Colonialists, industrialists, and politicians: The political economy of industrialization in Syria, 1920--1954

The evolution of the Syrian industrial bourgeoisie during the French Mandate and the first decade of Syrian independence was conditioned by overlapping economic, political, and economic factors. The most significant of these was the changing relationship between the industrialists and the political authority as Syria moved through successive Ottoman, French, and independent regimes. Throughout this period the nascent industrial bourgeoisie sought an accommodation with the state that would secure its interests, ensure state support of industrialization, and give industrialists a decisive influence over official policies concerning economic and social development. Ultimately, during the Shishakli regime of the early 1950s, the bourgeoisie realized its major goals, but only temporarily. The bargains the industrialists struck with the state required a strong degree of government intervention in the economy, a role compatible with bourgeois interests only so long as the bourgeoisie retained influence over the government apparatus. Once that influence was lost in the later 1950s, the bourgeoisie fell victim to a Syrian state that continued to enjoy the institutional advantages established by and for the benefit of the industrialists, but which was now under the control of social groupings whose interests were antithetical to those of the bourgeoisie. In the process of negotiating its relationship with the Mandatory and independent Syrian states, the bourgeoisie made use of an ideology of economic nationalism that won it allies among the nationalist political leadership, and accommodated itself to a theory of corporatist social organization that appealed to Syrian regimes of differing characters.; The dissertation traces these themes through an analysis of the development of the Syrian textile industries from the onset of the Mandate in the early 1920s to the fall of the Shishakli regime in 1954. Over time, the industrial bourgeoisie first mechanized and then converted the textile sector to a large-scale factory industry, making use of such new institutions as joint-stock companies and chambers of commerce and industry. By independence in 1946 this class carved out a social identity distinct from that of its merchant and landlord antecedents, and achieved an economic significance that enabled it to acquire a decisive role in setting government policy. Although its primacy was fleeting, the bourgeoisie left a permanent mark on the structuring of the Syrian political economy.