was established by UN ESCWA to prepare for post-conflict state-building and contribute to sustainable peace. In 2012, the UN ESCWA established the NAFS Programme as a response to the dire conflict and created a platform for technical dialogue to bring together Syrian technical experts, stakeholders, actors in civil society, the private sector, and academic institutions. As such, the NAFS inclusive platform for technical dialogue aims to bring all these experts together, from different backgrounds and all walks of life, to put their differences aside and come to a common understanding for a better future for their country.

The program began as a platform for dialogue for Syrians to talk about the future of their country and monitor the damage caused by the fighting (NAFS Member 1 2020). One interviewee mentioned that the NAFS emerged because “we needed an agenda that was coming out from the Syrian themselves, not from anyone else (NAFS Member 2 2020).” In this way, the internal aspirations of the Syrian people led to the launch of the NAFS. It does not aim to engage in political dialogue but to provide a space for Syrian technical experts (NAFS Member 2 2020; German Government source 1 2019; German Government source 2 2020; UN ESCWA Staff 2020). The fact that the Syrians themselves lead the program to assess the situation in their country with clear objectives can itself be a practice of practical tool for adaptive peacebuilding.

NAFS is not a political program, but like the CSSR, it has a variety of functions. First, the NAFS collects data inside the country and conducts damage assessments and is prepared for post-conflict state-building. The Syrian experts themselves, recruited from inside and outside the country, conduct all the analyses. The methods differ from sector to sector, but essentially the impact of the conflict is calculated by comparing a range of information, including pre-conflict statistics, with information available from additional surveys once the conflict entered the country. These sources include interviews of experts, field visits, dialogues with stakeholders such as NGOs, and discussions with NAFS technical experts. Those experts who had left the country collect the information through their networks inside.

Although the conflict has been prolonged and continuous data collection faces many hurdles, the Syrians have maintained and functioned under this holistic system based in the country. Second, the NAFS has, over time, moved beyond assessing the socioeconomic impact of the conflict to integrating the results in policy alternatives as preparation for post-conflict state-building. The Syrian experts identified priority issues in their sectors and developed policy alternatives on how to overcome them. One hundred sixty-five experts led the development of the strategic policy alternatives framework, published in 2017 (UN ESCWA 2017), with input from more than 1400 Syrian citizens and 200 civil society organizations inside and outside Syria (Bymolt 2016; UN ESCWA Staff 2020). In 2021, NAFS prepared the second launch of the strategic policy alternatives framework (UN ESCWA 2021).

In other words, many Syrians have participated in the process of creating policy alternatives. This case is unique, as the Syrians themselves, even during the conflict, prepared for post-conflict state-building by developing policy alternatives from the bottom (UN ESCWA 2017). Thus, the NAFS constitutes a vital part of the self-organization and holistic system that is the hallmark of adaptive peacebuilding. Third, the NAFS was also a contextualized, localized, and self-organizing program from the outset, led by Syrians, in the sense that it received almost no foreign technical guidance in its sector analyses and preparation of policy alternatives. Before the conflict, Syria was not perceived internationally as a fragile state, and its governance system was functioning to a certain extent. The Syrians are highly motivated not to let their country fall apart, and they are knowledgeable and capable of taking such measures. Furthermore, the UN ESCWA is a UN agency conducting research and training with a neutral and apolitical mandate. This position of UN ESCWA has provided a safe space for Syrians of different political persuasions to discuss issues. The location of the UN ESCWA in Beirut, Lebanon, remains within the Middle East, and the ease of travel, regardless of their political affiliation, was also beneficial in providing a forum for discussion. Moreover, the donors who funded NAFS did not lead it but rather supported and facilitated the process (German Government source 1 2019). In this way, the NAFS can be considered an adaptive peacebuilding practice characterized by self-organization, in that Syrians themselves ran the program and produced results without external influence.

