Regime and Leader Instability
under Two Forms of Military Rule
Nam Kyu Kim∗
Alex M. Kroeger†
Abstract
The finding that military regimes are more fragile than other authoritarian regimes
represents one of the few stylized facts in comparative politics. However, the
existing literature contains substantial differences in the theoretical explanations
for military regime instability and operationalizations of military rule. To assess
competing explanations, we examine regime and leader instability after distinguishing between collegial and personalist military rule. We show that regime
and leader insecurity characterize only collegial military regimes. Particularly,
the fragility of collegial military regimes comes from a heightened likelihood of
democratization, not more frequent transitions to alternative autocratic regimes.
Additionally, leaders of collegial military regimes face higher risks of both regular
and irregular turnovers than other autocrats. Also, irregular exits of collegial military leaders tend to occur through reshuffling, rather than regime-changing, coups.
The results strongly support theories focusing on military officers’ preference for
unity over other explanations.
Forthcoming in Comparative Political Studies
∗
Corresponding Author: Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of NebraskaLincoln. Email: [email protected].
†
Graduate Student, Department of Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Email:
[email protected].
Introduction
The finding that military regimes are more unstable than other authoritarian regimes represents one of the few stylized facts in comparative politics. Since Geddes (2003) established
this finding, several follow-up studies confirm that military regimes have shorter tenures
than other autocratic regimes and are more likely to end in democratization (Debs, 2016;
Gandhi, 2008; Geddes, Wright, & Frantz, 2014; Lai & Slater, 2006; Magaloni, 2008). Thus,
the fragility of military regimes appears to be a foregone conclusion.
However, a closer look at the existing literature reveals substantial differences in the
theoretical explanations for military regime instability and the operationalization of military
rule. The fragility of military regimes is explained either by military officers’ preferences
for preserving the unity and corporate interests of the military (Geddes, 2003), the lack of
political parties and infrastructural power to maintain control over society without relying
on sheer repression (Gandhi & Przeworski, 2007; Lai & Slater, 2006; Magaloni, 2008), or
the ability of military leaders to secure improved post-tenure fates by initiating democratic
transitions (Debs, 2016; Geddes, 2003). Scholars also define military rule differently. While
some focus on military-led dictatorships, emphasizing the importance of a leader’s current
or former military service in explaining regime fragility (Debs, 2016; Gandhi, 2008), others
discuss collegial military regimes where a group of officers governs and controls access to
political offices (Geddes, 2003). Geddes, Frantz, and Wright (2014), extending the work of
Geddes (2003), emphasize both the military-civilian and the personalist dimensions of military
rule by distinguishing between two types of military regimes: collegial military regimes and
personalist military regimes.
As a result of these theoretical and definitional differences, our knowledge of military
regimes is much less coherent than often thought, with several important puzzles remaining
to be answered. For example, it is unclear whether regime and leadership insecurity apply to
both collegial and personalist military rule. It may be that the differences between military-led
and civilian-led dictatorships are driven primarily by the difference between collegial military
1
regimes and other autocracies. In addition, given the disagreement about what explains
the fragility of military regimes, we still do not know which mechanism is responsible for
the observed empirical pattern. Are the differences in regime stability and leader turnover
between military and civilian dictatorships simply a product of whether the leader wears, or
once wore, a military uniform or are other factors driving this relationship? It is also unclear
whether common assumptions used to explain the fragility of military rule, such as the lack
of political parties or the improvement of post-tenure fates following democratization, hold
for both collegial and personalist military regimes and leaders.
We systematically examine the relationship between military regimes and regime/leadership
instability by identifying and evaluating as many observable implications of existing theories
as possible while also distinguishing between collegial and personalist military rule. Our
empirical analyses reveal several important qualifications of the existing literature. First,
we find that regime and leader insecurity characterize only collegial military regimes. As
such, not all military-led dictatorships are more unstable than civilian dictatorships. Second,
collegial military regimes democratize more quickly than others, but do not experience more
frequent transitions to alternative autocratic regimes. Third, leaders of collegial military
regimes experience more regular and irregular turnovers than those of other autocracies.
