Global patterns of regime change 1800–2015

ABSTRACT

The aim of the present study is to provide an answer to the question of whether certain authoritarian regimes are more stable than others. Whereas previous studies regarding autocratic regime stability have covered, at most, the period after the Second World War, the present study extends over the period 1800–2015. Results indicate that personalist and military regimes are the most fragile authoritarian regime types, whereas absolute monarchy is the most stable one. Single-party systems, too, are stable, but the stability of the single-party system is largely confined to the Cold War era. Regarding prospects for democratic transformations, results show that personalist, military and multi-party authoritarian regimes are more likely than other regime types to transform into a democratic regime. In a similar vein, findings indicate that when democracies experience a breakdown, the ensuing regime type is most likely a military or a personalist regime. Overall, patterns of regime transformations are strongly affected by the time period under study.

KEYWORDS:

• Political regimes
• authoritarian regimes
• regime transformations
• democratisation
• historical regimes

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Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Professor Thomas Denk and an anonymous referee for valuable help, comments and suggestions.

Notes

1 I am indebted to an anonymous referee for suggesting to split up the analyses in these time periods.

2 Since a number of authors consider personalism a feature which characterises all forms of authoritarian systems, I also ran regressions where the executive constraints index from the Polity IV dataset was included. However, the inclusion of this variable did not significantly alter the results and conclusions.

3 The hazard ratios for the regime categories for the whole time period are as follows: monarchy: 0.106***, personalism: 2.617***, military juntas: 24.418***, oligarchy: 0.969, hybrid forms: 2.360***. Note, however, that direct comparisons with figures in Table 1, regression 1, are somewhat difficult since the reference category (party rule) is broader in the REIGN-dataset.

4 The hazard ratios for level of democracy are still extremely high. In addition, the number of cases and events coded 1 drops when controls are added. There are, for instance, no events coded 1 for the regime category single-party systems.

5 Here, too, sensitivity tests with the REIGN-dataset show that when military regimes are defined narrowly, as military juntas, their tendency to democratise increases substantially. The hazard ratios for the regime categories for the whole time period are as follows: monarchy: 0.008***, personalism: 2.401**, military juntas: 37.995***, oligarchy: 0.196, hybrid forms: 2.239*.

6 The list of countries is based on Herb (2005) and encompasses Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Iran and Brunei.

7 In regression 1, the hazard ratios for the regime categories are 0.052***, 3.502**, 4.527***, 3.147**, 0.763 and 0.924. In regression 2, the corresponding values are 0.054**, 1.319, 3.092**, 3.160**, 0.394 and 1.283 and in regression 3, 0.069**, 1.313, 3.096**, 3.756**, 0.291* and 1.694.

8 In regression 1, the hazard ratios for the regime categories are 0.064***, 3.292***, 4.408***, 3.180**, 0.717 and 0.864. In regression 2, the corresponding values are 0.078**, 1.237, 3.124**, 3.174**, 0.369 and 1.206 and in regression 3, 0.114*, 1.163, 3.086**, 4.205***, 0.274* and 1.533.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland, Research Council for Culture and Society [260746].

Notes on contributors

Carsten Anckar

Carsten Anckar is professor of political science (comparative politics) at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. He is the author of Determinants of the Death Penalty (Routledge 2004 and Religion and Democracy: A worldwide comparison (Routledge 2011). He has published several articles in the field of comparative politics.