Unlike the CSSR, the NAFS has distanced itself from political contributions. However, like the CSSR, the NAFS network includes members from within Syria and worldwide, including the diaspora in Lebanon, Turkey, the Gulf states, and Europe, some supporting the government, some supporting the opposition, and some being neutral. It is normal and easy to understand that the atmosphere at the early meetings was so tense that few technical experts stopped attending. Nevertheless, most of them have participated continuously, and all the interviewees contacted felt the responsibility and significance of being involved in future state-building regardless of their political views. Some Syrian technical experts felt that their participation in NAFS had strengthened their capacity. The NAFS Programme’s ability to maintain the safety, neutrality, and trust of these platforms, and to continue expanding its network of Syrians at a time of increased polarization within Syrian society, is one of their main achievements. This is a unique asset that it can offer Syrian stakeholders to advance thinking and debate on the country’s future. Furthermore, several technical experts noted the development of network, solidarity, and trust among them. As one interviewee puts it:

I guess the word ‘trust’ has a broad meaning and contains taking process. In many cases, the first time the experts met, we camped on our positions, but through the time passage and meeting frequently, some of the ice had broken. We still had very strong and big differences of opinions but at least learned to respect and accept each other’s opinions and to engage in conversation, putting political affiliations aside and focusing on technical conversation. This requires the process. (NAFS Member 3 2020)

This form of trust-building also appears in the CSSR as its participants “credited the CSSR with creating the space for a divided civil society to build trust and respect” (Turkmani and Theros 2019, 15). Although both programs have different scopes and objectives, it is possible to see that the constructive dialogues between people from different walks of life contribute to a better understanding of each other. These dialogues were possible partly because they were likely to know each other directly or indirectly, as they worked in the same country and the same sector before the conflict. Thus, the networks, solidarity, and trust formed among the participants comprised a nonlinear pathway to adaptive peacebuilding.

The Challenges of Citizen Engagement Programs

The CSSR—a program aimed at civic engagement in the political peace process—and the NAFS—a technical dialogue platform in which citizens participated proactively—were based on the intrinsic motivations of the Syrians themselves. These programs have had a range of positive impacts based on an adaptive peacebuilding approach to the context of conflict, as mentioned in the above section. On the other hand, there have been challenges as well. In the case of the CSSR, there is the challenge of the objective itself, which was to engage citizens in the political peace process: the CSSR was a program launched primarily through the lobbying of citizens supporting the opposition, but as noted in section “The Complexity of the Conflict,” the opposition was divided. Some opponents doubted that the CSSR had created a new opposition and reduced their influence in the peace process. For the government, the CSSR did not represent civil society on the government side (Hellmüller 2020). Considering this background, the function of the CSSR became as an input to the peace process through the special envoy, not directly. This function has not met the expectations of its members who, as the conflict became protracted and the damage more devastating, wished to make a direct contribution, such as reducing fighting, through their participation in the peace process. However, for the CSSR to continue participating in the peace process, it needed to address the concerns of the parties to the conflict, becoming the third party and influencing decision-making. Therefore, the CSSR was adaptive to the extent that it maintained its position in the peace process to giving inputs to the special envoys.

Another challenge was the quality of the discussions among its members. For example, Turkmani and Theros (2019, 21) point out that “the main obstacles that impeded the CSSR and the quality of discussions were the presence of non-civic actors (66%) and those with extreme views (56%).” These results illustrated that in some cases, spoilers were involved, and discussions were dominated by extreme views. In an intense armed conflict, extreme opinions will easily run parallel to each other, and there will be no progress in promoting any understanding among all the participants. As conflicts become protracted, regional fragmentation in the country would hamper people’s interaction with and assistance from external actors (NOREF 2021). This can widen the available information gap. The approach of the CSSR, which is contextualized, localized, and adaptive, has tried to contribute to filling such gaps and is expected to continuously provide the space for discussion for the variety of Syrians to understand their differences of opinion.

In the case of NAFS, the prolonged conflict affected the program’s premise of preparing for post-conflict nation-building. The NAFS was originally a program to prepare for the future, not to address the current situation, and UN ESCWA’s function of survey and research is consistent with the program’s objectives (UN ESCWA Staff 2020; German Government source 2 2020). However, as the conflict dragged on, the need to address the damage to the status quo increased. For this reason, the NAFS initially provided an analysis of the current situation in each sector to prepare policy alternatives, but from 2016 onward, it concentrated its aim on analyzing the current situation and updating the gap between policy and reality as well to bring consensus among Syrians through dialogue. The NAFS regularly studies and analyzes the situation on the ground to understand the current context of the conflict and its changing dynamics to come up with policy alternatives for short, medium, and future long-term recovery. Doing so better tailors the policies and ensures that they maintain their relevance. This change of approach is adaptive to the context of protracted conflict. While the vast amount of data accumulated and analyzed by technical experts is effectively used as basic information among its network of experts—who indirectly and at personal capacity contributed to the dissemination of the key messages relevant to this dialogue at a wider scale—and by many international organizations and donors, many members would like to be involved more in the recovery process.

