Violent Origins and Authoritarian Order: Divergent Trajectories after Successful Rebellions

Existing research demonstrates that many authoritarian regimes originating in violent rebellion are exceptionally durable. By contrast, conflict scholarship emphasizes the difficulty of reestablishing order after civil war. Using original data on every regime founded by successful rebellion worldwide from 1900–2020, we demonstrate that rebel regimes follow divergent trajectories: the vast majority are either long-lived (20+ years) or short-lived (less than 5 years). The structure of the founding rebellion explains these divergent trajectories by shaping power- sharing dynamics in the new regime and the nature of conflict recurrence. Regimes founded by unified rebellions (single rebel group) become highly durable autocracies because members credibly share power within the same rebel group. By contrast, regimes founded by fractured rebellions (multiple rebel groups) are usually short-lived. Leaders must attempt to share power across armed rivals, many of whom defect and stage subsequent rebellions. Other rebellion characteristics, like social revolution and leftist ideology, cannot explain these differences.