Chapter 6 looks at some of the security challenges Rwanda experienced for a large part of the First Republic and again at the end of the Second Republic. It therefore focuses Rwandan authorities’ ability to maintain their monopoly of legitimate violence. It stresses the extent to which Rwandan authorities, especially under the First Republic, faced important challenges to their tenure and perceived ability to control the territory.

The Conclusion turns to the lessons and takes a look at authoritarian trajectories in Rwanda and beyond suggests. It stresses how a focus on moments that we believe make or break authoritarianism draws us away from the making and decaying implicit in more ordinary moments of authoritarianism. It shows how this has been a specific gap of our studies of Rwanda prior to the genocide. Rediscovering some of the sources of instability over the course of the two republics would, indeed, have allowed us to make better sense of some of politics and choices surrounding the genocide.

Chapter 7 delves into contentious and competitive relations among security sector actors. Given how key to Rwandan political life security sector actors were over the course of the post-independence period, and especially during the Second Republic born of a military coup, security sector actors’ competitive relations with civilian authorities or among themselves always proved a destabilizing factor in Rwanda.

Chapter 5 explores the expanded repertoire of authoritarian strategies as deployed during the First and Second Republics. It largely focuses on tools used to convey norms for compliant behavior. The two republics stressed in their rhetoric themes to help ground their legitimacy, as well as to spell out their expectations for Rwandans. They also deployed structures and practices to promote their authoritarian norms, from mandatory community work in the name of the state, to celebrations stressing patriotism as a virtue.

Chapter 2 turns to what pre-genocide Rwanda adds as a case to the study of authoritarianism. Many would dismiss outright the country as too exceptional to illustrate the authoritarian realities. But Rwanda epitomizes in scholarship a common "achieved lens" perspective regarding authoritarian control. It also does so in an African context that has given rise to some of the more stereotypical depictions of authoritarianism.

Chapter 3 revisits the beginnings and endings of the First and Second Republics to shed alternative light on moments we often believe we know. Whether the 1959 "Social Revolution" or the coup d’état marking at the beginning of the Second Republic, these events have been largely studied in recent decades to the extent that they fit a specific narrative regarding Rwandan politics and violence. The chapter insists instead on the flux and complexity of events at the time.

Chapter 8 turns to the "political and economic grind," the ongoing political and economic friction the two pre-genocide republics experienced throughout their life span. Though never a challenge to the republics’ absolute survival, this grind nonetheless undermined their ability to achieve control in as important a manner as over crises, chipping away at the bases of performance and hence confidence in the two regimes.

Chapter 4 explores the shape of authoritarianism in Rwanda over the course of the First and Second Republics, inspired by debates surrounding the notion of soft authoritarianism. The chapter focuses on mapping and discussing the institutional manifestations of this authoritarianism, from dominant state parties and presidential power, to policies such as decentralization.

The introduction explores the argument at the core of the book. Despite authoritarianism scholars’ predilection for a focus on crises and elites, trivial authoritarian moments and what we sometimes take to be trivial relations are part of a country’s larger trajectory of authoritarianism. They even suggest — just as larger crises do — some of authoritarianism’s inherent fragility.

Chapter 9 shifts the focus away from the capital and national level to address the question of reach. While "achieved" depictions of authoritarianism suggest a vertical, overbearing chain to compel obedience, local level administrators and ordinary citizens were never absolute cogs in the authoritarian system in place in Rwanda. The chapter explores the ambiguous realities of lived authoritarianism under the two republics.

Chapter 1 looks at some of the conceptual and theoretical debates surrounding authoritarianism. In doing so, it explores the contribution and focuses on authoritarian trajectories can make to our understanding of realities under authoritarianism. The chapter also briefly explores some of the challenges of studying authoritarianism from a historical lens in the Rwandan context.