As leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has survived longer than Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China. If it’s coming to an end -- which seems likely, given his apparent inability to emerge from house arrest after the military took charge -- it’s worth reflecting on the mistakes he made to end such a remarkable run.
Daniel Treisman, a UCLA political scientist, argued in a recent paper that most dictators fall for reasons proving that they are all too human: hubris, a propensity for needless risk, liberalization impulses that lead to a slippery slope, picking the wrong successor, counterproductive violence.