Data for: "Political Institutions and Coups in Dictatorships"

Does the creation of nominally democratic institutions help dictators stay in power by diminishing the risk of coups? We posit that the effectiveness of political institutions in deterring coups crucially depends on the types of plotters and their political goals. By providing a means to address the ruling coalition’s primary concerns about a dictator’s opportunism or incompetence, institutions reduce the necessity of reshuffling coups, in which the ruling coalition replaces an incumbent leader but keeps the regime intact. However, such institutions do not diminish the risk of regime-changing coups, because the plotters’ goals of overthrowing the entire regime and changing the group of ruling coalition are not achievable via activities within the institutions. Our empirical analysis provides strong empirical support for our expectations. Our findings highlight that the role of “democratic” institutions in deterring coups is rather limited as it only applies to less than 38% of coup attempts.

This site includes records provided by Elsevier's Data Monitor product. University of Strathclyde does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, or completeness of the information contained in such records and accepts no responsibility or liability for such information.