Autocratic rule suppressed ethnic conflict that resurfaced after regime overthrow

Evidence

In the end, the Bosnian military model, which depended on unified ground forces, was unsuited to the sectarian dissension in Iraq. Overthrowing Saddam’s regime unleashed ethnic conflicts held in check by his autocratic rule. The allied forces, caught in the middle of a civil conflict among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, ended up fighting insurgents during years of occupation, rebuilding battered service facilities, and pressuring the contentious factions to form a functional government. With the departure of allied forces, fighting among various sectarian groups renewed (Ghazi & Arango, 2014). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2348

Categorization

• QUESTION: Generalizes to a question: does removing any repressive central authority reliably unleash the conflicts it was holding in check? This deserves comparative testing across interventions.
• SEED: Article angle: ‘The dictator’s peace’ — autocratic stability as a hidden public good that interventions destroy.
• XREF: connects to: The orthodox model’s ban on disagreement suppressed heterodoxy and worsened later conflict. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 787; A seemingly unshakable autocratic regime collapsed through converging domestic and international pressure — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 542