Experiences of Political Transition Worldwide: Is There a Syrian Specificity?

There have been various models of political transitions around the world for decades, particularly in countries that have faced crises. These include:

1- Successful Transition through Agreement after Civil War: Lebanon between 1989-1990, Angola between 1991-2006, Mozambique in 1992, and Cambodia between 1992-1993. In the last three cases, the transition occurred through an agreement between the government and armed rebel movements with international sponsorship, while in Lebanon, there was a consensus among external countries (the United States, Saudi Arabia, Syria) to end the civil war, which was translated into the Lebanese context through the Taif Agreement. When the military government’s Prime Minister Michel Aoun opposed it, he was forcibly removed from the Baabda Palace by Syrian military power. In Cambodia, the transition occurred through an international administration that led the transition for fifteen months until elections took place. In Angola, the transition remained stalled for fifteen years after the agreement between the ruling People’s Movement and the UNITA movement in the south until it was put on track for implementation in 2006.

2- Transition after Military Dictatorship: Greece in 1974, Spain in 1975, Brazil in 1985, South Korea in 1987, and Chile in 1989. In Greece and Argentina, the transition occurred after military defeat of the ruling power (Argentina) or a setback to the external plans of the ruling authority (Greece). In South Korea, it followed a popular revolution. In Brazil and Chile, it occurred after an agreement between the civilian political forces and the ruling military authority.

3- Failure of Transition to Civil Multiparty Rule: Algeria between 1989-1992, Myanmar between 1990-2021, Egypt between 2011-2013, and Tunisia between 2011-2021.

4- Political Transition from Individual Rule to Multi-Party Civilian Governance Leading to Parallel Governments or Resulting in the Failure to Establish a Single Government: Libya between 2011-2021, Yemen between 2011-2015, and Sudan between 2019-2025.

5- Successful Political Transition from Individual Rule or Single-Party Rule toward Democracy: Poland in 1989, East Germany in 1989, Czechoslovakia in 1989 (later peacefully divided into Czechia and Slovakia in 1993), Hungary in 1989, Romania in 1989, Bulgaria in 1990, and Albania in 1992.

6- Peaceful Political Transition Leading to the Formation of New Countries Arising from the Disintegration of One State (the Soviet Union): Agreements were reached in the last month of 1991 starting from the founder republics of the Soviet Union: the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, joined later by eight countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova. All eleven countries signed the dismantling agreement within the existing geographical borders at the moment of signing. Meanwhile, Georgia preferred unilateral declaration of secession from the Soviet Union, while the three Baltic republics—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—considered Stalin’s annexation to be illegal and restored their independence from 1940. This transition succeeded in generating new states but also later led to inter-state wars: Azerbaijan and Armenia between 1993-1994 and 2020-2023, the Russo-Georgian War in 2008, the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, and the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war since 2022. Additionally, some former Soviet republics experienced nationalist military rebellions, such as the Chechen rebellions in the Russian Federation between 1994-1996 and 1999-2000, and the Donbas rebellion, where most of the population is Russian, against the authority of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv between 2014-2025.

7- Violent Political Transition Leading to the Formation of New Countries after the Disintegration of One State (the Yugoslav Federation): In 1991, Croatia and Slovenia unilaterally declared independence from the Yugoslav Federation, resulting in the Serbian-Croatian War from 1991-1995. The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina also seceded in 1992, leading to a three-way war between Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians that ended with the Dayton Agreement in 1995, whereby Serbia recognized the independence of Croatia and Bosnia. There is also the case of the Albanian-majority region of Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, followed by recognition from the United States and most EU countries, but its entry into the United Nations has been impeded by a Russian veto. In 2008, the union of Serbia and Montenegro broke apart after a union that lasted five years.

8- Successful Political Transition after a Civil War Leading to a Clear Winner and Loser: Rwanda in 1994.

9- Troubled Political Transition after Civil War Followed by an Agreement of the Warring Parties: Burundi between 2004-2025. The transition began under the presence of international UN peacekeeping forces with an agreement between the warring parties from the Tutsi and Hutu tribes to share power following a referendum on a new constitution.

10- Successful Political Transition between a Minority Ethnic Ruling System and an Opposition Party: In May 1994 in South Africa. The transition began after the 1993 agreement between South African President Frederik de Klerk and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela to end the apartheid system, followed by elections in which the ANC won and Mandela became president while de Klerk served as his deputy until 1996.

Overview

It can be said that the disintegration of the Soviet Union a third of a century ago defined the general features of the global landscape, similar to how the Bolshevik Revolution defined the overall picture of the twentieth century. However, one can also argue that the international balance shift in favor of the United States after President Ronald Reagan’s announcement of the “Star Wars” program in 1983, which broke the “mutual assured destruction” condition on which the Cold War equilibrium was based, translated into unfavorable relations for the Kremlin and its allies, especially following Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s abandonment of Moscow’s condition at the Washington summit in late 1987 linking the dismantling of Soviet medium and short-range missiles aimed at Western European cities with the abandonment by Washington of “Star Wars.”

This condition had been the centerpiece of Soviet policy for four years. In 1988, the translations of this imbalance in the international balance began to manifest in agreements concerning hot spots from the Cold War, such as the agreement on the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, which did not include any articles relating to the agreement between the Moscow-aligned government and the Islamic opposition, leaving the local communist government isolated before it collapsed in 1992. It can also be posited that the rapidity of the Marxist rulers of southern Yemen to conclude the unity agreement with Sana’a in November 1989 was also one of these translations, followed by the north-south war between May and July 1994, which ended with a military victory for the northerners. However, the most significant consequence was the loss of communists in power due to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact regimes in Eastern and Central Europe in the summer and fall of 1989 prior to the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, leading to the emergence of new states, which affected the Yugoslav model of Tito’s federal state that collapsed between 1991 and 1992.

