Personalist regimes mute factional differences the most .... Dictators usually retain the loyalty of elites through some combination of coercion, personal favors, and material rewards. Elites are frequently rotated or jailed to avoid factionalism. The military is usually a depersonalized instrument for the dictator's power, holding no sense of independent institutional identity. Divisions between so-called hard-liners and soft-liners are virtually non-existent...
