Why do some political ideologies that gain great public traction fade at one point, as if they never existed, while others continue to thrive despite their failures?

The publication of the book The Rise and Fall of Greater Syria (De Gruyter), authored by the Institute’s Academic Director, Dr. Carl Yonker, provided an opportunity to explore this question during a Zoom seminar on June 1, 2023. The book traces the misfortune of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, a fascist pan-Syrian movement that for a moment seemed to have a real chance of dominating Syrian and Lebanese politics, and then was all but extinguished. Bringing together social scientists and scholars of intellectual history, the seminar will explore comparatively the dynamics that make certain ideologies long-lasting and others – not, in the Middle East and beyond it.