Abstract
ABSTRACT Why do autocracies exhibit divergent intra-elite factionalism despite similar institutions? Why do some regimes' factions rally around ideologies while others emphasize personal networks? Through a typology of factional sorting, I argue how external military conflicts exogenously shape a regime's factionalism by deepening or eroding the logistic and social cleavages that constrain factional recruitment. The Chinese Civil War separated Chinese Communist Party elites into isolated “mountaintops” and promoted factions based on geographic and professional backgrounds. In contrast, casualties suffered during the Vietnam War homogenized Vietnamese Communist Party cadres' backgrounds, weakened North-South cleavages, and led factions to adopt ideological over background sorting.
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