Fourth, collegial military leaders are also more prone to coups than other autocratic leaders,
but these coups are primarily aimed at reshuffling leaders rather than changing regimes.
These findings demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between collegial and
personalist military regimes in both theories and empirical analyses of regime breakdown,
leader survival, and democratization. They also provide empirical support for all of the
observable implications of Geddes’s (2003) theory. While we acknowledge the difficulties
of directly testing Geddes’s argument about military officers’ preferences for unity, we find
only qualified support for the predictions of alternative theories stressing the importance of
political institutions and post-tenure fates. The predictions of these alternative theories are
only consistent with our findings when applied to collegial military regimes, contrary to their
2
original application to all military regimes. Our results also emphasize the need for scholars
to carefully match measures of military rule to the theories they are testing. Furthermore,
scholars should carefully consider whether alternative measures of military regimes are truly
substitutes when conducting robustness checks.
This study contributes to the literature on military regimes by providing the first
empirical analysis that systematically analyzes the three main theories of military regime
fragility. It also extends the work of Geddes, Frantz, and Wright (2014) and Geddes, Wright,
and Frantz (2014) by differentiating between two types of military rule and linking them
to different forms of regime and leader turnover. Our findings confirm the importance
of distinguishing between collegial and personalist military regimes when studying the
relationship between military regimes and regime/leadership insecurity.
Two Types of Military Rule
Many studies of authoritarian regimes identify military dictatorships as a distinct sub-type
of authoritarianism. Existing scholarship has found systematic differences between military
and civilian dictatorships across a range of important political outcomes. The distinctive
features of military dictatorship can be summarized as follows. First, military dictatorships
are led by individuals who specialize in the use of force. A higher capacity for violence
makes military dictatorships better equipped to use repression in response to popular dissent
(Escribà-Folch & Wright, 2010). However, the higher coercive capacity of military regimes
does not translate into more durable regimes and longer leader tenure. Both military regimes
and their leaders have the shortest life span of all authoritarian regime types and leaders
(Gandhi, 2008). Although the tenure of military regimes and leaders is more likely to end in
negotiated democratic transitions than other dictatorships (Geddes, 2003), military dictators
also face a high risk of being violently ousted by other officers, and suffer severe post-tenure
punishment such as imprisonment and death (Debs, 2016; Debs & Goemans, 2010).
While important differences have been found between military and civilian dictatorships,
3
recent research by Geddes, Frantz, and Wright (2014) emphasizes that there are two distinct
forms of military rule: collegial military rule and personalist military rule. These regimes
differ in both the decision-making procedures and the make-up and influence of the leadership
group, even though they are both ruled by current or former members of the military. Rule
by the military institution implies that political power resides within a governing junta
composed of key members of the armed forces. The junta institutes mechanisms to prevent
the leader from concentrating power individually, and the leader consults with a group of
officers representing the junta when making important decisions (Geddes, Frantz, & Wright,
2014). Examples include the regime in Brazil after the military coup in 1964, the three
military regimes in Pakistan since 1958, the 50 year military rule in Myanmar, and the regime
in Greece after the military coup in 1967. By contrast, personalist military rule takes the
form of “one-man rule,” characterized by uncontested control of executive powers. A single
military officer controls the decision-making structure and personalizes the security apparatus,
while other officers have little influence on important political decisions. Mobutu Sese Seko’s
regime (1960-1997) in Zaire, Rafael Trujillo’s regime (1930-1961) in the Dominican Republic,
and the Gaddafi regime (1969-2011) in Libya are notable examples of personalist military
rule.
As Geddes, Frantz, and Wright (2014) emphasize and we show below, the distinction
between collegial and personalist military rule has important theoretical and empirical
implications for research on the survival of military regimes and leaders. However, the
definitions and operationalizations of military rule in existing studies are not always compatible.
