ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Ba‘th’s structural penetration of the village, intimate involvement in agrarian affairs, and consequent incorporation of the peasantry into the regime. The Ba‘th regime rests on three overlapping structures of power—the party apparatus, the military-police establishment, and the ministerial bureaucracy. The role of the army in the political system has evolved considerably over the decades of Ba‘th rule. In the first years after the power seizure, the Ba‘thi “military committee” acted as a unified body to extend its control over the army and maintain its ascendancy in the regime. The party organization links the political elite to society through a four-layered pyramid erected on “democratic-centralist” lines. The basic level “units”, made up of several cells, are located in villages, factories, neighborhoods and public institutions. By 1977–1978, the party had reached at least 200,000 full and candidate members and by 1980 nearly 375,000, but this cadre was apparently of declining "quality".
