The Politics of Authoritarian Succession in Post-Soviet Personalised Autocracies

Leadership succession poses one of the most perennial problems in politics. Its disruptive potential is heightened in highly personalised autocracies, where political influence is concentrated under a single leader. The aim of the proposed research is to explore how different modalities of personalist authoritarian systems affect the choices of leadership succession strategies and how these choices affect regime stability. To answer these questions, the proposed research would draw upon evidence from a sample of countries from the post-Soviet region, where personalist autocracy has become a dominant regime type. The variation among selected post-Soviet dictatorships would be leveraged analytically to investigate possible links with specific succession strategies. Further, data on public opinion and elite behaviour would be used to capture the impact of succession strategies on regime stability. The recent wave of constitutional reforms in the region provides a unique opportunity for a comparative analysis of the processes of modifying the rules pertaining to leadership succession. The findings of this research would contribute to the burgeoning new literature on authoritarianism. The rising personalisation of politics and the growing importance of the post-Soviet region render the understanding of succession politics in highly personalised settings extremely relevant for scholars, businesses and policymakers.