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Syria under Asad, 1970–78: The Centres of Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

A. I. Dawisha
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Extract

NO OTHER MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRY COULD MATCH THE TURBULENT post-independence history that Syria has experienced. Gaining its independence from France in April 1946, Syria moved uncertainly through the bewildering web of inter-Arab politics until the first military coup in March 1949 propelled it towards the long period of instability that was to follow. Indeed, the coup of November 1970, popularly known as the ‘Corrective Movement’, which installed the Asad regime in power constituted the twenty-first change of government in the twenty-four years of the country's independence. This persistent political turmoil, particularly during the fifties and sixties, contrasts sharply with the stability that Syria enjoyed in the first eight years of this decade.

Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1978 , pp. 341 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1978

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References

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21 The importance of the party in the decision-making process was repeatedly stressed in a number of interviews conducted in Damascus, including one with the Minister of Information, Ahmed Iskander Ahmed, on 13 January 1978 and with the President’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs, Dr Adib al-Dawoodi, on 12 January 1978.

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