"For Almost Forty Years Syria has been ruled by a populist authoritarian regime under the Ba'th Party, led since 1970 by President Hafiz al-Asad."--BOOK JACKET.

"Drawing on evidence from Syrian, American, and British archives as well as from published French and Arabic sources, Steven Heydemann explains the capacity of the Ba'th to overcome the obstacles that typically undermine the consolidation of radical populist regimes.

He links the Ba'th's adoption of a radical populist strategy of state-building, and its capacity to implement this strategy, to the dynamics of social conflict, state expansion, and structural change in the political economy of postindependence Syria. Arguing that conventional accounts of Syrian politics neglect the centrality of institutions and institutional change, Heydemann shows how shifts in the pattern of state intervention after 1946 transformed Syria's political arena.

State expansion caused the reorganization of social conflict, promoting intense polarization between radicals and conservatives, high levels of popular mobilization, and a shift in the preferences of the Ba'th from an accommodationist to a radically populist strategy for consolidating its system of rule."--BOOK JACKET.