"Brownlee’s work serves as an autopsy of departed dictatorships and a diagnosis of the past and future health of persistent autocracies. He skillfully deploys an ingenious research design and abundant evidence from four countries to identify ruling parties that contain elite conflict as the main source of authoritarian stability. Yet the maintenance of ruling parties is medicine that some autocrats refuse to take. Fearing that they will become institutional bases of opposition, some ruling groups dismantle their own parties. In these cases, Brownlee demonstrates, uncontained elite conflict motivates the emergence of soft liners who may become leaders of democratic transitions. This ambitious and well-written book provides many important lessons about the origins and effects of political institutions. It is a ‘must read’ for scholars of regime dynamics." -David Waldner, University of Virginia.