Following Goldstone, we can distinguish three phases of ideological evolution as societies slide into, and then out of, crises. During the first phase, or precrisis phase, the period leading up to state breakdown, the state is struggling to maintain control in the face of a multitude of ideological challenges coming from different elite factions. In the second phase, when the old regime has completely lost legitimacy (which often results in the state’s collapse), numerous contenders who seek to establish a new monopoly of authority struggle among themselves for primacy. In the final phase,
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