Conversely, it is noted that the United States, which supported military dictatorship regimes during the Cold War, such as in Chile with General Augusto Pinochet in 1973 against the leftist government of President Salvador Allende, pressed for democratic transition toward civil multiparty rule after the leftist threats diminished, as happened in 1989 despite Pinochet remaining head of the army. In this regard, the lifting of Western cover from the apartheid regime in South Africa, which had been an ally against leftist systems supported by Moscow and Havana, like in Angola and Mozambique, contributed to President de Klerk’s realization of the new direction of international winds following the end of the Cold War, prompting him to reach an agreement with Mandela in 1993. This was the same motivation that led leftists in Angola and Mozambique to sign reconciliation agreements with armed opposition movements.

The Cambodian experience remains unique, as UN transitional authority managed the transitional phase in Cambodia for fifteen months between 1992 and 1993 after the signing of the Paris agreements in October 1991. Their mission ended with the holding of elections for a constituent assembly that established a constitution, led by a Japanese president, with an Australian commander of its armed forces and a Dutch police chief, in addition to administrators from various countries.

Additionally, there were other factors for political transition, such as the defeat of military regimes, as in Argentina after the defeat in the 1982 Falklands War with Britain, which led to the collapse of military rule the following year. Also, after the failed coup by Greek Cypriots in the summer of 1974 who sought to merge Cyprus with Greece, which led Turkey to intervene militarily and divide the island, the military in Athens resigned following the failure of their Cypriot coup adventure planned and executed by the National Guard against the elected president, Archbishop Makarios.

On the other hand, the strength of civilian political opposition also led to military rulers stepping down in other cases, such as in Brazil in 1985 and South Korea in 1987. The Rwandan experience is noteworthy after the Tutsi victory over the Hutu after a civil war that resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties, with President Paul Kagame pursuing a policy of reconciliation to establish political stability and economic growth along with regional influence supported by the United States, especially in resource-rich Eastern Congo, where Rwanda supports the Tutsi against the capital Kinshasa’s authority. This experience was not successful in Burundi between the Tutsi and Hutu, leading instead to turmoil followed by an agreement between the warring parties based on the principle of neither winning nor losing, akin to the Taif Agreement in Lebanon in 1989.

In Syria, the National Coordination Committee’s approach at the Halaboun Conference on September 17, 2011, was to establish a comprehensive political transition between the authority and the opposition, which was rejected by Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian National Council that was announced in Istanbul about two weeks later, in addition to the armed Islamist factions also rejecting this approach. The Arab League adopted the transitional participatory solution between the authority and the opposition in the initiative of November 2, 2011, later endorsed by major international powers through the Geneva Statement on June 30, 2012, and UN Security Council Resolution 2254 in December 2015. The Syrian armed conflict became stagnant after the fall of the eastern neighborhoods in Aleppo city in December 2016, leading to the launch of the Astana process in the four de-escalation zones, culminating in the March 2020 agreement between Moscow and Ankara.

The fall of the Syrian regime late last year resulted from international and regional factors, represented in the weakness of its Russian ally after the Ukraine war and the defeat of its Iranian ally in the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. The U.S., with Turkish assistance and the consent of Riyadh, exploited this situation to create a new Middle Eastern balance through a change in Damascus against Iran, which considers Syria the bridge and heart of its axis, ahead of anticipated negotiations between it and Washington regarding the Iranian nuclear program, aiming to create a new global balance that weakens Russia in its only available position in the warm waters of its bases in Khmeimim and Tartus, prior to U.S.-Russian negotiations concerning the Ukrainian issue. Additionally, this change in Damascus opens the way for a prospective East Middle Eastern NATO alliance that cannot realize its conditions without the Syrian capital, and opens avenues for energy pipeline projects in oil and gas through land rather than sea, unlike the Indian Corridor project, making the Middle East an alternative to or the main energy supplier to the European continent. These energy projects, along with the East Middle Eastern NATO alliance, require peace agreements between Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. Thus, the fall of Assad is not merely the result of a purely internal Syrian movement, but came as a consequence of the shift in the U.S. stance towards Iran from appeasement during Barack Obama’s term to regional containment following the Operation of October 7, 2023, against Israel, which occurred four weeks after the signing of the Indian Corridor agreement, which stipulates that it passes through Negev towards Ashkelon-Haifa, which has now become unsafe due to the Gaza war, indicating that Tehran was capable of undermining the project that excluded it, even if the U.S. President was the first to sign it.

Furthermore, Washington’s new approach regarding the Ukrainian issue leans towards negotiations with Moscow, which necessitates weakening the Russians before sitting at the negotiating table, and Syria is a potential weak point for Russia that might have forced Moscow to barter it away in exchange for Ukraine by aiding in facilitating the downfall of Assad’s regime after Putin recognized the difficulties of its continuation following the loss of Aleppo and Hama.

It should be noted that the geographical split in Syria that existed prior to the regime’s fall remains intact in its old form with minor modifications, and the affirmation of the UN Security Council statement on March 14 regarding a “comprehensive political transition process… based on the principles outlined in Resolution 2254” indicates that the transitional solution toward a stable and unified Syria will be governed by an internal consensus between the political, military, and social components of the Syrian scene under international sponsorship, rather than through domination, as the existing internal balances in the post-Assad era do not allow for the predominance of any single party.