Member State of the Arab League During the final decade of Ba'ath party rule, the politics of Syria took place in the framework of a presidential republic[1][2] with nominal multi-party representation in People's Council under the Ba'athist-dominated National Progressive Front.

In practice, Ba'athist Syria remained a one-party state where independent parties were outlawed, with a powerful secret police that cracked down on dissidents.

[3][4] From the 1963 seizure of power by its neo-Ba'athist Military Committee to the fall of the Assad regime, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party governed Syria as a totalitarian police state.

[a] After a period of intra-party strife, Hafez al-Assad gained control of the party following the 1970 coup d'état and his family dominated the country's politics.

Superficial reforms in 2011 made presidential decrees subject to approval by the People's Council, the country's legislature, which was itself dominated to parties loyal to the president.

Human-rights activists and other civil-society advocates, as well as some parliamentarians, became more outspoken during a period referred to as the "Damascus Spring" (July 2000-February 2001), which was crushed by the Ba'athist government under the pretext of "national unity and stability".

[16] Hafez al-Assad built his government around three pillars, core of which is the Ba'ath party and its affiliated organizations which holds extensive influence over the society through its monopoly over the media and civil activism.

The party is both socialist, advocating state ownership of the means of industrial production and the redistribution of agricultural land (in practice, Syria's nominally socialist economy is effectively a mixed economy, composed of large state enterprises and private small businesses), and revolutionary, dedicated to carrying a pan-Arab revolution to every part of the Arab world.

The president, approved by referendum for a 7-year term, was also Secretary General of the Ba'ath Party and leader of the National Progressive Front.

The National Progressive Front also acts as a forum in which economic policies are debated and the country's political orientation is determined.

[22][23] Syrian security apparatus and the dreaded secret police are instrumentalized by the regime to instill terror among ordinary citizens to prevent critique of the President or organize demonstrations.