It's an axiom of political science that heavy-handed regimes don't topple when their heavy-handedness is at its peak; they topple when that heavy-handedness is relaxed. The shock of liberalization wakes people up and starts them wanting more. Classic examples include the French Revolution, which erupted after the monarchy convened the Estates-General legislative assembly for the first time in 175 years, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which began with the glasnost and perestroika reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev.
The cause&effect actually seems to be reversed - it seems that relaxation of heavy-handedness is simply an early visible symptom that the regime is finally so weak that it's forced to accept compromises that it never had to.
The regimes would never ever accept them unless they were already close to toppling (Gorbachev times are actually a nice example, http://www.aei.org/issue/foreign-and-defense-policy/regional... is an okay description), since [appearance of] strength is required to keep them in power.
Isnt it the case that both French and Russians regimes were weak and hugely dysfunctional at that point and relaxed cause they had no other options basically?
The same could be said of the Ottoman Empire at the time of the Tanzimat; their desire for reform came from suffocating under an incredibly tangled administrative system and spending hundreds of years losing territory to their neighbors, not from an abstract desire to run things better.
Authoritarian regimes tend not to liberalize until they absolutely, positively have no other alternatives.
Comments
It's an axiom of political science that heavy-handed regimes don't topple when their heavy-handedness is at its peak; they topple when that heavy-handedness is relaxed. The shock of liberalization wakes people up and starts them wanting more. Classic examples include the French Revolution, which erupted after the monarchy convened the Estates-General legislative assembly for the first time in 175 years, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which began with the glasnost and perestroika reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev.
The cause&effect actually seems to be reversed - it seems that relaxation of heavy-handedness is simply an early visible symptom that the regime is finally so weak that it's forced to accept compromises that it never had to.
The regimes would never ever accept them unless they were already close to toppling (Gorbachev times are actually a nice example, http://www.aei.org/issue/foreign-and-defense-policy/regional... is an okay description), since [appearance of] strength is required to keep them in power.
Isnt it the case that both French and Russians regimes were weak and hugely dysfunctional at that point and relaxed cause they had no other options basically?
The same could be said of the Ottoman Empire at the time of the Tanzimat; their desire for reform came from suffocating under an incredibly tangled administrative system and spending hundreds of years losing territory to their neighbors, not from an abstract desire to run things better.
Authoritarian regimes tend not to liberalize until they absolutely, positively have no other alternatives.