This article examines the reconfiguration of power in post-Assad Syria through the lens of neo-patrimonialism. It asks whether the policies, appointments, and institutional reforms adopted by the new leadership mark a substantive departure from personalist and clientelist rule, or a recalibration of authoritarian governance within a new ideological and organizational framework. Drawing on a theory-guided qualitative analysis of presidential decrees, official discourse, elite appointments, and institutional restructuring between December 2024 and March 2026, it argues that the emerging order combines bureaucratic expansion with personalized control. While new institutions project legality, reform, and technocratic governance, effective authority remains concentrated in presidency-linked bodies, trusted intermediaries, familial networks, and former HTS/Idlib elites. Strategic moderation and institutional reform thus function less as evidence of democratization than as mechanisms for adapting, legitimizing, and consolidating neo-patrimonial authority. Although this configuration may provide short-term cohesion and administrative flexibility, it risks constraining institutional autonomy, meritocratic governance, and durable political inclusion.
