Fabrice Balanche (born November 3, 1969, in Belfort, France)[1] is a geographer and specialist in the political geography of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and the Middle East in general.[2][3]
Graduated Doctor in Tours University (2000), he defended his thesis The Alaouites, space and power in the Syrian coastal region: an ambiguous national integration (in French), which was taken up and published in 2006 under the title The Alaouite region and the Syrian power (La région alaouite et le pouvoir syrien). Fabrice Balanche is an assistant professor of geography (since 2007) in Lyon University and Adjunct Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy since 2018. He has been a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University (2017-2018), after having been a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (2015-2017).
His first stay in the Middle East began in 1990. Since then, he has lived for ten years between Syria and Lebanon, privileged areas of his research. Fellow (1990-1991), research grantee (1996-1998) by the French Institute of the Near East (IFPO), then director of the Urban Observatory of the Near East at the IFPO (2003 – 2007). Director of the Research and Studies Group on the Mediterranean and the Middle East (GREMMO, UMR 5291) at the Maison de l’Orient (2010 and 2015). Since 2017, he belongs to the Environment, City and Society laboratory (EVS, UMR 5600) of the University of Lyon.
His research is part of a global geography with the Middle East as a framework. He tries to understand the relationships between the construction of territories and the pollical power from the local scale at the regional level. In this context, he participated in various scientific research programs, such on urban development in the Middle East (2007-2011), the World Bank program “Building for Peace in the Middle East and North Africa”. In 2021, he launched a research program on “The Reconstruction of the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq)” supported by the research centre “Urban World Intelligence” (Intelligence des Mondes Urbains).
In addition to his academic work, he carries out expertise in economics, geopolitics and development in the region for public institutions, development agencies and economic intelligence companies. From 2005 to 2011, he notably worked as a consultant for the German Cooperation (GIZ) and the French Agency for Development (AFD) in Syria on a program to preserve water resources. Since 2018, he directed a Syrian observatory (2018-2021) then a Levant observatory (2023) within AESMA on behalf of the General Directorate of International Relations and Strategy (DGRIS). He works with various NGOs since the start of the Syrian crisis. His humanitarian commitment led him to “Médecins Sans Frontière” (2018), “Solidarités” (2019-2020) and more recently Mines Advisory Group (MAG).
•Syria and Lebanon: Sectarianism and Power (In French), Presses Universitaires de Rhin et Danube, Hunningues, 2022.
•Sectarianism in Syria's Civil War Archived 2018-09-22 at the Wayback Machine, Washington Institute, 2018.
•Atlas of the Near East: State Formation and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1918–2010, Brill, Amsterdam, 2017.
•Geopolitics of the Middle East (In French), La Documentation française, Documentation photographique, Paris, 2014.
•The Alaouite region and the Syrian power' (In French)', editor Karthala, 2006, 313 p.
• 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.
• "Whither the Kurds in “Post-ISIS” Syria?”" e-Note 44 (With Didier Leroy, Royal Higher Institute for Defence), February 25, 2023.
• "Syria: A deceptive frozen conflict" (In French), Politique étrangère, IFRI, 2/2022.
• " The Syrian State before 2011 : a losing legitimacy ", Conflits, n°38, mars 2022.
• " The Revenge of Geography in Afghanistan ", Telos, Wednesday, December 8, 2021.
• "The Iranian Land Bridge in the Levant: The Return of Territory in Geopolitics", Telos, New York, September 14, 2018.
• " From the Iranian Corridor to the Shia Crescent ", Hoover Institution, Stanford University, August 2018.
• The United States In Northeastern Syria ", Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, July 2018.
• " Syria-Iraq: Limiting Iranian Influence Implies Returning to Realpolitik ", Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, November 2017.
• " The End of the CIA Program in Syria ", Foreign Affairs, August 2, 2017.
• " Syria: From a Non-religious and Democratic Revolution to Daesh ", Hérodote, n°160-161, La Découverte, Winter 2016.
• " Go to Damascus, my son ", in The ‘Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant, Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin, C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, London, 2015.
• "Metropolozation and globalization: political instabiliy in the Arab world" (in Spanish), Foro internacional, Mexico, May 2012.
• "The reconstruction of Lebanon or the racketeering ruling", in Are Knudsen and Michael Kerr (editors), Lebanon After the Cedar Revolution, C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, London, 2012, 256 p.
• "The State in the Arab Middle East Between Communitarianism, Clientelism, Globalization and the Project of the Greater Middle East" (in French), L’Espace Politique, 11 | 2010/2.
• "Clientelism, sectarianism and territorial fragmentation in Syria" (in French), A Contrario, March 2009.
• "Water scarcity in Syria", Maghreb-Machrek, September 2008.
• "Municipalities in Baathist Syria : administrative devolution and political domination" (In French), Revue Tiers Monde, n°193, January-March 2008.
• « Transportation and Syrian territory » (In French), Annales de Géographie, Année 2003 630 pp. 146-166.
He is regularly quoted in the written press on the subject of Syria[4] in order to present his methods of mapping the Syrian civil war and to express his point of view on the situation.[5][6][7][8]
He is recognized and named as an expert on the issues of development of the Middle East and the Syrian crisis[9] and as "one of the leading French experts on Syria."[5]
