Abstract

This chapter focuses on regime security, the condition where governing elites are secure from violent challenges to their rule, and the unique insecurity dilemma facing many developing countries. The chapter shows that the insecurities that confront regimes in the developing world mostly emanate from internal rather than external threats and are linked to the inability or unwillingness of these regimes to provide security inclusively as a public good to local communities. This regime insecurity loop is explained by contrasting public and regime security, and how regimes in the developing world are trying to manage internal threats through accommodation and coercion. The Assad regime in Syria is used to illustrate the regime insecurity loop. The chapter concludes by outlining the prospects of regime security in the developing world amid an increased transnationalization of security affairs.