Modernization without the End of History: Institutional Lineages and Galton’s Problem in Comparative Politics

Why do some political regimes endure while others collapse? I argue regimes belong to institutional lineages, and path-dependent design features shape survival. Using regime-type episodes (1789–2024) and Bayesian phylogenetic survival models, I show that income and democracy effects largely disappear once institutional ancestry is modeled. Both baseline durability and responses to development vary across lineages. Phylogenetic signal (tree-structured autocorrelation) measures reveal substantial ancestral dependence, addressing Galton’s problem in regime-survival research. The findings recast modernization theory, democratic stability, and democratic backsliding as lineage-contingent rather than universal, and highlight institutional evolution via descent, diffusion, and selective retention—supporting a more historical comparative politics.