Sociologies of Moderation

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Sociologies of moderation
Alexander Thomas T. Smith and John Holmwood
Abstract: What does moderation mean in the twenty-first century? And what might a
reasoned project of moderation look like, intellectually, politically and in practice?
This paper argues for a sociological reappraisal of the historical origins, intellectual
foundations and contemporary salience of moderation. Too often wrongly defined by
a sense of what it is not by its apparent absence of ideology moderation has come,
in recent years, to be associated with bland and incoherent notions of centrism.
However, moderation presents sociologists and other scholars with particular analytical and theoretical challenges and opportunities. In a post-secular liberal democracy like Britain, an exploration of what moderation might mean demands an
interrogation of the often taken-for-granted assumptions of the social sciences and the
ideological extremes more generally. Moderation is about the relations among publics
and the possibilities of a deep pluralism that is respectful of difference. However,
publics are under threat by markets and the future of sociology, tied to the future of
publics, without revivified social and political practices of moderation, may be bleak.
Keywords: moderation, crisis, markets, publics, sociology, social theory
Since the late 1960s, scholars of culture, religion and society have grappled with
the challenge of apprehending a complex world undergoing rapid economic and
political transformations. In the USA, the intellectual and political legacies of
the anti-war, civil rights and feminist movements have been particularly important as they resonated in disciplinary debates over data, methods and theory.
Cumulatively, such debates precipitated a perceived crisis in the humanities
and social sciences in the early 1980s, following the postmodern or reflexive
turn (cf. Clifford, 1988; Marcus and Fischer, 1999). This sense of crisis was
compounded further at the end of the Cold War with the rise of neoliberal
globalization, which appeared also to accelerate transformations in a range of
local, national and transnational contexts (cf. Agger, 1989; Hannerz, 1996).
This, in turn, further unsettled a variety of debates in sociology and the social
sciences as scholars found themselves carrying out research in sites of instability
(eg Greenhouse et al., 2002).
The rapid pace of change seems to have also thrown into crisis Enlightenment
ideas of modernity, secularism and (secular) truth more broadly, concepts
that have not only underpinned much social and political theorizing throughout
The Sociological Review, 61:S2, pp. 617 (2013), DOI: 10.1111/1467-954X.12097
2013 The Authors. Editorial organisation 2013 The Editorial Board of the Sociological Review. Published by
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148,
USA
the twentieth century but are also widely taken for granted as the basis of the
cultural and political foundations of contemporary Western liberal democratic
societies. Even more recently, the threat of international terrorism and the
emergence of home-grown Islamic extremism in the UK have further undermined such ideas, intellectually and politically. The apparent arrival of a postsecular moment in the West (McLennan, 2010; see also Berger, 1999 and
Taylor, 2007), in which religion has re-entered the public sphere and unsettled
debates about the relationships between expertise, religion and science, has
further signalled a world in flux.
In this context, the broader understanding of a politics inherent to all
knowledge claims, which accompanied the postmodern turn, can be understood
as challenging the possibility of a value-neutral position for knowledge, which
was, in its turn, part of arguments for the separation of religion and politics. If
there is no neutral knowledge to inform political debate, then religious values
are on a par with other values and politics is an agonistic struggle between what
Weber called warring Gods, including the Gods of secular values. Paradoxically, perhaps the only mechanism credited with neutrality is the market as the
means of aggregating private decisions, where politics is increasingly seen as a
means of privatizing publics by replacing the public functions of government
with markets. Here expertise is derided if it might be at the service of public
agencies, since the solution to problems of knowledge and decision-making are
to be resolved by an economics of knowledge, where the market becomes the
best means of generating and communicating knowledge as signals for behaviour by self-regarding individuals.
At such an intellectual and political moment, it is perhaps not surprising that
some have begun to argue for a project of moderation in order to mitigate the
effects of crisis and indeterminacy associated with market-based policies and the
debates over culture and morality that they provoke. The need for and value
of moderation has been fiercely argued amongst elements of the international
media, particularly in relation to combating Islamic extremism and finding an
enduring peace in the Middle East (cf. Bhutto, 2007; Manji, 2006; Meer et al.,
2010; Muasher, 2008; Schwedler, 2007). It has also been the subject of much
debate in the USA in relation to the culture wars that have beset domestic
politics there for the last half-century. During the final years of President George
W. Bushs administration, for example, several leading Republicans (eg
Danforth, 2006; Whitman, 2005) broke ranks with the Christian Right and the
Partys conservative base, arguing against the polarization of the American
electorate in favour of moderation and bipartisanship in national government.
