Leader survival and purges after a failed coup d’état

Malcolm R Easton and Randolph M Siverson
Additional contact information
Malcolm R Easton: Department of Political Science, University of California, Davis
Randolph M Siverson: Department of Political Science, University of California, Davis

Journal of Peace Research, 2018, vol. 55, issue 5, 596-608

Abstract: What factors explain variation in the tenure of political leaders who survive a coup d’état? Our main hypothesis is that leaders who survive a coup attempt take the opportunity to purge known and potential rivals while also deterring future coup conspirators. The severity of the purge is also hypothesized to be positively associated with longer post-coup tenures, as potential rivals are eliminated or deterred from future coup attempts. After introducing the topic of the failed coup, and presenting the dataset we developed to measure the level of punishment associated with a failed coup attempt, we offer an analysis of the effect of purges on the survival time of leaders who survive a coup attempt. We find that, conditional on regime type, purging has an effect on lengthening leader tenure, with more severe purges being associated with longer authoritarian tenures. Democratic leaders gain no advantage. Changes in military expenditures do not increase subsequent tenure. We conclude with a discussion of the results as well as what a broader dataset might reveal.

Keywords: attempted coups; authoritarian; failed coup; leader survival; purges (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343318763713 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:55:y:2018:i:5:p:596-608

DOI: 10.1177/0022343318763713

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().