As the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela continues to unfold, the term “regime change” has popped up again in policy circles. Yet despite its popularity, regime change is an unlikely strategy for improving conditions in foreign countries or advancing American security. In fact, it has a dismal track record: For more than 110 years, forcible regime-change missions have failed to produce better economic conditions, create lasting democracy, or advance American interests.
There are two families of explanations for why regime change is so difficult to achieve. One focuses on long-run historical processes that shape so-called structural factors, like political institutions and economic development rates. The other argues that micro-disruptions in a country’s environment are the primary catalysts for change. These include electoral manipulation, corruption, and abuses of power that empower subnational counterbalances and create pathways for democratic renewal.
Neither of these models is fully satisfactory. The macro-argument, for instance, overlooks the ways that countries’ institutions ebb and flow over time, with some developing more quickly than others. Likewise, the micro-argument neglects the way that economic and social development are interrelated and influence the pace at which different kinds of governments emerge.
In reality, both types of explanation have some merit. But they both need to be paired with an acknowledgement that covert regime-change efforts have serious short-term consequences, including the risk of civil war and the empowerment of factions as dangerous or more dangerous than those they replaced. They also undermine the presumption of Westphalian sovereignty by making what goes on inside a nation’s borders the business of other nations.