Regime Cycles

Democracy, Autocracy, and Revolution in Post-Soviet Eurasia

Bibliographic Data

ID8042864
AuthorsHenry E Hale (0000-0002-2956-8033, George Washington University, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume58
Issue1
Pages133-165
Publication date2005-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueWorld Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-8871 • E-ISSN: 1086-3338
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/wp.2006.0019
OpenAlexW2051395383
LanguageEN
Citations received159
References cited55

Research on regime change has often wound up chasing events in the post-Soviet world because it has frequently assumed that regime change, if not simple instability, implies a trajectory toward a regime-type endpoint like democracy or autocracy. A supplemental approach recognizes that regime change can be cyclic, not just progressive, regressive, or random. In fact, regime cycles are much of what we see in the postcommunist world, where some states have oscillated from autocracy toward greater democracy, then back toward more autocracy, and, with recent “colored revolutions,” toward greater democracy again. An institutional logic of elite collective action, focusing on the effects of patronalpresidentialism, is shown to be useful in understanding such cyclic dynamics, explaining why “revolutions” occurred between 2003 and 2005 in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan but not in countries like Russia, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan

Autocracy · Democracy · Development economics · Economic system · Economics · Elite · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Regime change · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Russia and Soviet political economy · Soviet and Russian History

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