Source: Washington Post
by Keith B Richburg
“I’ve seen my share of dictatorships fall apart after decapitation. I saw it in Haiti, where I began my foreign reporting career covering the fall of ‘president-for-life’ Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier …. I witnessed the chaos left behind in Somalia following the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, is still a partially failed state years after Mobutu Sese Seko was run out. When those dictatorial regimes collapsed, it’s because the dictator had hollowed out all the normal organs of a state. Because power was concentrated into one man’s hands, all other institutions just atrophied. But more often than not, authoritarian regimes are deeply institutionalized. … They can survive the removal of the leader because the regime is decentralized, built to endure and buttressed by a sprawling elite whose power and wealth depend on the system’s survival.” (04/02/26)