The Syrian regime has handled the COVID-19 pandemic with a combination of opacity and repression. While the crisis has reasserted the centrality of the state and its institutions, their capacities are diminishing. To compensate for this shortfall in the areas under its control, and to manifest its authority, the regime has utilised its various clientelist networks. Through charitable institutions and networks of businessmen and Baath Party affiliates, resources are provided along partisan, sectarian, and tribal lines in an effort to consolidate the regime’s authority and control society.

As COVID-19 has deepened Syria’s socioeconomic crisis, Damascus’ attempts to dominate society - if only passively - have not quite succeeded. Criticism of the central authorities and their policies is being publicly expressed, even in areas under the regime’s control. While the regime owes much of its resilience to its foreign allies, various political and socioeconomic factors continue to challenge its attempts to create the conditions needed to stabilise its power.