Political observers see a dictator’s death in office as a catalyst for political change — either creating an opening for political liberalization or triggering elite infighting and instability. So what happened in Uzbekistan, where President Islam Karimov, age 78, died on Sept. 2?
Karimov had led the country with a “ruthlessly authoritarian approach” since independence in 1991. Despite attempts to guard information about his health like a “state secret,” rumors that Karimov was gravely ill had surfaced several weeks before his death. These rumors sparked a flurry of commentary on the country’s future.
But two months after Karimov’s death, Uzbekistan’s political system remains intact. Power passed seamlessly to Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who is serving as interim president until elections on Dec. 4 make his position official. Although the transition bucked the constitutionally established guidelines (power should have passed to the Senate chairman), Karimov’s passing has been remarkably unremarkable.
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Uzbekistan had the same president for 25 years. What happens now?
Is Uzbekistan’s experience typical?
We looked at what happens when an autocrat dies in office
In a new piece in the Journal of Democracy, we find that Uzbekistan’s experience is broadly representative of what happens when dictators die in office. We looked at data on all 79 autocratic leaders who died in office of natural causes from 1946 to 2012 (using data from here and here).
Like Karimov, most autocrats resist identifying a successor out of fear that doing so might enable a competitor to establish a base of support that could be mobilized to unseat them early. Moreover, autocrats who die in office tend to be longtime occupiers of their position. They have tenures lasting an average of 16 years, compared to just seven years for leaders who leave power through means other than death. This longevity in office enables these leaders to portray themselves as indispensable to the political system.
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For these reasons, a high degree of uncertainty about a country’s future trajectory is a common feature in countries with aging or ailing leaders, particularly in the days and weeks surrounding a leader’s passing.
However, we find that such concern is often misplaced. Death in office seldom leads to near-term liberalization. And only rarely does it precipitate coups or protests or the end of a regime.
We found that 87 percent of the time that leaders died in office, the regime — or group in power and rules for governing — remained intact the following year. And in 76 percent of cases, it was still in power five years later.
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