De acuerdo a un estudio de Milan Svolik (AJPS 2009), entre 1945 y 2002, 316 líderes autoritarios perdieron el poder por vías no constitucionales, es decir, no perdieron el poder por muerte natural ni mediante un proceso constitucional tal como una elección o una sucesión hereditaria. Alrededor de dos tercios de estas “salidas no constitucionales”  ocurrieron tras un golpe de estado, y sólo entre 10 y 12 por ciento “transitaron a la democracia”. Una proporción similar, entre 10.5 y 12.6%, terminó mediante un “levantamiento popular”. La muestra incluye líderes que estuvieron en el poder al menos un día o bien al menos un año. Este artículo discute otros estudios relacionados: The Political Economy of the End of Tyranny

Fuente: Milan W. Svolik “Power Sharing and Leadership Dynamics in Authoritarian Regimes.” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 53, No. 2, April 2009, Pp. 477–494.

ABSTRACT: I examine a fundamental problem of politics in authoritarian regimes: the dictator and the ruling coalition must sharepower and govern in an environment where political influence must be backed by a credible threat of violence. I develop a model of authoritarian politics in which power sharing is complicated by this conflict of interest: by exploiting his position, the dictator may acquire more power at the expense of the ruling coalition, which may attempt to deter such opportunism by threatening to stage a coup. Two power-sharing regimes, contested and established dictatorships, may emerge as a result of strategic behavior by the dictator and the ruling coalition. This theory accounts for the large variation in the duration of dictators’ tenures and the concentration of power in dictatorships over time, and it contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of power sharing and accountability in authoritarian regimes.