SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article addresses the Syrian regime’s strategic communication as a practice of politics that runs hand in hand with its repressive political, social, and military tactics to control the political sphere, win the ongoing civil war in the country, and violently suppress its opponents since the Syrian uprising began in March 2011. Drawing on primary and secondary sources as well as discourse analysis of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main speeches since 2011, the article suggests that this strategy is a dynamic practice of politics that combines the mobilization of media and cultural genres as technologies of power with a political language rooted in the Ba’ath Party’s ideology to legitimate the regime’s war against its opponents, ensure support, and summon citizens as political subjectivities.