Syria’s Political Transition: Towards a New Personalist Politics?

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This report critically assesses the institution building that has taken place in post-Assad Syria over the past several months. Taking the ‘Constitutional Declaration’ of March 2025 as a benchmark, it suggests that the country’s new institutions, combined with rule by presidential decree, indicate the emergence of an increasingly centralized political system. Rather than signalling democratic openings, institutionalization is at the service of a centralized system where the (interim) president, and his close inner circle, reign supreme. Political contestation is near-absent, as the deferred initiation of political parties exemplifies. After cataloguing progress in the institutional domain, the paper moves to a crucial question: In the burgeoning personalist politics of the new Syria, has the country advanced beyond authoritarianism through “election fetishism” of the pre-2011 era? To conclude, the report considers avenues available to those eager for democratization or political pluralism.