Book review: Power and policy in Syria: intelligence services, foreign relations and democracy in the modern Middle East

"Power and Policy in Syria: Intelligence Services, Foreign Relations and Democracy in the Modern Middle East." Radwan Ziadeh. I.B. Tauris. November 2012. --- Syria’s 1970 bloodless coup by General Hafez al-Assad put in place a powerful autocratic machinery at the core of the state which continues under the control of his son Bashar. Power and Policy in Syria presents an analysis of Syria’s political structure: a ‘despotic’ state monopoly, a bureaucratic climate marked by fear, and an administrative structure through which centralized control is exercised. Andreas Aagaard Nøhr finds that this book’s value lies in the bold boundaries it attempts to push rather than its ultimate conclusion.