This paper analyzes the effect of political and economic factors on the risk of regime change in countries between 1975 and 2010, using survival analysis with time-dependent covariates. The findings show that negative economic growth increases the risk of regime change in the following year, and that a higher level of GDP per Capita, as well as international trade, has an inhibiting effect on the risk of regime change in democracies. The results also show that countries with young regimes are more likely to experience a regime change, and that countries with a long tradition of democratic governance suffer virtually no risk of experiencing a regime failure. These findings lend heavy support to the democratic consolidation theory, while giving mixed support to other theories of economic and political causes of regime change. The more generalized approach to regime change used in this paper provides a stepping stone for opening up a greater understanding of the mechanisms which cause regime change in all types of governments, and regardless of the direction of the change in relation to democracy.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2006. / "April 19, 2006"--T.p. Includes bibliographical references.

The role of religion in shaping geopolitics and its associated norms is often overlooked by international relations scholars. This influence can be examined through the lives of transnational religious leaders (TRLs), particularly those who contribute to new definitions of state sovereignty through their involvement in regime change. Two seemingly incomparable figures center in this paper's case studies- Pope John Paul II and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. Pope John Paul, through the roles of pastor to a transnational community and head of an international organization, lent international legitimacy to the Solidarity movement, which contributed to the fall of Communism in Poland. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam authored the theological concept of "defensive jihad", led the transnational Afghan Arabs in armed resistance against Soviet invasion in Afghanistan during the Soviet Afghan war, and contributed to the creation of a global jihadist movement. Traditionally, Westphalian sovereignty claims that the territorial state holds ultimate authority over the affairs within its borders and that it is the primary actor in the international system. This dissertation examines how the characteristics of a TRL and the characteristics of the associated transnational social movement (TSM) qualify regime change as an indicator of challenges to conceptions of Westphalian sovereignty and modern state sovereignty. Characteristics of TRL include leadership style, hard versus soft power, relationship to secularization, and relationship to modernity. Characteristics of TSM include political theology, mobilizing structures, political opportunity structures, and nature of transnational activism. In both case studies, a transnational leader used soft power, based in a transnational religious identity and civil society, to contribute to a transnational social movement that helped alter the domestic authority structures in Poland and Afghanistan. As individual actors determining the actions of nation states, these TRLs ultimately challenged state sovereignty. Pope John Paul II's theological worldview was compatible with the Westphalian system, and he contributed to the birth of a stable, democratic Poland with sovereign authority within internationally respected borders. Azzam, however, envisioned an alternate world order based on religiously defined, pre-Westphalian boundaries. His theological and pragmatic contributions to the Afghan Arabs and the modern day jihadist movement further challenged the Westphalian system. / 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

This thesis is devoted to the issue of non-violent resistance. It focuses on identifying factors that affect the success of non-violent campaigns. The paper presents and compares different types of resistance in achieving strategic objectives, particularly in terms of post-conflict democratic order of the country. The central premise of this thesis is that nonviolent campaigns bring a more fertile ground for developing a democratic regime opposed to their violent counterparts. The analyzed object in this paper is the Arab Spring in Egypt, specifically the course and the outcome of this non-violent revolution of 2011. The aim of this study is to identify the factors that influenced the course of the uprising and which ultimately led to the backfiring of this seemingly successful non-violent struggle in Egypt.

Multilateral interventions for regime change are not new, but their mutation has been congruent with an aggressive attempt to introduce liberal values into peacekeeping and related operations discernible from the 1990s. While recognizing non-coercive, needs-based elements of interventions for peace, this article contends that regime change wars have harmonized with the UN's facilitation of aggressive peace missions and coercive peacebuilding. In the 1990s the perceived failures of, and demands on, the UN, led to a general policy of permissiveness for Western states to pursue regime change, accompanied by reconstruction and development opportunities to promote neoliberal ideas of political economy in war-torn societies. This article focuses on two aspects of international operations fostered through or by the UN: the militarization of peace missions and peacebuilding through neoliberal political economy. It commends further research into the networks of power and resistance that have populated aggressive peace.

