Dissertation Proposal Defense - Do Legacies of Violence affect Regime Stability? Nonviolent Uprisings and Regime Change in Tunisia and Zimbabwe.

This dissertation argues that regimes that emerged from violent conflict are less likely to be removed from power through nonviolent insurrections. Conversely, regimes that have no legacies of violence are more likely to succumb to nonviolent uprisings. In this dissertation, a regime is said to have a legacy of violence if it participated in conflicts including liberation struggles, civil wars, coup d’états, genocide and civil wars. The dissertation is based on a comparative study of Tunisia and Zimbabwe. While the regime of Ben Ali of Tunisia collapsed as a result of nonviolent protests, the regime of Zimbabwe has succeeded to demobilize social movements seeking to topple it. Notably, while Zimbabwe has legacies of violence that dates back to the period of colonization, Tunisia does not.