While understanding NAFS’s unique setting to contribute to the future, the interviewees expressed their concern with the cumulative damage to the economic and social infrastructure sustained by the country as the conflict dragged on. As one interviewee mentioned, “We should do implement something more than reporting” (NAFS Member 4 2020). Another interviewee felt that the “Syrian people inside do not have knowledge about what we were discussing” (NAFS Member 5 2020). Such challenges remain and continue as far as the conflict is ongoing. Still, the NAFS’s design of thinking and discussing about the future state in the post-conflict period facilitated building networks, solidarity, and trust through frank discussions among its members. It developed into a locally driven, contextualized, adaptive, and meaningful peacebuilding practice and is expected to contribute further.

The Adaptability of Locally Driven Approaches

This chapter’s section “Diverse Locally Driven Approaches Toward Peacebuilding” analyzed examples of adaptive peacebuilding that emphasize the local context: the CSSR, a political program launched by the UN Special Envoy at the request of the opposition groups, and the NAFS, a technical program established by UN ESCWA in response to the Syrians’ own desire to avoid fragmentation and to hold the network of the technical experts responsible for future state-building. The CSSR provides the space for citizens to listen to each other’s views, while the NAFS promotes building consensus among its members. Both have become platforms for Syrians of different opinions to come together, regardless of their political affiliations. They are adaptive and sustainable within the conflict context while facing some challenges. In the case of the CSSR, its challenge has been how to contribute to the political context of the peace process itself. As for the NAFS, since the conflict has not ended, it needs to keep its adaptability to produce constant outcomes. However, both programs have been part of a holistic system and have contributed to bringing Syrians together regardless of their backgrounds. Although both programs face the inevitable challenges of trying to make their contribution align with the context of ongoing and unresolved conflict, they are adaptive and try to continuously integrate Syrians in the peacebuilding process.

Conclusion

This chapter has focused on various approaches to peacebuilding in the Syrian conflict, examining the responses of the UN Special Envoys, the P5, the core group, and others, as well as the significance and challenges of the CSSR—initiated by the UN Special Envoy and operated by NOREF and Swisspeace—and the NAFS—established by the UN ESCWA. Underlying the adaptive approach is the premise that “the systems that make up a society are complex” (Chap. 2). The Syrian conflict system is certainly complex. The countries involved at the international and regional levels were at odds supporting the different parties to the conflict. The Syrian conflict has followed a nonlinear path with significant changes in the context along its way. Thus, externally driven peacebuilding approaches have not resulted in a comprehensive peace agreement agreed upon by the parties to the conflict. This chapter has presented several examples of how different international and local peacebuilding initiatives adapted to the context of the conflict.

What lessons can be identified from the Syrian case for peacebuilding? Three points need to be considered. First, externally driven peacebuilding is not effective without the mutual consent of the people in a country. Lundgren (2019) argues that the peacebuilding approach developed after the end of the Cold War, which envisioned the establishment of a democratic social order, did not work as a prescription in such a conflict as Syria, where the UNSC could hardly come to a unified response. Particularly, Russia believed that the application of Chapter VII of the UN Charter against Libya had caused its regime change, and this made Russia try to eliminate any possibility of recalling such an intervention in Syria (UNSC 2011c, 4–5; Allison 2013, 797). On the other hand, contemporary international relations have moved from bipolarity to unipolarity, and then to multipolarity. The Syrian conflict became internationalized immediately after its outbreak, and a complex mix of renewed bipolarity and multipolarity has persisted. The context of the conflict was heavily influenced by external factors, as one interviewee puts it:

Many agencies and countries have supported the groups of oppositions to strengthen them and enable them to negotiate. However, at the end, I believe such inputs created the oppositions not for supporting the solution. (NAFS Member 6 2020)

Within these systemic constraints, a determined-designed peacebuilding approach in the early years of the conflict could not respond to the subsequent changes in the context of the conflict. The holistic system of which the Syrian conflict parties are an integral part has become increasingly complex, and many areas of Syria has effectively returned to government control except northern area. The UN Special Envoy, P5, and core group seem to have gradually adapted their peacebuilding approaches taken in the beginning of the conflict to its current context. Nevertheless, the path to an effective peace agreement in the sense that the fragmented parties to the conflict are convinced and cooperate still remains uncertain.

