Succession in Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the politics of succession in authoritarian regimes. Historically, succession wars regularly rattled monarchies, where power was gathered in the hands of one person, and many authoritarian regimes today are also destabilized during moments of leadership succession. This is due to the perennial problem of authoritarian succession. First, the chapter discusses why the transfer of power is so problematic in an authoritarian context and highlights the trade-offs autocrats face when trying to address the problem. Second, it addresses how authoritarian regimes have tried to balance these trade-offs throughout history and shows how these regimes can be categorized according to their mode of succession. Third, it considers how leadership successions and succession arrangements affect political stability, including coups and civil war. One area where democracies outshine their authoritarian counterparts is thus in their generally peaceful management of succession to high office over extended periods of time. The chapter ends by identifying promising venues for future research on authoritarian succession.