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First published online July 4, 2016

Countering Coups: Leadership Succession Rules in Dictatorships

Abstract

Paradoxically, many dictators agree to institutionalized succession rules even though these rules could regulate their removal from office. This study shows that succession rules, like other pseudo-democratic institutions in authoritarian regimes, provide survival benefits for dictators. Specifically, they protect dictators from coup attempts because they reduce elites’ incentives to try to grab power preemptively via forceful means. By assuaging the ambition of some elites who have more to gain with patience than with plotting, institutionalized succession rules hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters, which ultimately reduce a leader’s risk of confronting coups. Based on a variety of statistical models, including instrumental variables regression that addresses potential endogeneity between succession rules and coup attempts, the empirical evidence supports the authors’ hypothesis that institutions governing leadership succession reduce the likelihood that dictators confront coups. This study clarifies one of the ways in which institutions in dictatorships help autocratic leaders survive.

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Appendices

Appendix Summary Statistics.
Variable M SD Minimum Maximum Source
Institutionalized succession 0.88 0.32 0 1 Polity IV (2010)
Attempted coup 0.04 0.21 0 1 Powell and Thyne (2011)
Time since attempted coup 17.69 13.98 0 60 Powell and Thyne (2011)
Post-independence 0.32 0.46 0 1 Geddes, Wright, and Frantz (2014)
Partiest-1 0.85 0.35 0 1 Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland (2010)
Legislaturet-1 0.75 0.42 0 1 Cheibub et al. (2010)
Ethnic fractionalization 0.45 0.29 0.001 0.92 Fearon and Laitin (2003)
GDP/capitat-1 (logged) 7.91 1.05 5.51 12.97 Gleditsch (2002)
Growtht-1 0.01 0.16 −0.66 6.43 Gleditsch (2002)
Leader age 58.79 11.94 24 93 Goemans, Gleditsch, and Chiozza (2009)
Cold War 0.57 0.49 0 1 Coded by authors
Effective number of military organizations 1.72 0.63 1 4.57 Pilster and Böhmelt (2011)
Monarchy 0.09 0.29 0 1 Geddes et al. (2014)
Personalist regime 0.26 0.44 0 1 Geddes et al. (2014)
Single-party regime 0.49 0.50 0 1 Geddes et al. (2014)
Military dictatorship 0.13 0.33 0 1 Geddes et al. (2014)
Successful coup 0.02 0.15 0 1 Powell and Thyne (2011)
Leader duration 11.74 9.40 0 46 Svolik (2012)
Foreign aid/capitat-1 (4-year average, logged) 40.95 60.36 −6.32 929.44 World Bank’s World Development Indicators
Leader shuffle coup 0.01 0.09 0 1 Powell and Thyne (2011); Geddes et al. (2014)
Regime change coup 0.01 0.12 0 1 Powell and Thyne (2011); Geddes et al. (2014)

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Biographies

Erica Frantz is an assistant professor in the Political Science Department at Michigan State University. She studies authoritarian politics with a focus on democratization, conflict, and development.
Elizabeth A. Stein is an assistant professor at the Institute of Social and Political Studies at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Her research focuses on information and civil unrest in authoritarian regimes as well as media and democratic accountability in Latin America.

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Article first published online: July 4, 2016
Issue published: June 2017

Keywords

  1. institutionalized authoritarianism
  2. succession rules
  3. autocratic survival
  4. coup d’état
  5. dictators

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Authors

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Erica Frantz
Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
Elizabeth A. Stein
State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Notes

Elizabeth A. Stein, Institute of Social and Political Studies, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rua da Matriz 82, Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro 22260-100, Brazil. Email: [email protected]

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