Changing Lanes or Stuck in the Middle: Why Are Anocracies More

Past research on regime type and civil war points to anocratic regimes as having a high probability of civil war onset. The specific characteristics of anocratic regimes that lead to their predisposition for civil war have been left unexplained. In this article, the authors examine how the transitional characteristics of anocracy explain the enhanced risk of civil war onset. The results point to three important conclusions. First, anocratic regimes are most likely to experience civil war in the first few years of their duration. Second, transitions into anocracy from democracy leave states at a higher risk of civil war. Third, the probability of civil war onset increases with the magnitude of a transition into anocracy. Keywords international politics, conflict processes, international security Research into the causes of civil war has identified anocratic governance and/or the existence of a political transition as a particularly high-risk regime characteristic. Many— possibly the modal category of studies—demonstrate a curvilinear relationship between regime characteristics an