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The 2010–11 Arab uprisings continue to prompt a great deal of discussion. By focusing specifically on Tunisia and Egypt, this article aims to present a more dynamic account of revolutionary moments in these countries. It does so in two ways. First, the changing nature of structures and mechanisms of authoritarian domination over time is explored. Second, the convergences of different social classes and political forces during the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt are not treated as unique and static occurrences. By showing how the two revolutionary networks gradually emerged and enlarged, a truer picture is thus provided. By doing so, this article aims to contribute to a more nuanced interpretation of the two revolutionary outbursts and to the development of the fourth generation of revolutionary studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst much of the contemporary debate on regime change remains concentrated on transitions to and from democracy, this paper focuses on autocracy-to-autocracy transitions, a relatively understudied but particularly relevant phenomenon. Building on an updated typology of non-democratic regimes and through a qualitative case-by-case assessment, the present paper identifies 21 transitions from one dictatorship to another, out of 32 cases of autocratic breakdown during the 2000–15 period. Hence, after the fall of a dictatorship, the installation of a new authoritarian regime was almost twice as likely as democratization. Accordingly, the paper focuses on the 21 recorded autocracy-to-autocracy transitions and examines in which non-democratic regimes a transition from an autocracy to another is more likely to occur, which peculiar forms of authoritarian rule tend to be installed, and the specific ways in which the dismantling of the previous existing authoritarian rule is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]