The lowest turnover of all is found in the two small groups combining monarchy and one-
party or party-less elections. The one-party/military combination (which we recall as the least
democratic) also scores low on turnover (and, correspondingly, high on the personalism
scale). On the other hand, the traditional type of military rule (in which no elections of any
kind take place) shows a much higher turnover. Here, accordingly, the changes of persons at
the top level are much more frequent. This would appear to reflect the tensions often found in
military ranks: between different branches (army, air force, etc.); between different command
levels (top brass vs. lower-level officers); and between different generations and cohorts—and
all this, as we have seen, in the context of a relatively brief life span for regimes of this type.
The turbulence is greatest of all in the case of military rebel regimes, which also stand out for
their exceptionally short life span. The explanation here is presumably that structures making
for cohesion and dampening conflict are even less developed among such military usurper
regimes.
One might have expected the multiparty regimes to display the highest turnover of persons (as
they involve party competition, combined with a relatively high degree of democracy). But
this is not the case. Evidently, they furnish more room for personalism than military regimes
do.
But here too, there are great variations within the main family. The small group of
governing monarchies that hold multiparty elections show an extremely high level of
personalism. Multiparty systems of the traditional type, on the other hand, displays a level
close to that of the military regimes. Dominant regimes, for their part, allow for a higher level,
yet the level of personalism is distinctly lower in their case than in that of one-party states. In
the latter case the level is twice as high.
13
The score for democratic multiparty regimes is only marginally higher: .27. Here too, then, the level of
personalism is higher than in military regimes. The latter display, in other words, a strikingly high turnover of
persons at the helm of state.
19
Convention