William Christou

Under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254, a critical step toward a political solution to the Syrian crisis is the drafting of a new Syrian constitution. To that end, the Constitutional Committee in Geneva has conducted three rounds of discussions, with little to show for it. One of the key components of the new constitution is the decentralization of power. The issue is hard for Syrians to approach objectively, however, because — depending on their class, ethnicity, and religion — they have been impacted by the highly centralized system of governance in vastly different ways. In order to understand the different views of Syrians on the issue of decentralization in a new constitution, The Day After (TDA), a Syrian organization that works toward empowering civil society, democratic transition, and justice in Syria, conducted a survey of 2,966 persons between June and July 2020, including Syrians within the country as well as in the diaspora. In general, support for a decentralized political system is on the rise. Compared to a survey conducted by TDA two years earlier, there was an increase of over 20 percentage points among all respondents for a decentralized system in Syria.

On June 17, 2020, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy to Syria, Joel Rayburn, announced the beginning of the “summer of Caesar,” promising a wave of sanctions designations under the newly activated Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. Summer has come and gone, but there’s little to show for it.