This chapter shows how the 2016 Cessation of Hostilities affected both military dynamics and local governance in Syrias southern Daraa governorate. Contrary to findings from the rebel governance field that tend to amplify the role armed actors play in the development of local governance structures, this chapter finds that there are a range of networked systems and actors involved in providing governance in southern Syria that were influenced in various ways by the 2016 ceasefire. While the armed groups in Daraa certainly played a large role in security provision, their influence was circumscribed by the region’s tribal leaders. Additionally, during the ceasefire, the Syrian regime reallocated its military resources away from the south, fighting between more moderate armed groups, extremist groups and specific targeting by the Syrian regime of local civic and rebel leaders increased; power dynamics between the four main local governance actors were recalibrated; and, this realignment shifted the ability of certain actors to provide humanitarian assistance, giving the people of Daraa a significant say in their own governance.

The introduction sets out the chronological and geographical frame as well as the main issues in the study of the ancient Greek economy. It is targeted at a readership with no prior knowledge of the ancient economy and emphasises the importance of understanding economic structures, economic change, and the causes for change. As research on the ancient economy is dependent on theoretical assumptions about the nature and causation of economic change, a special section of the Companion is devoted to the discussion of the most important theoretical approaches to the ancient Greek economy. Other sections treat key themes of the ancient Greek economy, such as taxation, money, markets and labour regimes, as well as network approaches that are currently at the centre of research on ancient economies. A chronologically narrow but geographically wide perspective is taken on the Greek economy, including the Hellenistic economies in Egypt and the Near East but excluding Greek economies in the western Mediterranean and those in the eastern Mediterranean that continued to be dominated by Greek language and culture and therefore still might be termed Greek under the Roman Empire.