Ba'athist Syria

Syrian Arab Republic
اَلْجُمْهُورِيَّةُ ٱلْعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْسُوْرِيَّة (Arabic)
al-Jumhūriyyah al-ʿArabiyyah as-Sūriyyah
1963–2024
Flag of Syria
Flag
(1980–2024)
Coat of arms
(1980–2024)
Motto: وَحْدَةٌ، حُرِّيَّةٌ، اِشْتِرَاكِيَّةٌ
Waḥda, Ḥurriyya, Ishtirākiyya
"Unity, Freedom, Socialism"
Anthem: حُمَاةَ الدَّيَّارِ
Ḥumāt ad-Diyār
"Guardians of the Homeland"

Syria proper shown in dark green; Syria's territorial claims over the most of Turkey's Hatay Province and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights shown in light green
Capital
and largest city
Damascus
33°30′N 36°18′E / 33.500°N 36.300°E / 33.500; 36.300
Official languagesArabic[1]
Ethnic groups 80–90% Arabs
9–10% Kurds
1–10% others
Religion
Demonym(s)Syrian
GovernmentUnitary neo-Ba'athist one-party[7] presidential republic[8]
President 
• 1963 (first)
Lu'ay al-Atassi
• 1963–1966
Amin al-Hafiz
• 1966–1970
Nureddin al-Atassi
• 1970–1971
Ahmad al-Khatib (acting)
• 1971–2000
Hafez al-Assad
• 2000
Abdul Halim Khaddam (acting)
• 2000–2024 (last)
Bashar al-Assad
Prime Minister 
• 1963 (first)
Khalid al-Azm
• 2024 (last)
Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali
Vice President 
• 1963–1964 (first)
Muhammad Umran
• 2006–2024 (last)
Najah al-Attar
• 2024 (last)
Faisal Mekdad
LegislaturePeople's Assembly
Historical era
8 March 1963
21–23 February 1966
5–10 June 1967
13–16 November 1970
6–25 October 1973
1 June 1976
1976–1982
2000–2001
30 April 2005
• Civil war began
15 March 2011
26 February 2012
8 December 2024
Area
• Total
185,180[12] km2 (71,500 sq mi) (87th)
• Water (%)
1.1
Population
• 2024 estimate
25,000,753[13]
• Density
118.3/km2 (306.4/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)2015 estimate
• Total
$50.28 billion[14]
• Per capita
$2,900[14]
GDP (nominal)2020 estimate
• Total
$11.08 billion[14]
• Per capita
$533
Gini (2022)26.6[15]
low inequality
HDI (2022)0.557[16]
medium
CurrencySyrian pound (SYP)
Time zoneUTC+3 (Arabia Standard Time)
Calling code+963
ISO 3166 codeSY
Internet TLD.sy
سوريا.
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Second Syrian Republic
Syria

Ba'athist Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR),[a] was the Syrian state between 1963 and 2024 under the one-party rule of the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. From 1971 until its collapse, it was ruled by the Assad family, and was therefore commonly referred to as the Assad regime.

The regime emerged in 1963 as a result of a coup d'état led by Alawite Ba'athist military officers. Another coup in 1966 led to Salah Jadid becoming the country's de facto leader while Nureddin al-Atassi assumed the presidency. In 1970, Jadid and al-Atassi were overthrown by Hafez al-Assad in the Corrective Movement. The next year, Assad became president after winning sham elections.

After assuming power, Assad reorganised the state along sectarian lines (Sunnis and other groups became figureheads of political institutions whilst Alawites took control of the military, intelligence, bureaucracy and security apparatuses). Ba'athist Syria also occupied much of neighboring Lebanon amidst the Lebanese civil war while an Islamist uprising against Assad's rule resulted in the regime committing the 1981 and 1982 Hama massacres. The regime was considered one of the most repressive regimes in modern times, ultimately reaching totalitarian levels,[17] and was consistently ranked as one of the 'worst of the worst' within Freedom House indexes.[18]

Hafez al-Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad, who maintained a similar grip. The assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005 triggered the Cedar Revolution, which ultimately led the regime to withdraw from Lebanon. Major protests against Ba'athist rule in 2011 during the Arab Spring led to the Syrian civil war between opposition forces, government, and in following years islamists such as ISIS which weakened the Assad regime's territorial control. However, the Ba'athist government maintained presence and a hold over large areas, also being able to regain further ground in later years with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. In December 2024, a series of surprise offensives by various rebel factions culminated in the regime's collapse.

After the fall of Ba'athist Iraq, Syria was the only country governed by neo-Ba'athists. It had a comprehensive cult of personality around the Assad family, and attracted widespread condemnation for its severe domestic repression and war crimes. Prior to the fall of Assad, Syria was ranked fourth-worst in the 2024 Fragile States Index, and it was one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Freedom of the press was extremely limited, and the country was ranked second-worst in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index. It was the most corrupt country in the MENA region and was ranked the second-worst globally on the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. Syria had also become the epicentre of an Assad-sponsored Captagon industry, exporting billions of dollars worth of the illicit drug annually, making it one of the largest narco-states in the world.