This is the case, for instance, when scholars theoretically discuss collegial military rule but
operationalize military regimes broadly to include collegial and personalist military regimes.1
In other cases, definitions and theories of military rule are ambiguous as to whether military
rule should be operationalized broadly as military-led dictatorship or as two distinct types,
1
Following Geddes, Frantz, and Wright (2014), we describe broad operationalizations of military rule that
focus on the current or former identity of the leader without considering the regime structure as military-led
dictatorships.
4
making operationalization and theory testing difficult. Thus, while military regimes and
leaders appear to experience distinct patterns of survival, theoretical ambiguity on the types
of military rule and the use of incompatible measures of military rule make it difficult to
distinguish among competing explanations.
Gandhi (2008) provides an example of the theoretical and empirical ambiguity described
above. Empirically, Gandhi codes regimes as military-led dictatorships when “[t]he effective
head of the government...is or was a member of the institutionalized military prior to taking
power” (p. 32). However, as Geddes, Frantz, and Wright (2014) point out, her discussion of
military led-dictatorships appears to suggest a particular type, the collegial military regime.
Gandhi states that “[w]hat constitutes military rule is the fact that the armed forces are the
institution through which rulers govern” (p. 25). This assumes that military governance is
carried out through a junta where power is shared among a group of high ranking military
officers, an assumption that does not apply to personalist military regimes (Geddes, Frantz, &
Wright, 2014). Gandhi also justifies the inclusion of a dummy variable for military leaders in
analyses of leader survival based on the work of Geddes (2003) who claims that military leaders
voluntarily leave office to preserve military unity. Yet, Geddes’s argument and Gandhi’s
measure of military dictatorship are not compatible since Geddes’s argument only applies to
collegial military regimes.
This ambiguity has been transferred to research investigating the effects of military
regimes on other outcomes. For example, Steinberg and Malhotra (2014) examine the effect
of authoritarian regime type on exchange rate policy. According to their explanation, tenure
security promotes undervalued exchange rates, something that can be economically beneficial
in the long run but painful in the short run. They claim that military-led regimes are less
likely to maintain undervalued exchange rates than civilian autocracies or monarchies because
military rulers are less secure in power, particularly during hard economic times. However,
this assumes that both collegial and personalist military leaders are plagued by job insecurity,
something that has not yet been verified empirically. Steinberg and Malhotra’s robustness
5
checks are also problematic. Their main empirical specifications rely on the measure of
military-led dictatorships from Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland (2010). As a robustness
check, they use the alternative measure of collegial military regimes from Geddes, Wright,
and Frantz (2014). Yet, as Geddes, Frantz, and Wright (2014) note, the Cheibub et al. (2010)
and Geddes, Wright, and Frantz (2014) measures capture different conceptions of military
rule that often cannot be used to test the same theoretical mechanisms.2
Of course, the distinction between collegial and personalist military regimes may not be
important when studying the relationship between military rule and regime/leader survival.
Both collegial and personalist military regimes may be more fragile than their civilian counterparts. Furthermore, several scholars disagree with the coding of personalist dictatorships,
such as personalist military regimes, as distinct types of authoritarianism (Magaloni, 2008;
Wahman, Teorell, & Hadenius, 2013). This disagreement leads some to treat personalism “as
a continuous trait that may be more or less present in a regime” (Hadenius & Teorell, 2007, p.
145). Thus, it may be unnecessary to distinguish between collegial and personalist military
regimes.
Therefore, comprehensive empirical analyses are needed to determine whether the
differences between the two types of military rule are, indeed, relevant to the study of regime
and leader survival. If both collegial and personalist military rule are more fragile than
civilian rule, differentiating between them is not important when studying regime/leader
survival or democratization. Yet, if Geddes, Frantz, and Wright (2014) are correct, this
distinction is very important. Determining whether both types of military rule are fragile
will also help further our theoretical understanding of the precise characteristics that produce
leader and regime fragility.
2
Steinberg and Malhotra (2014) also argue that military autocracies are more likely to maintain fixed
exchange rates than civilian autocracies because “a military junta typically depends on a handful of colonels or
generals to form the selectorate” (p. 408). Using the Cheibub et al. (2010) measure of military-led dictatorship
is not well-suited to testing their argument.
