Addressing long-term regime trajectories in the Middle East from 1945 to 2011, the paper systematically takes into account all cases of both survival and breakdown of monarchies and republics. It contrasts the pathways of the currently overall surviving monarchies (Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE) with the trajectories of those regional states which were republics from their beginning (among them, Algeria, Syria and Tunisia) or which became republics after being monarchies in the post-1945 period (Egypt, Iraq, North Yemen, Libya and Iran). Against this historical background, the guiding research question of the paper is: What makes the recent kings’ advantage (general monarchical survival) distinct from the king’s dilemma during previous periods (partial monarchical breakdown from 1952-79)? Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), the paper concentrates on seven pertinent explanatory conditions derived from previous research on authoritarianism in general and Middle East regime studies in particular: foreign military support, rents, repression, cooptation, legitimation qua strong ideology or religious heritage, family participation in political decision-making and the degree of social protests. In this, the paper moves beyond current studies in that it, first, combines more than two explanatory conditions and, second, applies them to both cases of survival and breakdown of authoritarian monarchies and republics. The main findings are, first, that at least four different trajectories explain survival and at least three different trajectories highlight the breakdown of authoritarian monarchies and republics in the Middle East over the last six plus decades. The paper also identifies striking differences between the trajectories of monarchies and republics with regard to survival, while the picture is less clear and more heterogeneous for breakdown. Second, it identifies different trajectories for the surviving monarchies in the Gulf states and those beyond (Jordan, Morocco as well as, to a certain degree, North Yemen until 1962 and Oman). This intra-monarchy dichotomy is in line with mainstream monarchy research on the Middle East. However, it is argued that there is not a single sufficient condition – be it rent, legitimation or family participation – which can account for either the survival or the breakdown. The paper concludes by drawing some lessons of these findings for regime trajectories in the Middle East in the context of the ‘Arab Uprisings’.

Does the argument that Arab monarchies are more stable than Arab republics hold in the wake of the Arab uprisings since 2011? Before the regime change in Tunisia it was monarchies – rather than republics – that were seen as allowing for greater political liberalization. Since 2011, however, republican regimes have witnessed both greater probabilities of regime changes and of democratization in the wake of transition. In contrast, most monarchies have remained stable and have witnessed generally fewer protests than their republican neighbors. In explaining this difference in outcomes the notion that monarchical regimes are more ‘flexible’ and innovative has been contrasted with the notion that since monarchies are predominantly petroleum rentier states, wealth explains the different trajectories of the post-2011 Arab uprisings – and that wealth may buy short-run stability but will they eventually face the same challenges as their neighbors. Have the theoretical tools in Middle East social science caught up with events? In exploring these contrasts, the path-dependent notions of the authoritarian survival literature have been challenged by the notions of political opportunities and networks of the social movement literature. Path-dependencies explain authoritarian survival because they have structured the formal and informal rules of the political game in such ways to empower some actors over others. Stability is thus at the heart of explanations in this line of research. In contrast, contentious politics approaches highlight the role rules as political opportunities for oppositional groups to challenge incumbent regimes. Even small changes in elite alignments are seen within this SMT inspired research as possibilities that opposition movements can use to mobilize their followers – let alone larger changes such as opportunities for elections and greater representation. The networks of opposition mobilization – often under the radar of both regime repression and scholarly attention – have resurfaced given the new repertories of public protest that have emerged. To better explain monarchical ‘flexibility’ however, we must synthesize the new institutionalist and social movement theory based explanations for this resilience. It is important to emphasize that while regimes have been structured in path-dependent manners, it is how they have shaped political constraints and opportunities as well as influenced the development of certain types of social networks over others that deserves our attention. Thus, we must work to synthesize institutionalism and social movement theory based explanations in order to account for the survival – and the potential fall – of the monarchs of the Arab world.

Why were some Arab countries deeply affected by the Arab Spring, while others were ‎not? I make three arguments in this paper. First, it was very quickly apparent how serious ‎the protests would be in each Arab country (except Syria), and the speed of diffusion ‎suggests that regime reactions were much less important than citizen attitudes toward the ‎regimes on the eve of Ben Ali's fall from power. Second, in the initial burst of diffusion, all ‎Arab regimes looked vulnerable. Having lost their aura of invincibility, citizens demanded ‎the fall of the regime in countries in which that demand had a strong appeal to a wide ‎section of the citizenry. This was not the case in most Arab countries. Third, the decision by ‎citizens to demand the fall of the regime (or not) can best be explained by a set of political ‎factors, one of which is a preference in Arab public opinion for the reform, rather than the ‎overthrow, of monarchies. In making these arguments I draw on the lessons of the ‎literature on the diffusion of similar revolutionary shocks, especially the revolutions of 1848 ‎and the Color Revolutions in post-Communist states in the 2000s. ‎