The socio-economic reasons of 2011 Syrian Revolution

The most painful period in the history of Middle East in 21st century is the Arab Spring which started with a Tunisian young man's burning himself to protest the intervention of the municipal police to his job. The event which started at Tunisia first spread out to reach Egypt, Libya, Bahrein, Yemen and Syria respectively and also led to the resigning of both Egypt's and Tunisia's presidents form the office, while in Libya it was culminated in a civil war ended with the death of Kaddafi after international intervention. In Syrian case the Arab Spring started a long period of sufferings and pains. While recent research on the subject focus on the future evolution of the Syrian conflict and on how it started and developed, this thesis takes a deeper look at the reasons behind the Syrians uprising and spots the light on field that was ignored in such studies by studying the significance of the socioeconomic factor on the uprising. In other words, this study asks the following question: 'Do the socioeconomic factors play any significant role in "The Syrian Revolution" '. The base argument of this thesis is that, in addition to the political demands against the oppressive Assad regime, the social and economic situations in Syria had also significant role, in the occurrence of the events which lead to the civil riots which evolved into an opposition against the Syrian regime. This thesis comprises of four sections and it uses qualitative research methods. The first section briefly introduction has been made. The second section studies the economic policies and its evaluations during the following periods; French mandate, military coups period, United Arab Republic and Hafez Assad's period. The third section covers Bashar Assad's pre revolution era between 2000 - 2010, the reformation stage, the adaptation of liberalism stage, in this era we studied the unemployment, poverty, financial data and the economic sectors. In the fourth section we studied the start of the uprising, analyzed its spread and public support in different regions showing the socioeconomic reasons behind it. Key Words: Syria, Arab Spring, Revolution, Socioeconomic, Bashar Assad Period, Poverty.