Overthrowing a personalist autocrat is not easy. Because individual elites can rarely remove a dictator on their own, they need a party, business organization, tribe, or military to stand behind them and assure that others will follow their lead. Recognizing this threat, personalist autocrats weaken organizations that enable elites to coalesce against them. The lack of organizations also makes it difficult for the masses to mobilize against the regime. Once a ruler is able to create a personalist autocracy by eliminating other centers of power, they are especially hard to dislodge. Research by Milan Svolik at Yale University has shown that the longer personalist autocrats stay in office, the less likely they are to be removed from power by either a coup or an uprising.
For the moment, there are scant signs of Putin being ousted any time soon. Few Russian elites have voiced opposition to the war and some observers have argued that economic sanctions have unified a Russian elite that previously had little in common by condemning them to a similar punishment. The mass public, too, has largely acquiesced to the new reality of a Russia at war. The invasion of Ukraine has not spawned anything like the euphoria that followed the annexation of Crimea, but it has also not yet generated a mass movement that could topple the Kremlin.
There are a couple of factors, though, that should worry Putin. Sanctions and corporate withdrawals will continue to degrade Russia’s economy, punish Russia’s wealthy, and threaten the government’s solvency. Support for the Russian government has long been linked to economic performance and governments that can’t pay their bills invite political unrest. Over time, the invasion of Ukraine will make it that much more difficult for Putin to balance the dual threats of an elite coup and a mass revolt.
In addition, wars in autocratic regimes that go badly have brought political change. The Argentine government’s disastrous war over the Falklands/Malvinas is a prime example. Cross-national studies affirm that losing a war increases the risks that an autocratic ruler falls from power.
Predicting precisely when a personalist autocrat will lose power is tricky. Because elites and the mass public have little incentive to reveal their true level of opposition to the regime, we are usually surprised when a personalist autocrat falls. Elites and the mass public may publicly voice support for the regime even if they privately express opposition. A change in circumstances that reveals these true sentiments can lead to cascades of defections by elites and the public that sweep rulers from power. Autocrats often lose office in the same way that Hemingway writes one goes bankrupt: “gradually, then suddenly.”
Given those uncertainties, it is worth considering what might come next in Russia should Putin fall from power.
Unfortunately, personalist regimes usually plant the seeds of autocracy in their successors. Leaders in other kinds of autocracies such as military and one-party autocracies can retreat to the barracks or the party if they are removed from power. But leaders in personalist autocracies have no soft-landing pad. As a result, transitions of rulers in personalist autocracies are far more likely to be violent, to end badly for the ruler, and to result in another personalist autocracy coming to power.
Here again, research offers some sobering insights. Hein Goemans of Rochester University studied autocratic regimes between 1946 and 2008 and found that 70 percent of personalist autocrats who lost power did so through irregular means like coups or revolts. In addition, 80 percent of rulers in personalist regimes who lost power ended up in jail, exile, or dead. Moreover, personalist autocrats tend to be replaced by other personalist autocrats, not democracies; research by Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz found that only 20 percent of personalist autocracies are replaced by democracies.
Russia’s great power status also may bolster the likelihood that a post-Putin Russia will remain autocratic. Personalist autocrats often promise to increase their country’s power on the global stage and use anti-Western and anti-liberal appeals to court their political base. Russia can drink far more deeply from this well of nationalist disenchantment than countries with less global reach.
But the prospects for a post-Putin Russia are not all grim. Russia is a personalist autocracy, but it is also a relatively wealthy one, which suggests that its prospects for stability and more open government might be better than expected. One well-regarded study found that it is hard to predict why and when autocratic regimes fall, but when they fall in relatively rich countries, they are more likely to become and stay a democracy.
Other features augur well for a post-Putin future. Russia’s high level of education bodes well for a greater political openness; Russia is better educated than any of the democracies in Latin America, for instance. In addition, Russia’s relatively ethnically homogenous and secular population — about 80 percent of the population is ethnic Russian — suggests that Russia could avoid the ethnic or religious conflicts that have often plagued more diverse countries after the fall of an autocratic government. These structural features are good predictors of democracy and point to a potentially more optimistic outcome for Russia that may counter the legacy of personalist rule.
Beyond these structural features, the circumstances under which Putin leaves power will also go a long way toward determining what comes next. Should Putin be replaced by a coup, the likelihood of a transition to democracy is much lower than if he is replaced by a mass revolt. Svolik finds that following coups, only 1 in 10 personalist autocracies were replaced by democracies. The same figure is 4 in 10 if the ruler is overthrown by a mass revolt. Clearly, anyone rooting for democracy to take root in Russia should be sober about the prospects for a successful pro-democracy uprising. Of course, the prospects for political change are even lower should Putin stay in power.
In addition, who comes after Putin is also relevant. Leader personality and background are more important in foreign policy and during crises than in domestic policy. Putin’s obsession with Ukraine does not seem to be broadly shared among the Russian foreign policy-making elite. To be sure, members of Putin’s war cabinet are very anti-Western, but unlike Putin, they don’t have the same long record of viewing Ukrainians and Russians as the same people. In this case, policy toward Ukraine might be different with a different leader even if the successor comes from the inner circle. A leader who comes from outside the inner circle might offer better prospects for greater political openness in Russia as well.
Biden called for Putin to leave office, but autocratic politics is often less about the personal quirks or personalities of a single individual than about the nature of autocracy itself. A Russia without Putin that remains a personalist autocracy may disappoint those hoping for a Russia that is less corrupt, repressive and at peace with its neighbors. In the end, real political change in Russia will require more than removing Putin.