Toward a Structural Understanding of Coup Risk

Abstract

Although coup risk plays an important role in theories of war, revolution, and democratization, scholars have not developed a rigorous conceptualization and valid measure of the concept. We develop a structural understanding of coup risk as distinct from proximate causes of coups as well as coup-proofing strategies that regimes implement to avert coups. Theoretical insights into factors that predispose regimes toward coup vulnerability provide the groundwork for an improved measure based on strength of civil society, legitimacy, and past coups. Cross-national statistical analyses are used to significantly improve on previous coupincidence models and highlight deficiencies of the common approach to measuring coup risk. The structural conceptualization of coup risk enhances understanding of broader civil-military dynamics, in particular the well-known distinction between motives and opportunities for launching coups. This distinction is shown to be insensitive to an important observational equivalence: that coups may be rare in both high-and low-risk cases.

Can Robust Party Systems Rein Military Coups? Evidence from the New Democracies of the South

“…Johnson et al (1984) replicated Jackman`s study with wider dataset, ending up to the same conclusion. Civil society impact is also consistent with what Belkin and Schofer (2003) found. They`ve found that civil society is a significant predictor of military coups d`etat.…”

“…Findings are described in the table (1). Results indicate that fragmentation, turnout and civil society are all significant predictors of military coups d`etat in the countries of the South, while there is no empirical evidence that polarization is significant.…”

Strategic Logic of Elite Purges in Dictatorships

“…First, a large number of scholars argue that a political leader who faces high threats of coups imposed by strong elites is more likely to attempt to diminish the elites' coup-making capabilities. As the likelihood that the military and other elites will attempt a 3 coup increases, the dictator is more inclined to diminish their capabilities to organize a coup by purging strong and competent officers (e.g., Stepan, 1971;Horowitz, 1985;Finer, 1988;Pollack, 1996;Belkin & Schofer, 2003, 2005Pilster & Bohmelt, 2011). In other words, a dictator who faces a high coup risk tends to employ "coup-proofing" strategies in the form of purges and political replacement of military officers and other elites to reduce his coup risk (Biddle & Zirkle, 1996;Quinlivan, 1999;Roessler, 2011).…”

Rather Yields than Rights: The influence of economic integration on the consolidation of autocratic regimes

“…The regime stabilisation effects of economic development on both democracies and autocracies has been attested in various studies (Feng 1997;Belkin and Schofer 2003;Goldstone et al 2010;Maeda 2010). Miller (2012) shows that the probability of violent leader removal decreases significantly when the average income increases.…”