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Creighton University

Explaining Regime Change: A Directed Acyclic Graph

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

The ongoing Arab Spring, like the demise of colonial rule in Africa and the civil wars in Latin America before it, has shifted attention yet again to the question of why some regimes fail and others do not. This paper seeks to discover the conditions under which regime change occurs. Following Pearl (2000), I build a Bayesian network (using a directed acyclic graph) based on theory from which I then derive testable hypotheses. I use discrete-time analysis to test two models using data for the dependent variable from the Democracy & Dictatorship Revisited Dataset (Cheibub, Gandhi, & Vreeland 2009). The models suggest that deflationary crises and an increased magnitude of internal violence increase the probability of regime change. In addition, they indicate that decreased state fiscal capacity and lower professionalism and autonomy of the bureaucracy also increase this probability. The theoretical and empirical results of this study provide significant insights for explaining regime change and will continue to have substantive implications for the post-Arab Spring research agenda.

Degree

thesis:*
Grantor dc:publisher
Creighton University
Year dc:date.issued
2012

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Hermanson, Karly
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Clark, Terry D.

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • Copyright is retained by the Author. A non-exclusive distribution right is granted to Creighton University and to ProQuest following the publishing model selected above.
Language dc:language.iso
en_US

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/10504/28579
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:cdr.creighton.edu:10504/28579

Chain of custody

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Creighton University
Base URL
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Last updated
2026-07-24
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citation

Hermanson, Karly. Explaining Regime Change: A Directed Acyclic Graph. Creighton University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10504/28579