The Political Consequences of Assassination

Zaryab Iqbal and Christopher Zorn
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Zaryab Iqbal: Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University, iqbal@psu.edu
Christopher Zorn: Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2008, vol. 52, issue 3, 385-400

Abstract: The assassination of a political leader is among the highest-profile acts of political violence, and conventional wisdom holds that such events often have substantial political, social, and economic effects on states. We investigate the extent to which the assassination of a head of state affects political stability through an analysis of all assassinations of heads of state between 1952 and 1997. We examine the political consequences of assassination by assessing the levels of political unrest, instability, and civil war in states that experience the assassination of their head of state. Our findings support the existence of an interactive relationship among assassination, leadership succession, and political turmoil: in particular, we find that assassinations' effects on political instability are greatest in systems in which the process of leadership succession is informal and unregulated.

Keywords: assassination; unrest; instability; domestic conflict; civil war (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:52:y:2008:i:3:p:385-400

DOI: 10.1177/0022002707310855

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