This and this alone makes such groups capable both of government and self-government. Consequently, from time to time, some of them occupy the citadel. Once they are there, and this of course is the best known part of Ibn Khaldun's theory, they gradually lose that very cohesion they acquired when they were ungoverned, and which enabled them to rule. In his schematized version, this takes about three or four generations. They lose it in the process of governing and of benefiting from the privileges of government.

XREF: Echoes cyclical theories of imperial decline elsewhere, such as Machiavelli's return to first principles or Polybius's anacyclosis. QUESTION: Does the privilege of governance necessarily corrupt group cohesion, or is this specific to Ibn Khaldun's desert/asabiyyah framework?

Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking…, loc. 1985