Contentious Collective Action and the Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

Prior research indicates that different types of authoritarian regimes break down in different ways because key cadres in those regimes have different interests and face different strategic environments. Building on that theoretical foundation, I use event history models to examine the effects of contentious collective action on the likelihood of authoritarian breakdown. This analysis shows that some kinds of autocracy are more vulnerable to breakdown in the wake of contentious events than others, and that the strength and direction of this effect varies not only across types of authoritarianism, but across forms of collective action as well.