This argument was echoed in cyberspace during the 2008 elections, when websites dedicated to providing a moderate voice in US politics proliferated (cf
www.almoderate.com, www.themoderatevoice.com and www.moderatevoters
.org). Ever since the historic election of President Barack Obama that year, the
crisis of political moderation in the ranks of the Republican Party has become a
running theme in analyses of whats the matter with American democracy
today (eg Frank, 2005; see also Smith, this volume).
2013 The Authors. Editorial organisation 2013 The Editorial Board of the Sociological Review
But what does moderation actually mean? And what might a reasoned
project of moderation look like intellectually, politically and in practice?
Despite the urgency and vitality of these recent debates, sociologists and social
scientists in general have had surprisingly little to say about moderation over
the last decade, particularly in the UK.
Indeed, academics seem to prefer to focus analytical attention on the ideological extremes, which appear to more easily attract the eye of providers
of research funding especially those charged with checking the rise of
radicalization and protecting national security. In contrast, moderation has a
tendency to be defined by a sense of what it is not by its apparent absence of
ideology and has come to be associated with bland and incoherent notions
of centrism. By definition, moderation seems a relative term, often seeming
only momentarily discernible in contrast to fundamentalism and militancy in
specific socio-political contexts. Too easily caricatured as a tepid or weak tea
(Tyson, 2004), moderation presents, in our view, sociologists and other scholars
with particular analytical and theoretical challenges. We claim that, in a postsecular liberal democracy like Britain, an exploration of what moderation might
mean demands an interrogation of the often taken-for-granted assumptions of
the social sciences and the ideological extremes more generally. The argument of
this volume is therefore for a sociological reappraisal of the historical origins,
intellectual foundations and contemporary salience of moderation, which we
believe is long overdue.
While sociologists and other social scientists may have said little about moderation in recent years, it is important to acknowledge the growing body of
scholarship in the arts and humanities that appears, in part, to be reassessing
moderation as a set of ethical practices and ideas for the twenty-first century
(eg Calhoon, 2008; Clor, 2008; Craiutu, 2012; Egginton, 2011; Haack, 1998;
Kabaservice, 2012; Montano, 2002; Schwedler, 2007). To some extent, this
scholarship builds on earlier, more tentative studies of moderation, in both the
arts and social sciences, from the late twentieth century (eg Billig, 1982; Crick,
1976; Hartshorne, 1987; Morgan and Silvestri, 1982). Some of the contributors
to this volume draw on the writings of these humanities-based scholars, most of
which are located in the USA and hail from disciplines such as history, philosophy and political and social theory. However, our aim in this volume is to
stimulate discussion about how one might apprehend moderation sociologically,
in the process contributing to this emerging scholarly literature at the same time
as drawing upon it. Our purpose, then, is not to offer a definitive argument or
final word on what a sociological approach to understanding moderation in
contemporary economic, political, religious and social life might resemble.
Rather, we hope that in offering papers on a range of eclectic topics relating to
democracy, expertise, media, pragmatism, religion, science and social theory, we
will provoke further interest and research in sociologies of moderation across a
range of contentious topics where publics, markets and states intersect.
