Succession is sometimes said to be the Achilles’ heel of autocracies, especially personalist ones, notes Syracuse University professor Brian D. Taylor, the author of The Code of Putinism. And a nontrivial share of them—56 percent experience regime change within five years of a ruler’s death.
Even if Putin’s regime ultimately survives intact, Russia could be in for a chaotic and even violent period of transition, he writes for Foreign Affairs.
