STÉPHANE VALTER, La construction nationale syrienne. Légitimation de la nature communautaire du pouvoir par le discours historique (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2002). Pp. 400. €32.00 paper.

Extract

Stéphane Valter's book raises a legitimate question: how did the Baעthist regime of Syria (since 1963), and especially Hafiz al-Asad (from 1970 to 2000) succeed in remaining so long in power? Crude brutality, as documented by Middle East Watch (Syria Unmasked: The Suppression of Human Rights by the Asad Regime [1991]), was not enough. Neither were the threats and expectations of external wars, as Fred Lawson argues in Why Syria Goes to War (1996). Coercion had to be blended with some sort of legitimacy to explain the durability of a regime that could not be labeled totalitarian.