There are also strong empirical arguments in favour of a sociological
reappraisal of what moderation means, particularly in terms of how sociologists
8

might take up the challenge of doing public sociology (cf. Burawoy, 2005;
Holmwood, 2007; Turner, 2007) and contributing to current debates about
contentious, sometimes divisive, issues. The murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in
south-east London on 22 May 2013 and more particularly the debate it
provoked about immigration, multiculturalism and the place of Muslim minorities in post-secular Britain is a case in point. The young soldier was killed on
a Woolwich street by two suspects brandishing knives who turned out to be
converts to Islam. In response, several mainstream political voices sought to
explain Rigbys murder not as an isolated act of violence but part of a wider
problem within Islam.1 For example, describing the current UK Governments
measures for addressing violent extremism as reasonable and proportionate,
former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair argued that the murder had been
inspired by a dangerous ideology unique to Islam:
There is not a problem with Islam . . . But there is a problem within Islam, and we have
to put it on the table and be honest about it. There are, of course, Christian extremists
and Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu ones. But I am afraid that the problematic strain
within Islam is not the province of a few extremists. It has at its heart a view of religion
and of the relationship between religion and politics that is not compatible with
pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies. At the extreme end of the spectrum are
terrorists, but the worldview goes deeper and wider than it is comfortable for us to
admit. So, by and large, we dont admit it. (Blair, 2013)
Presented in these terms, Islamic extremism is characterized as a problem for

which Muslim communities must take exclusive, sole responsibility. If there is a
sociological explanation to be found for Rigbys murder at all, so Blairs logic
would appear to run, it is nonetheless one for which non-Muslims cannot be
held responsible.2 In other words, the argument of the former British Prime
Minister requires minorities to accept that it is they who must ultimately shoulder the burden of responsibility for crimes committed, by extremists, in their
name. The problem with this line of argument is that in the moment of diagnosing extremism as a fault stemming from one (usually other) minoritys
alleged failure to fully embrace practices of moderation, Blair and other leaders
themselves risk failing a central reflexive test of what makes a moderate (see
Smith, this volume). As Holmwood argues in his contribution here, a societys
potential to promote a moderate politics depends significantly on the (political)
majoritys willingness to moderate itself and recognize minorities.
The reaction to Rigbys murder was more predictable, of course, amongst
leaders of far Right political parties, with the British National Party blaming
mass immigration for the murder and the English Defence League (EDL)
organizing anti-Muslim protests in London and elsewhere (cf. Jones et al.,
2013). But the story of a York mosque that served tea and biscuits to antiMuslim protestors days after the killing is evocative and perhaps better constitutes a teachable moment for those of us seeking insights about what
moderation might mean in the twenty-first century. According to online BBC
news coverage of what took place, the Yorkshire EDL Scarborough Division
posted a Facebook message encouraging people to gather for a protest outside
the mosque in Bull Lane the Sunday following Rigbys murder. Six EDL protestors turned up. They confronted over 100 supporters of the mosque, including
other faith leaders from the wider community. A conversation ensued and an
invitation extended to the EDL protestors to join members of the mosque for tea
and biscuits. With tensions diminishing, the protestors then joined younger
members of the mosque for a game of football. Speaking afterwards, the Anglican Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu observed that tea, biscuits, and
football are a great and typically Yorkshire combination when it comes to
disarming hostile and extremist views. Local Anglican priest Father Tim Jones
added:
Ive always known they [the mosque] were intelligent and compassionate people and
I think this has demonstrated the extent to which they are people of courage
certainly physical courage and also a high degree of moral courage. I think the world
can learn from what happened outside that ramshackle little mosque on Sunday.
(BBC News, 2013b)
It is difficult to imagine much that is more banal and everyday than tea and
biscuits. Yet, this true-life fable captures that elusive quality of spirit that makes
moderation so hard to pin down analytically. It underscores a central concern
for moderates and moderation: the regenerative power of attending to social
relations, even at the very local level (see Smith, this volume), and the importance of treating those with whom one might hold vehemently opposed views
with enough respect and tolerance to cultivate the most appropriate social
conditions for facilitating a new kind of conversation (cf. Allen, 2004). Here, the
promise of moderation lies in its rearticulation as a (self) discipline, a set of
practices for engaging divided publics. There is much grist for the sociological
mill in everyday stories like this one. As several papers in this volume argue,
sociology has much to contribute to debates about how to re-cast moderation as
a set of ethical principles and practices for addressing the many challenges,
inequalities and injustices facing societies today.
The monograph begins with an article from Bob Antonio, entitled Plundering the Commons: the growth imperative in neoliberal times. Antonio notes
that unplanned, exponential economic growth has been the liberal standard for
evaluating economies, societies and the effectiveness of political leaders and for
addressing ecological and resource problems. It also has been a habitus of
American life. Advocates of globalization have argued that its special virtue,
greatly enhanced by the neoliberal policy regime, is the unparalleled speed, reach
and scale of the new global capitalism and unlimited potential for continuous
growth. But Antonio argues that the new scenario has massively accelerated the
speed and volume of consumption of natural resources and production of waste
and generated ever-accelerating, planet-threatening ecological impacts. His
thought-provoking article starkly challenges the meaning of political moderation in the face of possible crisis.
