How dictatorships work: power, personalization, and collapse

Introduction : Implementing our definition of regime ; The groups that initiate dictatorships ; Conflict and bargaining within the seizure group ; Appendix: Coding rules for authoritarian regimes

Part I. Initiation : Autocratic seizures of power : Who do dictatorial seizure groups oust? ; How dictatorships begin ; Before the seizure of power ; The morning after a seizure of power ; Post-seizure organization

What do we know about coups? : Coups for various purposes ; Preconditions associated with regime-change coups ; Inequality and coups

Part II. Elite consolidation : Power concentration: the effect of elite factionalism on personalization : Elite bargaining in dictatorships ; Handing power to a leader ; Bargaining over the distribution of resources and power ; Characteristics that influence the credibility of threats to oust the dictator ; Measuring personalism ; Patterns of Personalism ; The effect of factionalism on the personalization of power

Dictatorial survival strategies in challenging conditions: factionalized armed supporters and party creation ; The strategic context ; The interaction of dispersed arms and factionalism ; The strategic creation of new political actors ; Evidence that post-seizure party creation aims to counterbalance factionalized armed supporters ; Post-seizure party creation and dictatorial survival ; The effect of post-seizure party creation on the likelihood of coups

Part III. Ruling society: implementation and information gathering : Why parties and elections in dictatorships? : implementation, monitoring, and information gathering ; Elite competition and institutions that engage citizens ; Parties ; Dictatorial legislatures ; Elections

Double-edged swords: specialized institutions for monitoring and coercion : Internal security agencies ; The army: bulwark of the regime or incubator of plots? ; The relationship between counterbalancing and interference

Part IV. Dictatorial survival and breakdown : Why dictatorships fall : How dictatorships end ; Individual support and opposition ; The effect of crisis on decisions to oppose the dictatorship ; Economic crisis and breakdown ; Power concentration and regime survival ; Leadership changes and regime breakdown ; The dictator's future and the likelihood of democratization ; The effect of personalization on prospects for democracy

Conclusion and policy implications.