Dictators and tyrants all project invincibility, but all of them fall. And when they do, tyrants don't quietly retire - they face exile, prison, or death. What happens in the aftermath can drastically change the fate of a nation.
In his new book, How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive, political scientist Marcel Dirsus meets with coup leaders, dissidents and soldiers to examine the workings and malfunctions of tyrants. Whether it's their inner circle turning against them or resentment of elites in the military, the masses alienated by cronyism or revolutionaries plotting in exile, tyrants always have more enemies than friends.
Dr. Marcel Dirsus is a political scientist and Non-resident Fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University (ISPK) in Germany. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Washington Post, among many other outlets. He writes the popular politics newsletter, The Hundred, on Substack.