In the second paper, Moderation: impossible on science, media and expertise, Brigitte Nerlich begins with the acknowledgement that, under pressure
10

from politics, interactions between science and the media are becoming increasingly complex. She then notes a widespread view of science journalists as lacking
expertise and of being complicit in spreading bad science or hype before
presenting several examples of science journalists talking honestly and openly
about their trade. According to their testimony, science journalists believe different kinds of expertise are necessary for their job, including a good grasp
of metaphor and hyperbole. The article then considers the medialization of
science in the context of its growing dependence on scarce funding resources and
public acceptance. This includes the growing use of PR and its practices and a
perversion of the honest or even, modest use of metaphor and hyperbole.
The article closes by asking several questions about what this means for citizens
in terms of political or scientific engagement and trust. In addition, Nerlich asks
what this means for scientists who still see their job as searching for truth, and
science journalists who may still see themselves as honest brokers.
In the third article, entitled Blurred Visions: Experts, Evidence and the
Promotion of Moderate Drinking, Henry Yeomans reminds us that some forms
of (scientific) expertise have been grappling with these politicized pressures for
some time. For example, the UK Department of Health states in certain terms
that drinking in excess of 34 units of alcohol per day for men and 23 for
women significantly increases the risk of ill health. However, Dr Andrew
Norfolk, one of the creators of the original advice, recently admitted that these
limits were plucked out of the air in 1987 as, despite the lack of empirical
evidence, the Royal College of Physicians was obliged by the Department of
Health to issue guidance on safe drinking. Although more evidence exists today
regarding the risks of drinking, certain limitations, such as the inability of
aggregated data to explain or predict harm on an individual level, mean that the
science is still unclear. But policy-makers and many medical professionals
continue to champion policies designed to promote these arbitrary measures of
moderation. The relationship between evidence, experts and the government of
alcohol is thus problematic. Yeomans investigates how policy-makers and
medical professionals seek to derive moments of normative clarity from essentially blurred scientific visions of drinking.
The fourth paper, by Jeff Vass, is called Restoring social creativity to
immoderate publics: the case of the financially incontinent citizen. The financially incontinent citizen is a recent phenomenon and is increasingly the focus of
policy-makers: international, national and local as well as the financial services
industry. Here it is argued that the manifestation of financial immoderation as
a problem descriptor for human behaviour was produced in the shift from social
democratic to neoliberal discourses in political economy as well as the success of
neoliberalism in aligning itself with public consensus. The new focus on individual incontinence, and the means required to rectify it, tends to merge other
forms of immoderation into a general problem of citizenship but also elides local
differences and misinterprets the social creativity people bring to novel life
circumstances. Sociological studies of economic behaviour have been far too
polarized between normative and social constructionist accounts to contest the
11
neoliberal interpretation of social creativity. Through consideration of recent

empirical studies of how people manage their associative lifecourses and the
financial issues embedded in them an alternative approach is proposed based on
the recent return to pragmatism.
The respective expertise of activists and social scientists has also come to face
increasing challenge, under pressure from the media and politics. Srila Roy
explores some of these challenges in the monographs fifth article, entitled
Feminist radicality and moderation in times of crises and change. Considering, in particular, different registers of moderation in contemporary discourses around feminism, in the context of postfeminism, neoliberalism and
faith, it explores what work moderation, together with (but not reducible to)
that of a moderate feminism, does in these distinct but not unrelated contexts.
Roy distinguishes between moderation as performance, process and practice
against various invocations of moderate feminism that serve to dismiss, co-opt,
diminish or even domesticate feminist practice (even as their mutually constitutive nature is acknowledged at times). She is, as a result, less interested in what
the politics of moderation has to offer feminism or what a moderate feminism
might look like than what the term signifies in various discursive and political
contexts. Why, on the one hand, has a supposedly domesticated feminism,
often thought of as synonymous to a moderate feminism, found more public
patronage via the media as opposed to a radical one? Why, on the other hand,
has this domestication been read as a sign of feminisms co-option and attendant
de-politicization in critiques of postfeminism and neoliberal development? And
finally, why are the virtues of a moderate feminism being exalted and, even more
problematically, legitimized in complicated local terrains of politicized faith and
secularism? For Roy, these different discursive incarnations and effects serve to
demonstrate the instability of the term moderation, particularly in relation to
how its rhetoric and politics serve to bridge some of the polarities that pervade
contemporary feminist thought and activism while, at times, reinforcing these.
