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The breakdown of non-democratic regimes unveils a paradox: they stabilize quickly once some internal control over the oppositions is established, and the access to the political power is denied, but they eventually have to face disruptive crises. Why? Non-democratic regimes are identified through a conceptual sketch of the democracy as opposite regime, and three approaches to the study of political stability are identified; The political culture approach addressed to the investigation of the beliefs and sources of legitimacy of a given regime; The socio-centered approach drew attention to the distribution of the social and economic resources; Finally, the institutional approach focused on the institutional and organizational control of the social and political mobilization. The political culture and the socio-centered approaches point out the "social factors", while the "institutional" approach focuses on "regime factors" which may stabilize a non-democracy. A hypothetical model is developed and applied to the recent cases of authoritarian breakdown in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, and it is argued that although "social factors" do have a role in political crises, "regime factors" are the key variables explaining the durability of non-democratic regimes and their capacity to delay the breakdown. Adapted from the source document.