Question of the week 31: Regime

Hi and welcome to this week’s question of the week! This week the word ‘regime’ will be covered in the following question:

Why do political regimes falter?

A political regime is a government that puts rules, regulations, norms, and laws for citizens of a country to abide. It is either elected through a country’s citizens, through force, or through a governmental procedure.

Here are some reasons why political regimes falter:

1) Citizen rebellion – When a government does not provide what its citizens want and maintains its power, riots or rebellions may occur. This is especially prevalent in countries with an autocratic regime. Violent behavior would then force the political regime to leave.

2) Pressure from other countries – When a political regime does not respect human rights, other countries and organizations may put pressure on that regime to either change their ways of running a country or risk facing a trade embargo or even a conflict. One example is the spread of Communism which capitalism tried to contain in the Vietnam War.

3) Government not keeping its promises – When a president or prime minister is elected, that individual will put in place his or her political regime. This includes a set of goals and promises that were said during the political campaign before election. However, when a government cannot meet its promises, the leader’s trust, reputation, and popularity begins to falter, thereby leading to new elections.

4) Corruption, bribery, or other legal issues – Sometimes the leader of a country has a personal agenda that is not to the interest of a country. Corruption and bribery not only wastes taxpayer money for personal gain, it also limits government investments in improving the country’s standards of living. A result of this would be that the leader does not get re-elected, gets impeached, or that the reputation of the whole political party would be lost.

In short: A political regime is the rules, regulations, norms, and laws that are set by a government. They can fail if there is a citizen uprising, if there is pressure from other countries to stop the regime, if the regime does not meet its expectations, or if legal issues plague the regime leader.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to leave a comment!