ABSTRACT

This chapter finalizes the model by conceptually linking personalist regimes behavior and impact on the states they rule, with a systemic analysis, representing a vicious circle that shows how such regimes weaken their states to stay in power and at the same time sow the seeds of their own destruction, which eventually leads to regime breakdown and a high likelihood of a new personalist regime taking its place. This vicious circle is described by borrowing C. Call’s analytical framework of legitimacy, capacity and security gaps to overcome the shortcomings of the failed state framework. This part concludes by listing eight hypotheses (to be tested in the next chapters) that capture the main causal dynamics of the model of personalist regime behavior and of the described vicious circles. The chapter ends with a note on methodology, explaining the choice of case studies selected for in-depth presentation, the choice for Sub Saharan Africa as a testing ground, and the interpretation of the five systemic elements of the model that are to be tested besides the hypotheses: relational, functional, dysfunctional, organizational and normative aspects.