In the sixth paper, Democracy begins at home: moderation and the promise
of salvage ethnography, Alex Smith ethnographically explores the activism of
the moderates engaged with grassroots Republican Party politics in Kansas,
a state that for the last two decades has been a primary battleground in
Americas so-called culture wars in which the value of moderation has been
the subject of strident contestation. Drawing inspiration from the writings of
the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey (1954), Smith probes the
testimony of his ethnographic subjects in an effort to identify those political
and social practices and principles that might be considered constitutive in the
making of a moderate politics. His project is to salvage a rudimentary activist
theory of moderation for those seeking to champion and defend contemporary
American democracy at a time when publics and their institutions have been
compromised by, or succumbed to, electoral polarization and political extremism. In so doing, Smith displaces the usual representation of moderation as a
default position defined by the absence of strong ideological or other convictions
in favour of an understanding of moderation as a disciplined engagement with
12

divided publics. According to his ethnographic subjects, political moderates

place value on maintaining diverse social, political and professional networks
as well as the importance of civility, dialogue, expertise and reason in public
discourse. Most importantly, moderates embrace democracy as a yet-to-befulfilled moral project, which serves to infuse the values described above with
normative power and purpose. How to render these values operational in a
divided politics remains a central question for the activists he interviewed,
although Smith concludes with an optimistic note regarding the potential and
the promise of moderate values to endure in twenty-first century America.
In her research on political and religious activism in relation to gay rights in
Northern Ireland, Jennifer Curtis describes practices and values that, on several
levels, resonate with Smiths argument. In the seventh paper, Pride and prejudice: gay rights and religious moderation in Belfast, she describes how in July
2008, Northern Irish politician Iris Robinson told the BBCs Nolan show, with
reference to homosexuality, that it is the governments responsibility to uphold
Gods law after telling Parliament in London there can be no viler act, apart
from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children
(United Kingdom Parliament, 2008: col. 19). In Northern Ireland, her remarks
galvanized self-consciously moderate and moderating responses from a broad
range of groups and individuals. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted
with Belfasts Pride Festival, Curtis analyses an emergent religious engagement
with LGBT rights, which she describes as a form of moderation in terms of its
social and political effects. Here, moderation is conceived not in spatial terms
as a position between opposed poles, but as a process of expanding and transforming both participation in, and the tenor of, political and religious debates.
Turning to Bakhtins (1981) concept of dialogism (rather than Dewey, as Smith
did), Curtis considers how these discussions of Christianity, sexuality and politics unfolded. A Bakhtinian approach to the production and reception of these
debates is proposed as a useful framework for considering how moderation is a
productive interactional practice situated discursively, socially and politically.
Rather than a fixed position, moderation is practised in relation to particular
conditions and histories, and has the potential to transform them.
Entitled The blogosphere and its enemies, Stephen Turner notes in the
eighth article that the blogosphere is loathed and feared by the press, expertopinion makers, and representatives of authority generally. Part of this is based
on a social theory: that there are implicit and explicit social controls governing
professional journalists and experts that make them responsible to the facts.
These controls do not exist for bloggers or the people who comment on blogs.
But blog commentary is good at performing a kind of sociology of knowledge
that situates speakers and motives, especially in cases of complex professional
and administrative decision-making, as well as providing specific factual
material that qualifies claims of experts and authorities. In many contexts, they
are examples of Habermasian challenges to provide justification. A major topic
in womens health, and on the blogs, is the effects of hysterectomy, especially
accompanied by oophorectomy, the removal of (normally healthy) ovaries.
