Fabrice Balanche (born November 3, 1969 in

Belfort Belfort (; archaic german: Beffert/Beffort) is a city in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Northeastern France, situated between Lyon and Strasbourg, approximately from the France–Switzerland border. It is the prefecture of the Territo ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

) is a

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

and specialist in the

political geography Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally, for the purposes of analysis, po ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

, Iraq and the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

in general.

Biography

In 2000, he defended his thesis The Alaouites, space and power in the Syrian coastal region: an ambiguous national integration, which was taken up and published in 2006 under the title The Alaouite region and the Syrian power. He has a Doctorate in political geography from the University of Tours (2000) and an associate in geography. He lived for ten years between Lebanon and Syria, countries which represent his main fields of study since 1990. His field of research focuses on the interaction between power, community and territory. On November 29, 2013, he obtained the accreditation to direct research on the theme: The community factor in the analysis of Syrian and Lebanese space. He is a lecturer in geography, authorized to supervise research, assistant professor of geography and director of research at the University of Lyon 2, where he headed the Research Group on the Mediterranean and the Middle East (GREMMO ) until the end of 2015, the date of cessation of its activities. In 2012, he published the Atlas of the Arab Middle East, a work devoted to the four states of

Bilad al-Sham Bilad al-Sham ( ar, بِلَاد الشَّام, Bilād al-Shām), often referred to as Islamic Syria or simply Syria in English-language sources, was a province of the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates. It roughly correspon ...

which, according to Confluences Méditerranée, brings "in an editorial landscape already provided (...) a real added value" notably thanks to its “original and educational” cartography. In 2015, Fabrice Balanche decided to leave Lyon and emigrate to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

where he was a guest researcher at the

Washington Institute for Near East Policy The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP or TWI, also known simply as The Washington Institute) is a pro-Israel American think tank based in Washington, D.C., focused on the foreign policy of the United States in the Near East. WINE ...

think-tank from 2015 to 2017, then at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The Atlas of the Arab Near East was published in English by Brill under the title Atlas of the Near East: State Formation and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1918–2010. In February 2018, Fabrice Balanche published a book on the Syrian conflict in English
''Sectarianism in Syria's Civil War''
, in which he explains the community aspects of the war in Syria.

Publications

Books

*The Alaouite region and the Syrian power, editor Karthala, 2006, 313 p. ( )
''Atlas of the Arabic Near East''
Paris-Sorbonne University Press RFI, 2012, 135 p. ( ) *Geopolitics of the Middle East, La Documentation française, Documentation photographique, Paris, 2014 *Atlas of the Near East: State Formation and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1918–2010, Brill, Amsterdam, 2017
''Sectarianism in Syria's Civil War''
, Washington Institute, 2018.

Collective works

''Beyrouth entre mondialisation et crise syrienne''
conference of 23 October 2013 at Saint-Joseph University of Beirut
Géosphères (Annales Géographie, Vol 33-34, 2012-2013
in collaboration with Liliane Buccianti-Barakat. An Arab Spring?: conference, Brest, 25–27 January 2012 / the Geopolitics of Brest; under the direction of Linda Gardelle; with contributions from Fabrice Balanche, Bernard Botiveau, Assia Boutaleb ... et al. / Paris: L'Harmattan, 2013. Articles "The die is cast: the Kurds cross the Euphrates", in Syria: a hope? Les Cahiers de l'Orient n ° 122, spring 2016. The battle of Aleppo is the center of the Syrian chessboard, February 5, 2016, Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The die is cast, the Kurds cross the Euphrates, January 5, 2016, Washington Institute for the Near East Policy. The Alawi community and the Syrian crisis, Middle East Institute, May 14, 2015. Syria: civil war and the internationalization of the conflict, Eurorient, n ° 42, 2013. Geography of the Syrian revolt, Outre Terre, n ° 27, September 2011. Clientelism, communitarianism and territorial fragmentation in Syria, A Contrario, March 2009. Syria, article on the Encyclopedia Universalis (collective writing)

Reception

He is regularly quoted in the written press on the subject of Syria in order to present his methods of mapping the Syrian civil war and to express his point of view on the situation. He is recognized and named as an expert on the issues of development of the Middle East and the Syrian crisis and as "one of the leading French experts on Syria."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Balanche, Fabrice 1969 births Living people French geographers French political scientists People from Belfort The Washington Institute for Near East Policy University of Tours alumni 20th-century French people 21st-century French people