Online published on 19 July, 2016.
This paper contends that the Syrian Ba'ath Party's authoritarian bargain introduced by the late Hafez al-Assad soon after he assumed the presidency in 1971, expired a few years prior to the eruptions of 2011. It demonstrates this termination by examining Syria's political and social situation as well as the inability of the government to maintain a balance between regime security and the provision of welfare to the public. Despite a decline of welfare benefits, there was no reduction in the application of extreme coercion. Matters worsened with the alliance between the regime and the new urban business class that alienated the countryside, which previously had provided the bulwark against the threat of urban forces of change.
