Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to examine the vulnerability of personal rule. Both Nicaragua under
the Somoza regime and Paraguay under the Stroessner regime were cases of the personal rule,
however each regime collapsed in different ways in their processes. Regime collapse normally
occurs where the vulnerability exists. In this study, two cases are analyzed by comparison
focusing on the clientelism, which is the key concept of the personal rule. It is because personal
rulers use patronage and pork-barrel to maintain their regimes. As a result of the analysis, in
the case of Nicaragua, there seemed to be sufficient conciliation with the military, but it could
not placate society through its ruling party enough. Thus, its system was collapsed from the
bottom, taking the form of revolution. On the other hand, in the case of Paraguay that the regime
collapsed from the top due to a coup d’etat by the military, its ruling party widely succeeded
in conciliating the society, while patronage against the military was biased. This contrast in
clientelism led to the differences in vulnerability between the two systems. In other words, rulers
of the personal rule strengthen the system by using clientelism as well as weaken the system by
using clientelism.
