PRIVATISATION IN SYRIA : <br /><br />STATE FARMS AND THE CASE OF THE EUPHRATES PROJECT.

International audienceBetween December 2000 and December 2001, the Syrian Ba'th party promulgated a series of political decisions (taqarir) that aimed at privatising the state farms in Syria. The main one, decision number 83 of 16 December 2000, put an end to 43 years of collectivist experiments in the field of land reform. The main region targeted by the decision 83 of 2000 was the Syrian North-East, the Jazîra, where the Euphrates Project, was implemented. According to decision 83, land was parcelled out in shares of 3 ha for irrigated land and 8 ha for non-irrigated land. It called for land to be distributed to, in order of priority, the former owners, th e farm workers, and employes of the General Administration of the Euphrates Basin (GADEB). The paper explores the legislative principles of this decision and its impact on agrarian structures and social hierarchies in the Syrian Jazîra. I analyse this process as a case of counter-revolution that markes the end of the socialist ba`thist ideology