Dictators, personalized security forces, and coups

Personalization of Power and Mass Uprisings in Dictatorships

“…Dictators may mitigate this moral hazard problem with nonmaterial mechanisms to prevent coordinated action by security agents or increase loyalty to the leader by more closely linking the fates of the security apparatus with the regime. A dictator's efforts to build a security apparatus that is personally loyal to them may result in security force personalization (Song 2022), under which security elites are stacked with individuals who are relatively better off with the specific leader in power. For example, dictators may create specially recruited (and often better compensated) counterbalancing security forces that lie outside the regular military hierarchy (see, for example, De Bruin 2021).…”

“…When considering orders to repress a mass uprising, security agents must weigh the material allocation they expect to receive while the dictator remains in power against their expected payoff should the agents shirk or defect and the regime is ousted (see, for example, Paine 2019; Tyson 2018). Personalized security agents (that is, the beneficiaries of the dictator's favoritism) expect a lower payoff from defection and thus have limited “outside options.” Their fate is more closely tied to the fate of the dictator (Geddes, Wright, and Frantz 2018; Song 2022). Nonpersonalist security agents expect a higher “outside option” payoff and thus have a greater incentive to defect (Zakharov 2016).…”

“…agents (Song 2022). 5 As all dictatorships exhibit some level of personalism and a dictators' personal power may vary substantially over time, even within regimes (Morgenbesser 2018;Svolik 2012), this measure improves on prior categorical autocratic regime typologies (for example, a personalist regime dummy variable) that are static within regimes (see, for example, Geddes 2003).…”

“…Personalized security agents (that is, the beneficiaries of the dictator's favoritism) expect a lower payoff from defection and thus have limited "outside options." Their fate is more closely tied to the fate of the dictator (Geddes, Wright, and Frantz 2018;Song 2022). Nonpersonalist security agents expect a higher "outside option" payoff and thus have a greater incentive to defect (Zakharov 2016).…”

“…Our key independent variable is a new measure of security personalization constructed from a Bayesian item response theory (IRT) model of observable indicators that proxy for loyal security agents (Song 2022). 5 As all dictatorships exhibit some level of personalism and a dictators' personal power may vary substantially over time, even within regimes (Morgenbesser 2018; Svolik 2012), this measure improves on prior categorical autocratic regime typologies (for example, a personalist regime dummy variable) that are static within regimes (see, for example, Geddes 2003).…”