Conclusion

Abstract

Since the opening chapter’s presentation of a prima facie explanation (the stabilising influence of defiance) for these eight dictatorships’ stability, attention has been focused on other factors – changes in structure/ideology or economic policy – as potential alternative or supplementary explanations. However, it has to be concluded that none of these factors was sufficiently pronounced and prevalent within and among the eight regimes to be considered as an alternative to the ‘defiance effect’ explanation. The most that can be claimed for these factors is that two of the changes in structure/ideology may provide supplementary explanations, in the sense either of strengthening the defiance effect’s stabilising influence or of providing a separate but lesser stabilising influence.