Oxford Belarus Observatory, in collaboration with the Research Centre of the Office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (OST) and the Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD) of the University of Warwick, is compiling a series of Policy Briefs based on the discussions taking place in our jointly convened Expert Webinar series.
We invite you to read the Policy Brief we have composed based on the “Resilient autocracies: what can we learn about their defeat?” Expert Webinar, which took place on June 8, 2023.
There are always two sides to the “resilience” term: the first one is the resilience of the regimes or autocracies themselves; the second one is the resilience of societies. This policy briefing focuses on the former by examining different cases across the post-Soviet space and beyond. The brief examines the sources of authoritarian resilience and how authoritarian leaders learn from each other and react to new developments. It is concluded that most authoritarian regimes rely on shaky foundations even when they seem resilient.