13
Physicians make extreme claims on web pages about the lack of consequences,
or their manageability through hormone therapy, which they claim is supported
by research. Blog posters and a blog opposed to hysterectomy generally
claim that there are numerous damaging effects, and deconstruct the claims of
experts. They fill in the claims with personal experiences and analysis of the
conduct of physicians and nurses, as well as the motives of women who deny
symptoms. Physicians provide their own critique and analysis of the blogs, to
which they attribute great influence. A later meta-analysis and new longitudinal
research affirms the bloggers, and explains why much of the research cited by
experts is wrong. Turner provocatively argues that instead of a dictatorship of
idiots, blog discussion constitutes a large schoolhouse in which opinion is
tested, questioned and moderated.
The ninth paper is by John Holmwood. Entitled Rethinking moderation in
a pragmatist frame, it concludes the volume by drawing on some of the discussion and themes of earlier articles (eg Antonio, Smith, Vass) to consider how the
anti-foundational character of pragmatist thinking offers an alternative to other
conceptions of the public sphere and political participation. Taking inspiration
from Danielle Allens 2004 book, Talking to Strangers, Holmwood suggests that
pragmatism offers new ways of thinking about divided publics and the formation of public policy in the context both of multiculturalism and of a politics of
fiscal crisis, where the common good of fiscal rectitude will be achieved by the
sacrifice of some for the benefit of others. The term minority first entered the
political lexicon to describe the losing party in a vote, yet the idea is now
associated with specific groups whose claims may have difficulty in being met in
a political system weighted toward the interests of majorities. Holmwood asks:
how might the interests of majorities be moderated by the recognition of minorities and what kind of self-moderation might be required in the pursuit of a
political agenda?
The volume ends, however, with an epilogue by the Rt Revd Nick Baines on
The moderation of rhetoric. A keen blogger himself (cf. http://nickbaines
.wordpress.com/), the Rt Revd Baines is engaged with both broadcast and print
media while also committed to the challenges of interfaith dialogue in his role as
the Anglican Bishop of Bradford, one of Britains most ethnically diverse cities.
He is therefore uniquely placed to draw on his personal and professional experiences to reflect on the challenges new forms of social media confront activists,
media practitioners, religious leaders and social scientists. His article also seeks
to locate another genre of expertise that of religion within these wider
tensions. Acknowledging the central role language and rhetoric play in the
making and marking of social norms, boundaries and relations, the Rt Revd
Baines draws on recent controversies that have descended upon the Church of
England for example, on faith schools and the recognition of Sharia law. He
argues that forms of language themselves demand respect even reverence, one
might suggest if we are to succeed in the making of a public space that
enshrines and protects values of moderation: civility, dialogue, reflexivity and
tolerance for opposing viewpoints.
14

From the brief summaries provided above of the articles that make up this
volume, it should be clear that in our individual efforts to apprehend moderation and say something sensible about it, for contemporary publics as well as the
discipline of sociology, our authors have sometimes found agreement but have
just as often struck discordant notes in their respective assessments of its value
and relevance. As we have already highlighted, far from seeking to offer the final
word on moderation, our hope is that the articles collected here will provoke
debate and stimulate interest in sociologies of moderation. If as a result other
sociologists are persuaded that the time has come for a reappraisal of moderation as a set of political and social practices as well as ideas and normative
values we will have succeeded in our goal.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, we see our project as ecumenical and of interest to
colleagues in other disciplines. However, we do think it has a specific significance
for sociology. We believe that sociology has a special relationship to the idea of
the public as mediating the state and market. Moderation is about the relations
among publics and the possibilities of a deep pluralism that is respectful of
difference. Publics are under threat by markets with the further risk of authoritarian populism to any vacuum left behind. The future of sociology is tied to the
future of publics and the future for each, without revivified social and political
practices of moderation, may be bleak.
Notes
1 For further details of the events of the day and the reactions of political and religious leaders
including Muslims and non-Muslims calling for calm in the aftermath of Rigbys murder see
BBC News (2013a), Owen and Urquhart (2013), Rayner and Swinford (2013).
2 Of course, some politicians of the Left, such as the long-time, outspoken critic of British military
interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq George Galloway MP, blamed the foreign policies of
successive UK governments for the radicalization of young Muslims, including the two who
murdered Rigby. Hours after his death, Galloway tweeted, This sickening atrocity in London is
exactly what we are paying the same kind of people to do in Syria (see Fisher, 2013).
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