This dissertation consists of three essays that adopt both theoretical and empirical methods of analysis to study certain economies in which the incomplete information and the strategic complementarities between players are important. Chapter 1 explains the topics discussed in the subsequent chapters and gives a brief survey on the literature. In Chapter 2, I revise a traditional global game model by dividing the continuum of players into a group of speculators and a group of stakeholders. It is found that the uniqueness property remains in the new game. Then I extend the static game to a two-stage game and investigate the efficacies of certain label changing mechanisms proposed by the authority to stabilize the regime in the dynamic context. It is shown that a label changing mechanism allowing for downward social mobility may not work, whereas a label changing mechanism allowing for upward social mobility generally makes the regime more stable. In Chapter 3, I add a speculator and an authority to a bank-run model to investigate how the speculator endangers a business or an economy, and what the authority can do about it. In particular, I show that the speculator can increase the financial system's vulnerability by serving as a coordinating device for the investors and thus triggering the crisis. It is further shown that deterring the speculator may not undo the speculator's impact because of multiplicity problem; rewarding holding investors is useless; and eliminating the preemption motives among investors works given enough effort. A discussion of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the IMF's role in it is also included. Chapter 4 develops a repeated beauty-contest game to investigate the effect of previous winners' actions on the spread of subsequent players' actions. I first characterize the unique equilibrium of the game. Then I focus on the equilibrium dynamics of several variances depicting different forms of action variability. It is found that whether or not a specific variance diminishes over time depends on the relative precision of public and private signals. To illustrate the theoretical results, I conduct an empirical study on the Miss Korea contest. It is found that the contestants' faces have been converging to the ``true beauty'' overall, but diverging from each other over the last 20 years. Chapter 5 concludes. / Ph. D.

Der Sammelband behandelt ausgewählte Aspekte des Zusammenwachsens von Ost- und Westdeutschland 25 Jahre nach der Wiedervereinigung: Dominieren Gemeinsamkeiten oder Unterschiede das Verhältnis beider Landesteile zueinander? Neben Gesamtbilanzen zur Demokratieentwicklung und zur politischen Kultur stehen Politikfeldanalysen wie die Sozial-, Bildung- und Zuwanderungspolitik im Mittelpunkt. / The book analyzes selected aspects of the reunification of East and West Germany after 25 years: Dominate similarities or differences the relationship between the two parts of the country to each other? The volume focuses on overviews about the development of democracy and political culture as well as on social, education- and immigration policy.

Previous research has found that nonviolent campaigns are conducive for democratization, but variation in democratic outcomes still remains a puzzle. I address this research gap by analyzing whether democracy assistance that promotes political participation, civic political culture, and enabling environment for civil society before and during nonviolent campaigns can help explain why some countries democratize after regime changes initiated by nonviolent campaigns while other countries do not. I argue that sustained democracy assistance help maintain mass mobilization and build democratic institutions after the old regime has been removed. By using the method of structured focused comparison, I investigate based on data from USAID and OECD what kind of democracy assistance Tunisia and Egypt received before and during their nonviolent campaigns. I find that neither Tunisia nor Egypt to any great extent received the kind of sustained democracy assistance I hypothesized could impact democratization. I therefore conclude that it seems unlikely that democracy assistance had the kind of significant impact that could explain the different outcomes in Tunisia and Egypt. Lastly, I discuss how research on nonviolent campaigns could inform policymaking and contribute to designing more strategic democracy assistance in the future.

In this study I explore how security sector reform affects the likelihood of democratization after a nonviolent resistance campaign in order to better understand the role of core security services during regime changes and the mechanisms of SSR. By using literature on nonviolence resistance, security sector reform, and by borrowing the concept ofspoilersfrom policy and peace-making literature, I hypothesise that SSR will likely increase the ability of core security actors to manage security problems in the transition after a nonviolent resistance campaign, as well as reduce spoiler capabilities among core security actors, thereby increasing the probability of democratization.I used the method of structured, focused comparison on the regime changes in Tunisia 2011-2014 and Egypt 2011-2013, and found some evidence contrary to the first, while limited support for the second.

Der Sammelband behandelt die Verläufe, Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Systemtransformationen im postkommunistischen Europa nach 25 Jahren. Dabei geht es um politische Institutionen wie Verfassungen und Wahlen, um die Prozesse der Demokratisierung, aber auch der Re-Autokratisierung in der Region und um ausgewählte Politikfelder wie die Bevölkerungsentwicklung in Osteuropa sowie die Sozial- und Außenpolitik. / The volume analyzes covers the courses, results and prospects of system transformations in post-communist Europe after 25 years. It is about political institutions such as constitutions and elections, about the processes of democratization, but also the Re-Autocratization in the region and about specific policies such as demographic, the social policy and foreign policy.