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The bureaucratic revolution: the Syrian opposition’s civil registry system

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  • Marika Sosnowski

Abstract

Adding to the anthropological literature on revolutions, this paper argues that the Syrian revolution should not only be seen through its violent iconography or as a lost cause but rather as an ongoing, bureaucratic process. Based on over 60 in-depth interviews with Syrian lawyers, judges, civil servants and civilians as well as with international humanitarians and legal experts, it examines the vision, hopes and legal aspirations of bureaucratic revolutionaries – lawyers and judges, administrators and civil servants – who established and implemented the Syrian opposition’s civil registry system. Using Veena Das’ idea of magic and the Arabic Islamic concept of al-ghayb (the hidden or unseen), the article highlights and unpacks the tension and co-constitutive nature of the magical, unseen vision of the revolutionary bureaucracy and its legible, rational reality. Through such a lens important insights can be gleaned about the grey zone that revolutions, and revolutionaries, beyond Syria inhabit – between legible and illegible, real and vision, a state and a state in waiting.

Suggested Citation

  • Marika Sosnowski, 2025. "The bureaucratic revolution: the Syrian opposition’s civil registry system," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(8), pages 896-912, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:46:y:2025:i:8:p:896-912
    DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2025.2514570
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