Chapter 6 Why Authoritarian Parties? The Regime Party as an ...

Frequency
0 50 100 150 200
0 20 40 60
Duration in years
Figure 6.1: T he duration of authoritarian ruling coalitions, 1946-2008.
CHAPTER 6
unaffiliated with the previous authoritarian leader, if he did not openly or unambiguously
state support or opposition to the preceding government. As Table 6.2 indicates, these two
categories account for approximately 12% and 20% of all authoritarian leaders, respectively.
Finally, I separately record leaders who came into office at a time when their country gained
independence. This category is coded separately because the nature of political conflicts and
alliances during independence struggles is very different from those within sovereign polities.
These leaders make up about 8% of all leaders and are a mix of independence fighters who
opposed the previous (typically) colonial government and those who served in the previous
colonial administration or legislature.
The information in Table 6.2 allows us to measure the duration of distinct authoritarian
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