Political Institutions and Coups in Dictatorships

• Published date: 01 August 2021
• Date: 01 August 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414021997161
• Subject Matter: Articles

2021, Vol. 54(9) 1597 –1628

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414021997161

Comparative Political Studies

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DOI: 10.1177/0010414021997161

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Article

Political Institutions and

Coups in Dictatorships

Nam Kyu Kim1 and Jun Koga Sudduth2 *

Abstract

Does the creation of nominally democratic institutions help dictators stay

in power by diminishing the risk of coups? We posit that the effectiveness

of political institutions in deterring coups crucially depends on the types

of plotters and their political goals. By providing a means to address the

ruling coalition’s primary concerns about a dictator’s opportunism or

incompetence, institutions reduce the necessity of reshuffling coups, in

which the ruling coalition replaces an incumbent leader but keeps the

regime intact. However, such institutions do not diminish the risk of

regime-changing coups, because the plotters’ goals of overthrowing the

entire regime and changing the group of ruling coalition are not achievable

via activities within the institutions. Our empirical analysis provides strong

empirical support for our expectations. Our findings highlight that the role

of “democratic” institutions in deterring coups is rather limited as it only

applies to less than 38% of coup attempts.

Keywords

non-democratic regimes, institutionalized authoritarianism, coup d’etat,

leader survival, regime transition

1Korea University, Seoul, South Korea

2University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

*The authors contributed equally to this work.

Corresponding Author:

Jun Koga Sudduth, School of Government and Public Policy, University of Strathclyde,

McCance Building, 16 Richmond Street, Glasgow, G1 1QX, UK.

Email: jun.koga@strath.ac.uk

997161

CPSXXX10.1177/0010414021997161Comparative Political StudiesKim and Sudduth

research-article2021

1598 Comparative Political Studies 54(9)

2 Comparative Political Studies 00(0)

The burgeoning literature on comparative authoritarianism suggests that

authoritarian rulers adopt nominally democratic institutions, such as political

parties and legislatures, to consolidate their hold on political power (e.g.,

Boix & Svolik, 2013; Brownlee, 2007; Gandhi, 2008; Svolik, 2012).

Particularly, given that the biggest threat to dictators’ political survival comes

from within rather than from outside the regime (Aksoy et al., 2015; Frantz &

Stein, 2017; Svolik, 2012), many studies examine how authoritarian institu-

tions mitigate threats of coup d’etats. For example, Boix and Svolik (2013)

and Magaloni (2008) argue that authoritarian parties and legislatures help

establish a system of credible power-sharing between a ruler and his ruling

coalition, reducing the risk that the dictator will be overthrown by regime

elites. As Woo and Conrad (2019) emphasize, authoritarian institutions co-

opt elites to reduce the risk of coups. In a different vein, Geddes (2005)

argues that political parties decrease the likelihood of coups by giving party

members a stake in the incumbent regime and making them more likely to

oppose coups when they arise. The idea that autocratic rulers purposefully

adopt authoritarian institutions to strengthen their rule and that these institu-

tions promote autocratic stability is now well-accepted in the literature on

comparative authoritarianism.1

This “institutional turn” (Pepinsky, 2014) significantly contributes to the

theoretical development in comparative authoritarianism. However, one

shortcoming of this literature is that scholars have paid relatively little

attention to the fact that unlike coups in democracies, coups in autocracies

take two different forms: regime-changing coups and reshuffling coups.2

Regime-changing coups entirely change both the ruling elites in power and

the formal and informal rules for leadership selection and policies. Examples

of regime-changing coups are the military coups in Egypt (1952), Iraq

(1958), and Libya (1969) that ended dynastic rule by ousting the royal fam-

ily from power (Geddes et al., 2018, p. 46). Reshuffling coups, on the other

hand, preserve the regime and only replace the incumbent leader with

another member of the same ruling elite. The coups in Argentina during the

early 1970s that replaced only the junta leaders are an example of this type

(Geddes et al., 2018, p. 46). Both types of coups described above contrast

with coups against incumbent democracies, which only produce regime

change by interrupting democratic processes.

Importantly, regime-changing and reshuffling coups qualitatively differ in

terms of the perpetrators and their political goals. Reshuffling coups are typi-

cally conducted by members of the ruling coalition who have power to con-

trol leader selection and policy decisions in the regime. Members of the

ruling coalition execute reshuffling coups to hold a dictator accountable with-

out changing the membership of the ruling coalition or the rules for leader

Kim and Sudduth 1599

Kim and Sudduth 3

selection. These perpetrators seek to oust an opportunistic or incompetent

incumbent leader while maintaining or enhancing their own power. On the

other hand, regime-changing coups are typically conducted by regime mem-

bers who are outside the ruling coalition.3 When they are unhappy with the

way leadership positions and political power are controlled by the existing

group of ruling elites, these perpetrators seek to replace them and to change

the rules for choosing leaders and policies. Given these significant differ-

ences, the failure to distinguish between the two types of coups significantly

hinders efforts to understand the effects of authoritarian institutions on coups

(Aksoy et al., 2015; Geddes et al., 2018).

In this paper, we posit that the effects of authoritarian institutions on the

likelihood of coups crucially depend on the type of coups under consider-

ation. We argue that the presence of political parties and legislatures in

authoritarian regimes reduces the likelihood of reshuffling coups, while

authoritarian institutions have no meaningful impact on the likelihood of

regime-change coups. The primary goal of ruling coalition members is to

make a dictator commit to satisfactory power-sharing agreements or to pun-

ish the dictator for policy failures. Political institutions enable them to address

their concerns over a dictator’s opportunism and incompetence by facilitating

collective actions among ruling elites and improving the transparency.

Therefore, well-institutionalized political parties and legislatures diminish

the need for punishing opportunistic leaders via violent and risky means.

However, the same logic does not apply to regime-changing coups.

Those plotting this type of coup aim to change the ruling elites and the rules

for leader selection and policy decisions. These goals are incompatible with

the existing institutions’ values and rules and, thus, are not attainable via

activities within the institutions. Without providing a peaceful means of

achieving regime change, existing political institutions will not reduce plot-

ters’ willingness to use violent means to pursue their goals. Further, while

political institutions mobilize mass support toward the regime and would

deter regime-change coups, this deterrent effect of institutions will be offset

by the institutions’ effects in increasing the feelings of relative deprivation

and grievance among regime members outside the ruling coalition.

Consequently, we anticipate that political institutions do not affect the like-

lihood of regime-changing coups.

Using time-series cross-sectional data comprising the 118 authoritarian

countries over the years 1946 to 2010, we present supporting evidence for our

argument. The existence of political parties and legislatures in authoritarian

regimes is associated with a decreased likelihood of reshuffling coup

attempts. Contrarily, authoritarian political institutions do not significantly

affect the likelihood of regime-change coup attempts. These results are robust