Gerrymandered Succession Breeds State Fragility

When monarchies or personalised regimes rework succession rules to concentrate power in a single branch or person, they can create brittle states that appear stable until a shock exposes cascading failure (elite splits, palace coups, economic shocks). This fragility matters because collapse or rapid factionalisation in such states produces outsized regional and global spillovers—from energy shocks to refugee flows and security vacuums. — Framing succession design as a structural risk explains why elite or assassination events in personalist regimes can produce strategic shocks beyond the country itself.