Atlas / Organisations / Ba'athism
Ba'athism
Arab Socialism · 1947– · Syria, Iraq · Nationalist / Socialist · Electoral party · coding confidence medium
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
Unity, freedom and socialism for a single Arab nation, achieved by a vanguard party holding the state.
Economic model
Nationalised oil, banks and heavy industry; land reform; a large state sector with a patronage bourgeoisie.
Organisation of powers
Single-party rule, military-security dominance, personalist leadership, no lawful opposition.
Reading note
Socialist economics fused with ethnic nationalism and monist authority — a combination the left–right line renders unreadable.
Check a claim about Ba'athism. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored −06
Coded −6: nationalised oil, banking and heavy industry.
- Documented act or statuteIraqi oil was nationalised in 1972; Syrian banking and industry from 1963.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored +04
Coded +4: secular in doctrine and socially conservative in practice.
- Documented act or statutePersonal status law remained under religious jurisdiction in both states throughout.
AU · Organisation of power · scored +09
Coded +9: single-party rule constitutionally entrenched.
- Documented act or statuteArticle 8 of the Syrian constitution named the party leader of state and society until 2012.
SC · Scale of decision · scored +09
Coded +9: a unitary state with pan-Arab union as the stated goal.
- Documented act or statuteThe 1958 union of Syria and Egypt lasted three years before Syrian secession.
ID · Rule of membership · scored +07
Coded +7: Arab nationalism with violent exclusion of Kurds and others.
- Documented act or statuteThe Anfal campaign of 1988 killed tens of thousands of Kurds including by chemical weapons at Halabja.
CH · Method and tempo · scored +06
Coded +6: power taken by coup in both states.
- Documented act or statuteThe party took power by military coup in Syria in 1963 and in Iraq in 1968.
Where it came from, and what came after
- becameAssadist Syria
The party seized power in 1963 and was converted into a family regime after 1970.
- was succeeded byNasserism
Two rival Arab nationalisms that briefly merged their states and then separated.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
Countries
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Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.