Conclusion: Patterns of post-Cold War Autocratization

Abstract

The final chapter of this monograph wraps up the main findings of this investigation on post-Cold War processes of autocratization and highlights a few avenues for future research on this political syndrome. The authors identify in the proposed conceptual framework for the comparative analysis of contemporary processes of regime change towards autocracy and in the study of the modes through which autocratization unfolds two important contributions of this research to the re-nascent debate on this political phenomenon. Most importantly, they take stock of the analyses presented in the previous chapters of this book and trace four main patterns of post-Cold War autocratization, which emerge when the forms of transition, the modes, the actors and the geographical and historical trends are considered together.