Taking it personal? Investigating regime personalization as an autocratic survival strategy

Personalist autocracy is on the rise globally. Dictators’ increasing tendency to concentrate power in their own hands has major implications for the political stability of autocracies. However, the exact nature of this impact is unclear. On the one hand, regime personalization has been linked to a reduction in the likelihood of coups. On the other hand, personalization has also been linked to an increase in the likelihood of civil war. This article reconciles these findings and argues that personalization involves a trade-off between different kinds of threats against a dictator. By increasing the degree of personalization, dictators reduce their vulnerability to insider challenges while at the same time increasing their vulnerability to outsider challenges. These expectations are corroborated by a time-series cross-sectional analysis of a global sample of autocratic regimes. The findings help shed light on recent instances of longstanding autocrats being overthrown during episodes of mass mobilization.

个人化独裁政权（personalist autocracy）在全球范围内呈日渐抬头之势。独裁者愈发倾向于将权力集中于一己之手，这对独裁政权的政治稳定具有重大影响，然而此种影响的确切性质仍不明晰。一方面，政权个人化与政变发生概率的降低存在关联；另一方面，个人化又与内战爆发概率的上升紧密相关。本文调和了这些看似矛盾的研究结论，并提出：个人化独裁模式要求独裁者在抵御不同类型威胁之间进行权衡取舍。通过提升个人化程度，独裁者可降低其面临内部挑战的脆弱性，与此同时却会加剧其遭遇外部挑战的风险。针对全球独裁政权样本的时间序列截面分析验证了上述理论预期。本研究结论有助于阐释近期长期执政的独裁者在大规模民众动员浪潮中被推翻的诸多案例。