Decapitation as an Accelerator: Why Killing an Ideological Leader Rarely Weakens the System

I advance the following thesis:

The elimination of an experienced leader within an ideologically consolidated system that possesses institutional mechanisms of succession structurally increases the probability of hardening rather than destabilisation.

The elimination of an experienced leader within an ideologically consolidated system that possesses institutional mechanisms of succession structurally increases the probability of hardening rather than destabilisation.

Not always. But more often than the logic of the “decapitation strike” assumes.

I. The Conceptual Error

The logic of decapitation silently presumes that the system depends on the individual.

That is true in highly personalist regimes.

But ideological systems do not primarily depend on individuals. They depend on narratives, institutions, and power structures.

The leader is a node — not the foundation.

Those who believe that removing the node destroys the network confuse symbol with structure.

II. Saddam Hussein: The More Complex Example

Saddam was a strongly personalist leader, but not an isolated one. Behind........

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