Investigating the Relationship between Drought and the Start of the War in Syria Using the Theory of Relative Deprivation

Document Type : *

Authors

• Hojatalah Madadi ¹
• Morteza Abazari ²
• Hossein Ahmadi ²

¹ PhD student of international relations, Islamic Azad University, Shahreza branch, Iran

² Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Islamic Azad University, Shahreza Branch, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/pg.2024.84866.1243

Abstract

Syria has been involved in a full-scale war since the beginning of 2013. Researchers and experts in political, social and military sciences have examined the different angles of this war. The current research has investigated the relationship between drought and the start of war in Syria using the theory of relative deprivation. The droughts between 2003 and 2009, which were rare in the history of Syria, severely affected the farmers and herdsmen in the provinces of Hasakah, Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, and unemployed people migrated to other provinces, especially Damascus, Daraa and Homs. and this issue increased livelihood problems such as high housing prices, increase in food prices and unemployment in different regions of Syria and provided grounds for dissatisfaction and unrest. The method used in this article is descriptive and analytical, and reliable internal and external library sources and internet databases have been used. The findings of this research indicate that the occurrence of successive droughts in Syria and Turkey's water policy in building dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the failure to properly manage this crisis by the Syrian government as a factor in the dissatisfaction of the Syrian people. It has been influential.

Keywords

• Climate change
• war
• drought
• Syria
• relative deprivation

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