Second, there is the possibility of implementing an alternative adaptive approach to peacebuilding in Syria. Adaptive peacebuilding respects the ownership of local people and emphasizes the promotion of the agenda of the local people, not the agenda of the other countries involved in the conflict. If people take the initiative for peacebuilding, the nature of the conflict will change, and the system will become more self-organizing, although it will take time. According to Lederach (1997), peacebuilding is a process of changing the elements of conflict over time. In this regard, the CSSR has paved the way for public participation in a UN-led political mediation process. The NAFS has shown that people can take positive action for peace even in protracted conflicts. It also showed that UN agencies could adaptively promote such aspirations of local people in a variety of ways. Despite all the challenges, participants with different views have been able to better understand each other’s situations through continuous dialogue, mitigating the huge gaps between them, and building networks, solidarity, and trust. Both programs were very special experiences for the participants (Turkmani and Theros 2019; NAFS Member 1 2020; NAFS Member 2 2020; NAFS Member 3 2020; NAFS Member 4 2020; NAFS Member 5 2020; NAFS Member 6 2020). This fact suggests the importance of resuming dialogue as soon as possible among people divided by a conflict, regardless of whether there is a ceasefire or not. In other words, in a protracted conflict, even in the absence of a ceasefire agreement, adaptive peacebuilding efforts aimed at stimulating dialogue and moving forward with building networks, trust and momentum for peace can be effective.

In this chapter, we have identified a number of valuable aspects of adaptive peacebuilding. The third point, however, is that there are challenges to the adaptive approach to peacebuilding. Due to the nature of the adaptive approach, which appropriately addresses the context of the conflict, it faces the influence of externally driven approaches, especially when they are dominant. In the case of the Syrian conflict, most countries’ involvement in the conflict at the international and regional levels has not been neutral for both parties to the conflict. Mediation activities by the UN Special Envoys have continued to be affected by these systematic and domestic constraints and changes in the context of the conflict. The activities of the CSSR have been hindered, considering the concerns of the parties to the conflict. The activities of NAFS have also needed to adapt to the changes in the context of the conflict. However, despite the continuously changing dynamics of the conflict, both the CSSR and the NAFS Programme have maintained their relevance and effectiveness by tackling the most pressing key issues in Syria and by maintaining their trusted platform for dialogues among Syrians at the national and local levels. Both programs can be examples of the meaningful practice of adaptive approaches to peacebuilding that respond to endogenous changes in society. They have made valuable contributions, such as the mediation activities of the special envoys and the provision of field data to international organizations. Their activities should be highlighted.

In the Syrian conflict, externally driven efforts to end the conflict have so far not resulted in a comprehensive peace agreement, and adaptive peacebuilding approaches seem to have made contributions to support networks that have helped people to keep working together for peace. This experience shows that a pragmatic response that is adaptive to the context of the conflict can make a contribution, even within an ongoing and highly internationalized conflict like Syria. In a country like Syria, where certain infrastructure and administrative structures were in place before the conflict and people were living sophisticated lives, the existing administrative structures will be helpful in rebuilding the state after the conflict, with confidence in its people, as clearly stated in the Geneva Communiqué. Currently, the government tries to recapture the land, and what Galtung (1969) called a negative peace, a state without armed struggle, may be reproduced. On the other hand, to achieve a positive peace, a peacebuilding approach based on the consent of the parties to the conflict, even if it is externally driven, is important. As this chapter has shown, excluding external influence in the Syrian conflict is not realistic, and the conflict is prolonged, both of which constrain adaptive approaches. However, as this chapter has also shown, externally driven peacebuilding initiatives can promote adaptive approaches that encourage the participation of diverse local actors. A concerted effort by external actors to promote adaptive approaches that are contextualized to the conflict and encourage the engagement of diverse local actors could contribute to the reduction of violence and improved conditions for peace in the complex Syrian conflict.