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Reinterpreting Authoritarian Power: Syria's Hereditary Succession
- The Middle East Journal
- Middle East Institute
- Volume 65, Number 2, Spring 2011
- pp. 197-212
- Article
- Additional Information
When Hafiz al-Asad died in 2000, his son Bashar became Syria's president. By examining an unresolved inconsistency in the leading accounts about Syria's succession, this article reveals the limitations of single-person rule analysis as the causal explanation for Syria's hereditary leadership selection. I provide an alternative explanation by emphasizing the role of senior elites in forming regime consensus around Bashar al-Asad's candidacy. Hereditary successions, therefore, reveal an instance of authoritarian continuity rather than one likely to end in regime breakdown.