Coerced Compliance and Individual Responsibility, Transitional justice and the dilemma of coerced compliance in Syria

"Coerced Compliance and Individual Responsibility. Transitional justice and the dilemma of coerced compliance in Syria"
By, Mohammad Nazzal
Writer and political researcher
Translated by, Aya Hussein

Amid the intensifying debates surrounding the assessment of individuals’ positions during previous phases, a profound dilemma emerges concerning the nature of the relationship that evolved between the state and society under an authoritarian regime fundamentally grounded in utilitarian pragmatism and sustained through instruments of coercion and violence.
Over the course of decades, this relationship was shaped through a complex web of reciprocal interests and hierarchical power relations imposed by force, encompassing businessmen, broad segments of state employees, and various social actors. Within such a context, the relationship between individuals and political authority cannot be reduced to the simplistic binary of “loyalty” and “opposition”. Rather, it should be understood as a graduated spectrum of adaptive behavioral patterns governed primarily by considerations of survival and personal security.
Within this spectrum, verbal expressions of support emerge as one manifestation of what may be termed “instrumental compliance” —a form of behavior that does not necessarily reflect ideological conviction´-or-political commitment so much as it constitutes a mechanism for mitigating risk within a highly coercive environment. In this regard, one may invoke a well-established proposition in political sociology: the greater a political actor’s capacity to monopolize the instruments of control, the greater the levels of “performative cooperation” exhibited by civilians, whether such cooperation arises from conviction, coercion,´-or-pragmatic calculation.
Among the most salient manifestations of this structural coercion was the dictatorship’s adoption of policies that effectively rendered membership in the Baath Party a quasi-mandatory prerequisite for professional integration´-or-career advancement. This form of “coercive politicization” did not reflect voluntary political engagement, but rather constituted a -dir-ect response to institutional and security pressures. Likewise, the repressive security environment cultivated within urban centers—characterized by pervasive surveillance, chronic fear, and the unchecked expansion of the security apparatus—entrenched conditions of severe coercion that compelled many individuals to adopt behaviors outwardly suggestive of loyalty, while in essence rooted in caution and the imperative of survival.
In environments marked by multiple centers of power, pervasive uncertainty, and unstable rules governing conflict, many individuals tend to adopt strategies of neutrality, commonly described as “sitting on the fence”—as a rational means of avoiding the costs associated with political alignment. Yet under deeply authoritarian systems, neutrality itself may become a source of suspicion, prompting some actors to display a minimum degree of conformity with the ruling authority, not as an expression of genuine allegiance, but rather as a defensive mechanism aimed at avoiding classification as adversaries.
Accordingly, assessing the positions of individuals who previously expressed verbal support becomes an inherently complex undertaking that necessitates distinguishing between multiple forms of loyalty: coerced loyalty, opportunistic loyalty, and ideological´-or-political loyalty. Not every expression of support constitutes evidence of organic integration into the structure of power, and therefore generalized judgments of exclusion, dispossession,´-or-stigmatization cannot legitimately be imposed without careful examination of the individual’s actual position and conduct.
The presence today of figures occupying official positions who, during earlier phases, issued intermittent verbal statements supportive of the regime reflects the complexity of this reality and cannot be interpreted through binary logic´-or-categorical judgments. This neither absolves such individuals of wrongdoing nor condemns them automatically-;- rather, it underscores that verbal support, particularly when inconsistent´-or-non-systematic—is insufficient in itself to brand individuals with exclusionary labels such as “remnants of the regime.”
The central problem lies in the absence of clear and publicly articulated standards for determining degrees of loyalty and the political´-or-legal consequences that should follow from them. In the absence of such standards, the notion of the “remnants” risks becoming an elastic instrument employed to reproduce exclusion rather than dismantle the authoritarian structures ostensibly meant to be transcended. Moreover, the indiscriminate and repetitive use of this label gradually strips it of analytical and political value, diminishing the effectiveness of raising issues that genuinely warrant accountability.
The reconstruction of the political sphere on equitable foundations cannot be achieved without a precise understanding of the dynamics of social adaptation under coercive conditions, nor without distinguishing between actual responsibility and coerced involvement, and between genuine political agency and compliance motivated by the imperative of survival. Fair accountability is not founded upon generalization, but upon careful differentiation, verification, and proportionality.
The fundamental question therefore remains: should every word of support uttered within a coercive context be regarded as evidence of loyalty warranting hostility? Can such expressions legitimately justify the denial of rights, exclusion from employment,´-or-political stigmatization?´-or-does justice instead require the establishment of precise standards capable of ensuring accountability for those genuinely responsible, without transforming accountability itself into a mechanism for the production of new injustices?
Failure to resolve this dilemma will leave the public sphere captive to a persistent state of ambiguity, in which cases become conflated, responsibilities overlap, and confidence in public discourse steadily erodes. With the repeated mislabeling of individuals, serious criticism gradually loses its efficacy and devolves into familiar noise incapable of attracting attention, even in cases that genuinely demand accountability.
For this reason, clarifying this issue and establishing clear standards capable of distinguishing between varying forms of loyalty and their respective implications is not merely an intellectual exercise-;- it constitutes a fundamental prerequisite for transcending the chaos of indiscriminate accusations and for constructing a just and cohesive political order.

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