Current academic literature falsely assumes that an authoritarian regime can solely transition into a democracy, other type of autocracy or a similar autocracy. This paper shows that there can be a...Show moreCurrent academic literature falsely assumes that an authoritarian regime can solely transition into a democracy, other type of autocracy or a similar autocracy. This paper shows that there can be a fourth alternative: state failure. This paper conceptualises state failure in Westphalian terms, namely when there is an absence of internal and external sovereignty and the state apparatus fails to provide essential services. The paper hence focuses on possible explanations of state failure in autocratic regimes. Specifically, the paper focuses on personalism as a predictor for state failure, which must be understood as the degree to which an autocratic leader forms the regime to their personal demands. The argument of this paper, consequently, follows that personalism is detrimental to the state’s institutions, as these institutions are formed to solely function under the regime’s current leader. Additionally, the paper theorised that this effect would be stronger in regimes where regime change was imposed, as these regimes would be especially ill prepared for the sudden change in regime. Through a binomial logistic regression, this paper has found evidence that higher personalism indeed does lead to a higher probability of state failure, but has found no evidence to support the second claim, as the size of the effect of personalism on state failure seems to decrease when only analysing those regimes which experienced imposed regime change.Show less
