Non-Democratic Rule and Regime Stability:Taking a Holistic Approach

Civil Society in West Asia Working Paper Series: Working Paper 13

Tags: Civil Society in West Asia

Looking at historical facts, it becomes clear that non-democratic government has been the norm for most of human history. Nevertheless, much of the existing (western-oriented) literature focuses on ideals of democracy and on democratization-issues. Besides being the historical dominant political system, there are more reasons to study non-democratic regimes. It highlights the moral ambiguities and contrasts involved in government and politics, it illustrates differences of the structural behavior of different types of non-democratic rule and it offers a comparative perspective on democracy. Working Paper 13 analyzes non-democratic regimes and introduces a general model, in which (de)stabilizing factors/influences on non-democratic regimes are combined. This model can be used as a toolbox in order to analyze non-democratic regime stability in specific cases.