  1. ^ "Constitution of the Syrian Arab Republic – 2012" (PDF). International Labour Organization. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 November 2016. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  2. ^ a b "Syria: People and society". The World Factbook. CIA. 10 May 2022. Archived from the original on 3 February 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  3. ^ "Syria (10/03)". U.S. Department of State. Archived from the original on 22 November 2024. Retrieved 8 December 2024.
  4. ^ "Syria's Religious, Ethnic Groups". 20 December 2012. Archived from the original on 8 December 2024. Retrieved 8 December 2024.
  5. ^ Khalifa, Mustafa (2013), "The impossible partition of Syria", Arab Reform Initiative: 3–5, archived from the original on 9 October 2016, retrieved 12 March 2025
  6. ^ Shoup, John A. (2018), The History of Syria, ABC-CLIO, p. 6, ISBN 978-1440858352, Syria has several other ethnic groups, the Kurds... they make up an estimated 9 percent...Turkomen comprise around 4–5 percent of the total population. The rest of the ethnic mix of Syria is made of Assyrians (about 4 percent), Armenians (about 2 percent), and Circassians (about 1 percent).
  7. ^ Sources:
    • Shively, W. Phillips; Schultz, David (2022). "7: Democracies and Authoritarian System". Power and Choice: An Introduction to Political Science. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 188. ISBN 9781538151860.
    • Derbyshire, J. Denis; Derbyshire, Ian (2016). "Syria". Encyclopedia of World Political Systems. New York, NY: Routledge. p. 610. ISBN 978-0-7656-8025-9.
    • Mira, Rachid (2025). Political Economy in the Middle East and North Africa. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 273, 274. ISBN 978-1-032-21214-2.
    • Jones, Jeremy (2007). "4. Syria and Lebanon: Party Problems". Negotiating Change: The New Politics of the Middle East. New York, NY: I.B. Tauris. pp. 96–102. ISBN 978-1-84511-269-1.
    • Roberts Clark, Golder, Nadenichek Golder, William, Matt, Sona, ed. (2013). "14. Social Cleavages and Party Systems". Principles of Comparative Politics (2nd ed.). US: Sage Publishing. p. 611. ISBN 978-1-60871-679-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  8. ^
  9. ^ Sources:
  10. ^ Sources:
    • Thompson, Elizabeth (2013). Justice Interrupted. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 209, 227. ISBN 978-0-674-07313-5.
    • F. Nyrop, Richard, ed. (1979). Syria: A Country Study (3rd ed.). Washington, D.C.: The American University. pp. 34–37. LCCN 79607771.
    • Galvani, John (February 1974). "Syria and the Baath Party". MERIP Reports (25): 6–9. doi:10.2307/3011567. JSTOR 3011567. Archived from the original on 4 November 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
    • Ben-Tzur, Avraham (1968). "The Neo-Ba'th Party of Syria". Journal of Contemporary History. 3 (3): 164–166, 172–181. doi:10.1177/002200946800300310. S2CID 159345006. It was some years before the all-Arab leadership was forced to reveal the bitter truth that the structure of the new Ba'th Party in Syria had been 'artificial' from the outset, and that since its rise to power in 1963 it had been based on 'elements that served the purpose of the governmental centres represented by the Military Committee. ... The Marxist left was quick to exploit the opportunities offered in the first few months of Ba'th rule... to engineer the elections to the regional conference (the first since the party's rise to power) to their own ends. The conference, held in September 1963,... set out the new party platform, which was to become the credo of the neo-Ba'th. ... In short, the Ba'th in its latest variant is a bureaucratic apparatus headed by the military, whose daily life and routine are shaped by rigid military oppression on the home front, and military aid from abroad.
  11. ^
    • Khamis, B. Gold, Vaughn, Sahar, Paul, Katherine (2013). "22. Propaganda in Egypt and Syria's 'Cyberwars': Contexts, Actors, Tools, and Tactics". In Auerbach, Castronovo, Jonathan, Russ (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 422. ISBN 978-0-19-976441-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
    • Wieland, Carsten (2018). "6: De-neutralizing Aid: All Roads Lead to Damascus". Syria and the Neutrality Trap: The Dilemmas of Delivering Humanitarian Aid Through Violent Regimes. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-7556-4138-3.
    • Ahmed, Saladdin (2019). Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Aura. Albany, NY: Suny Press. pp. 144, 149. ISBN 9781438472911.
    • Hensman, Rohini (2018). "7: The Syrian Uprising". Indefensible: Democracy, Counterrevolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. ISBN 978-1-60846-912-3.
  12. ^ "Syrian ministry of foreign affairs". Archived from the original on 11 May 2012.
  13. ^ "Syria Population". World of Meters.info. Archived from the original on 21 December 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  14. ^ a b c "Syria". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on 3 February 2021. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  15. ^ "World Bank GINI index". World Bank. Archived from the original on 9 February 2015. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  16. ^ "Human Development Report 2023–24" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme. United Nations Development Programme. 13 March 2024. pp. 274–277. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 May 2024. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference tots was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ "Worst of the Worst 2011" (PDF). Freedom House. 2011. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 February 2025. Retrieved 2 February 2025.


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