4 Dissertationen und Habilita- tionen / Dissertations and Habilitations

VORTRÄGE 18. DAVO-KONGRESS PAPERS DAVO CONGRESS 2011
crease in aggregate demand, especially affecting nontradable
good prices. The Central Bank of Iraq was
not capable of stopping inflationary pressures as Dollarization
proceeded and necessary monetary instruments
with an efficient transmission mechanism were
not immediately available.
The second period (until 2010) features sudden
moderate and low volatile inflation rates. One factor
was a decline in violence, which made goods more
available. Legalization of private fuel imports and the
cutting back of fuel subsidies offset supply shortages.
A successful appreciation of the Iraqi Dinar countered
Dollarization, proved trust in the currency, and lowered
imported inflation. Raising interest rates significantly
cut back the rate of money creation and dipped
the money multiplier below one. International portfolio
investments didn’t seem to play an essential role in
this process and couldn’t oppose the successful disinflation.
3. Perspectives on Practices of Authoritarian
‘Governance’ in Syria
Amilla M. A. Kastrinou Theodorpoulou (Durham):
A Different Struggle in Syria: Becoming
Young in a Changing Middle-East
Democracy, modernization and likewise their ‘promotion’
have for a long time shaped foreign policies inside
as much as outside the countries of the MENA
region. Since January and the coming of the ‘Arab
Spring’ these notions and policies have been challenged
by a new emerging concept, that of the ‘Arab
Youth.’ While ‘Arab Youth’ is coined to denote the
grassroots uprisings, as a political category it also reinforces
the modernist presumptions of authoritarian
regimes who use it to undermine the capacity of the
wider population for democratic change. Without empirically
grounded and theoretically challenging
works, ‘Arab Youth’ may perpetuate the same inequalities
and top-down misunderstanding that ‘democracy
promotion’ connotes within the Middle East.
In ethnographic and anthropological terms, only a
minimal literature addresses this demographically and
politically significant emerging field.
The paper bridges this knowledge gap by locating
and questioning the Syrian Arab youth in contemporary
struggles through three case studies that detail the
aspirations, challenges, and inventiveness of Syrian
youth in socio-economic and political conflicts relating
to national, sectarian, and gendered affiliations in
the turbulent waters of the post-colonial, but not postrevolutionary
contexts of the Syrian polity. By locating
Syrian youth within contemporary struggles, this
paper aims to provide an anthropological analysis and
sketch a nuanced, complex and colorful picture of the
multifaceted ways that young people reinforce, resist
and negotiate power relations in contemporary Syria.
The case studies explored in the paper are results of
the author’s 14-month ethnographic fieldwork in Syria
during 2008 and 2009.
Yannick Sudermann (Edinburgh): Gentrification
in Authoritarian Syria – A “Facelift” for Old Damascus
Researching authoritarian resilience through the lens
of gentrification research, the presentation fused explanatory
concepts from both human geography and
comparative politics and shed light on the question:
To what extent does gentrification in Old Damascus
contribute to authoritarian power solidification? Interactions
between both processes were exemplified by
drawing on houses in Damascus intra muros which
recently have been under renovation and have experienced
the transformation from residential to commercial
use. Qualitative interviews conducted in spring
2011 as part of the author’s PhD research formed the
empirical basis of the presentation, which investigated
views and motives of producers of gentrification (private,
official and crony) as well as former residents.
For almost three decades the historic old city of
Damascus, until recently the capital’s shunned backyard,
has seen striking changes. Sham al-qadima is
now the Damascene middle classes’ ‘place to be’.
This can be read as an expression of evolving gentrification,
a process that Hackworth (2002) defines as
“the production of urban space for progressively more
affluent users”. The starting point of gentrification in
Damascus which produces and results in realignments
of urban policies is a caring authoritarian state with a
populist agenda and the rulers’ supreme objective is
regime maintenance. This ‘authoritarian upgrading’
depends largely on constituencies’ loyalty. One probable
way to achieve this is through modifying mechanisms
of co-optation. The author argued that in the
context of Old Damascus granting preferential access
to profitable business sectors like tourism and real estate
was used in this sense.
4. Golfökonomien im Umbruch
DAVO-Arbeitskreis „Wirtschaft im Vorderen Orient“
Organisation: Christian Steiner, Steffen Wippel,
Anja Zorob
Die Forschung zur sozioökonomischen Entwicklung
der Golfregion hat sich lange Zeit fast ausschließlich
auf Probleme von Erdölökonomien und Rentierstaatlichkeit
konzentriert. In den letzten Jahren erschließt
sich die wissenschaftliche Beschäftigung jedoch zunehmend
neue Themenfelder auf diesem Gebiet, die
aus unterschiedlicher disziplinärer Perspektive bearbeitet
werden. Die Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise und
die jüngsten politischen Ereignisse lassen die Frage
der Dauerhaftigkeit der eingeschlagenen Entwicklungswege
und deren Rahmenbedingungen nochmals
besonders in den Vordergrund rücken.
Die vielfältigen, damit einher gehenden Fragestellungen
wurden in dem vom DAVO-Arbeitskreis
„Wirtschaft im Vorderen Orient“ organisierten Panel
zu „Golfökonomien im Umbruch“ aufgegriffen und
intensiv diskutiert.
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