Guardians of dictatorship: Military personalization and the pursuit of biological weapons in authoritarian regimes

What explains the selective pursuit of biological weapons (BW) among authoritarian regimes? While many autocracies have pursued chemical weapons, few have developed BW programs. Drawing on regime security theory, this paper argues that military personalization raises the likelihood of BW pursuit through two mechanisms: it weakens conventional military effectiveness, creating incentives for asymmetric strategic hedges, and reduces internal veto points, enabling the coordination and secrecy that BW programs require. Personalization thus functions as a necessary rather than sufficient condition, while external insecurity acts as the trigger converting latent capacity into active pursuit. Empirical analyses of authoritarian regimes from 1950–2010 broadly support these claims, though the strength of evidence varies across model specifications.