ABSTRACT
Since foreign-educated persons spent considerable time abroad and gained extensive knowledge, experiences, and contacts across the globe their logics of action are very complex: Their 'transnationality' opens up new opportunities, not only for them but also for the persons and institutions they interact with. This chapter investigates how foreign-trained Syrians and their surroundings have been using these opportunities, failing to do so both before and during the Syrian uprising. In order to better classify their intermediate position and incentives for becoming politically active, this will be followed by a brief section drawing on literature by Robinson, Moon and Levitsky and Way. The chapter concentrates on three different perspectives on foreign-educated Syrians: how much they themselves capitalise on their transnationality and how much their transnationality has been sought after by Western partners and by the Syrian leadership. The Logics of Action approach is particularly suited to investigate these 'in-betweens' because it stresses the mutually constitutive interaction between agents and structure.
