The Historical Origins of Long-Surviving Military Dictatorship in Asia: A Quantitative Approach to Regime Institutionalization and Legitimization

Why are some military regimes short-lived, while others remain in power for decades? While the conventional wisdom is that military rules survive shorter than the other types of autocracies, there is significant durational variation among the military dictatorships. Employing the critical juncture framework, this paper argues that the mode of decolonization influences the duration of military rule: military regimes tend to survive longer when armed rebels led the country’s independence than when civilian leaders peacefully negotiated the independence. We empirically examine our claim by combining cross-national analyses with an originally created data set and the case study of military regimes in Myanmar and Pakistan.