Will there be blood? Explaining violence during coups d’état

Abstract

Although just under half of all coup d’état attempts involve fatalities, there has been surprisingly little attention to the conditions under which coups turn violent. Existing research emphasizes the incentives coup plotters have to avoid bloodshed but does not explain the conditions under which violence nonetheless occurs. This article develops a theoretical framework that predicts that the extent of violence that occurs during coup attempts will vary systematically with central features of incumbent regimes and coup plotters. It then tests these predictions using new data on the fatalities associated with 377 coup attempts between 1950 and 2017. Coups against military regimes are found to be less violent than those against civilian dictatorships. This is because military rulers are better able to estimate the likelihood of the coup succeeding and more sensitive to the costs associated with using violence to suppress a coup. Since their post-coup fates tend to be better than those of other authoritarian leaders, they also have fewer incentives to hang on to power at any cost. The analysis also demonstrates that coups led by senior officers involve less bloodshed than those by junior officers and enlisted men. However, coups against rulers that counterbalance their militaries are no more violent than those against rulers that do not. The results shed new light on the dynamics of coup attempts.

Who Punishes the Leader? Leader Culpability and Coups during Civil War

“…Furthermore, the consequences of coups are severe. Coup attempts often result in the imprisonment, death, or exile of the former leader (Goemans 2008) as well as more general violence with a significant number of deaths (Bruin 2019), and are known to have long-term effects on a country's political stability and economy even in the case of failed coups (Harkness 2018;Roessler 2016;Powell and Chacha 2016).…”

“…Moreover, as a growing body of coup literature demonstrates, coups led by different types of plotters are fundamentally different in terms of their causes and consequences (e.g. Albrecht and Eibl 2018;Aksoy, Carter, and Wright 2015;Bruin 2019). Lumping together these different types of coups would prevent us from fully understanding the causal mechanism behind wartime coups as well as their impacts on the trajectory of civil war.…”

Revolutions and the Military: Endgame Coups, Instability, and Prospects for Democracy

“…While the success rate of the aggregated coup attempts stands at 50%, substantial differences exist when looking at coup agency, with elite officers significantly more successful than junior plotters. Recent scholarship found that elite officers have superior capacities to coordinate for coup plots compared to their junior colleagues (Albrecht & Eibl, 2018, p. 319; De Bruin, 2019, p. 5; Singh, 2014)—a factor of particular importance amid uncertain political dynamics of revolutionary mass uprisings.…”

“…Drawing on our original medium- n data set of endgame coups, we suggest disaggregating specific coup types by distinguishing between different context factors (regular coups vs. endgame coups) and coup agents (senior vs. junior officers). In so doing, this article contributes to a growing research program differentiating between discrete types of coups, for instance, by emphasizing distinct agents within the military apparatus (Albrecht & Eibl, 2018; Bou Nassif, 2015; De Bruin, 2019; Singh, 2014) or the social and ethnic identities of coup plotters (Harkness, 2018; Kandeh, 2004; Roessler, 2011).…”

Political Institutions and Coups in Dictatorships

“…While existing frameworks help understand how institutions mitigate the risk of reshuffling coups led by members of the ruling coalition, they cannot explain whether and how institutions affect regime-changing coups. As the literature on coups highlights, there are important variations among coups regarding the types of plotters and their interests (e.g., Aksoy et al, 2015; Albrecht & Eibl, 2018; De Bruin, 2019; Singh, 2014; Sudduth, 2021). 4 Lumping together these actors with distinct interests within the state apparatus prevents us from fully understanding how institutions affect authoritarian regime survival.…”