Chapter Overview

This chapter explores the alternatives to democracies--military governments and one-party government--and notes how surprisingly, there are few stable non-democracies. The chapter starts with several illustrations (USSR, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Congo (Zaire)) to show the variety of non-democratic regimes. The chapter then goes into the reasons why military governments are generally fragile and not long-lived. One party governments are also discussed as a better alternative, due to the existence of the party as a link between government and the population, an arena for the articulation of factional conflict, and a mechanism through which leadership transitions can take place. The chapter then looks at "court politics" and ends with an in-depth look at the military government in Nigeria from 1966-1974 and an excerpt from Albert Speer's memoirs illustrating court politics in Germany under Adolph Hitler.

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