The tribes of Syria's Manbij – co-optation strategies of third parties and the evolution of intratribal dynamics

Tribes have been a strong social, political, and even military factor throughout the Middle East. This thesis investigates the impact of rival foreign states' competition and co-optation strategies within the Syrian civil war on tribal dynamics, specifically focusing on the Manbij region from February 2018 to September 2019. The case-study provides insight into how the relationship between intervening third parties in a civil war affect intra-group dynamics of strategic local actors and ethnic or sub-ethnic groups, such as tribes. By analyzing elite interviews, literature, and open-source data, the study reveals that multiple third-party interventions disrupted traditional tribal hierarchies while intensifying lower-level tribal identities at the familial and clan levels. This breakdown of hierarchy and simultaneous strengthening of lower-level tribal identities is a result of the complex interplay between civil war, co-optation, and multi-party intervention. The findings contribute to understanding co-optation as a legitimacy strategy in international relations and underscore the need for further exploration into diverse co-optation strategies and their effects on third-party interventions in civil wars. Keywords: Syria, Third-Party Intervention, Civil War, Tribes, Co-optation