Arab socialism is a political ideology based on the combination of pan-Arabism and socialism. Arab socialism is distinct from the much broader tradition of socialist thought in the Arab world, which predates Arab socialism by as much as fifty years. The term "Arab socialism" was coined by Michel Aflaq, the principal founder of Ba'athism and the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in Syria, in order to distinguish his version of socialist ideology from the international socialist movement.

Pan-Arabism is a pan-nationalist ideology that espouses the unification of all Arab people in a single nation-state, comprising the Arab countries of West Asia and North Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely connected to Arab nationalism, which asserts the view that the Arabs constitute a single nation. It originated in the late 19th century among the Arab regions of the Ottoman Empire, and its popularity reached its height during the 1950s and 1960s. Advocates of pan-Arabism have often espoused Arab socialist principles and strongly opposed Western political involvement in the Arab world. It also sought to empower Arab states against outside forces by forming alliances and, to a lesser extent, economic co-operation.