ABSTRACT
The power arrangement of Syria’s political settlement under Hafez al-Assad (1970–2000) was hierarchical and its distribution arrangement was a case of centralized grand corruption with elements of development-of-clientelism. Under Bashar al-Assad (2000–2010), the power arrangement shifted to a set of hierarchical networks. The distribution arrangement remained centered on a logic of centralized grand corruption but growing decentralized corruption replaced development-of-clientelism elements. These shifts were primarily the result of an extensive program of privatization and liberalization that started in the early 1990s yet took flight under Bashar al-Assad. This enabled Syria’s ruling elite faction – mostly Alawite military and intelligence chiefs, senior partymen and bureaucrats around Assad – to seize control of a privatized economy in which profit and rents depended on political connections but also weakened their support base. Nevertheless, elite options to create more autonomous coercive capabilities only increased after 2011 when manpower shortages in the army forced the regime to create militias to defeat the rebellion. Combined with foreign military interventions, this fragmented the security sector, although the regime retained strategic control through its ability to act as intervenor of last resort at the national level. Parallel shifts in the business networks and productive structures of Syria’s economy further weakened the regime’s support base even though it managed to get by.