6
Three Explanations of Leader and Regime Instability
We reexamine the survival of military regimes and leaders by focusing on three specific theories
of fragility found in the existing literature. These theories explain survival through either
a preference held by military officers for unity within the military institution, the presence
of political parties and infrastructural power, the regime’s institutional control over society
and political opponents, or the post-tenure fates of leaders. We systematically review each
argument and attempt to generate testable hypotheses, with a particular focus on whether
each theory speaks to both types, or only one type, of military rule.
The first theory explaining the fragility of military rule focuses strictly on collegial
military regimes, defined as those where “a group of officers decides who will rule and exercises
some influence on policy” (Geddes, 2003, p. 51). Building on the previous studies (Decalo,
1976; Finer, 2002; Janowitz, 1977; Nordlinger, 1977; Stepan, 1971), Geddes (2003) argues
that military officers value the survival and efficacy of the military over anything else and
thus emphasize the preservation of unity and capacity within the military institution. When
political crises threaten to fracture the officer corps, one group is likely to prefer a return
to the barracks. When this group of officers makes a credible first move returning to the
barracks, most other officers acquiesce to their decision.3 As Geddes (2003) succinctly states,
“military regimes thus contain the seeds of their own destruction” (p. 131). However, Geddes,
Frantz, and Wright (2014) note that returning to the barracks is only possible in collegial
military regimes where junta members are able to constrain leader behavior. Personalist
military regimes are different in that leaders consolidate power individually. Compared to
collegial military regimes, Geddes expects personalist regimes to be less vulnerable to elite
splits as their leaders have a greater ability to monitor and undermine threatening individuals.
Ruling elites in a personalist regime tend to cling to the regime since they are likely to lose
all benefits when the regime collapses. Accordingly, personalist regimes are relatively safe
3
Geddes (2003) use a coordination game to illustrate this argument: both majority and minority factions
prefer to either stay in power together or return to the barracks together.
7
from internal splits except when economic crisis disrupts patronage networks. Thus, Geddes
expects collegial military regimes to be more fragile than personalist military regimes.
Additionally, the military unity argument can also be expected to produce different
modes of regime transition. As Geddes (2003) notes, transitions from collegial military regimes
are much more likely to result in democratization than transitions from personalist military
regimes. This is attributed to the ability of junta members to negotiate transitions back to the
barracks that protect their military careers and associated perks (see also Huntington (1991)
and Nordlinger (1977)). When they decide to extricate themselves from power, junta members
tend to negotiate their exit to arrange an orderly transition that protects their interests in
the post-transition period. Members of outgoing collegial military regimes are also unlikely to
compete in transitional elections, reducing opposition harassment and encouraging democratic
transitions (Geddes, Frantz, & Wright, 2014; Ofosu, 2013). Conversely, transitions from
personalist rule tend to be initiated using violence and coercion and result in authoritarian
transitions where those ousting the regime consolidate power for themselves (Geddes, 2003).
Therefore, it is more likely that the breakdown of collegial military regimes will be initiated
without coercion and more likely to result in democratization when compared to the breakdown
of personalist military regimes.
The expectation of short regime tenure following the theory of Geddes (2003) also
leads to the hypothesis that leaders of collegial military regimes have shorter tenures than
personalist military leaders. However, the end of a leader’s tenure does not always cause the
breakdown of the existing regime (Geddes, Wright, & Frantz, 2014). As Geddes (2003) finds,
coups against leaders of collegial military regimes are common and are primarily used as a
mechanism to maintain power-sharing by reshuffling leaders without changing the regime.
In this way, coups in collegial military regimes are “the analogue of votes of no confidence
in parliamentary systems” (Geddes, 2003, p. 66). When a faction of officers removes the
incumbent leader, other officers tend to go along with this decision. This provides another
reason to expect leaders of collegial military regimes to have shorter tenures than personalist
8
military leaders and also suggests different modes of exit for each type of military leader.
Additionally, military officers in collegial military regimes develop power-sharing agreements
of rotating leadership in order to deter the personalization of power and preserve military
unity. Leaders of collegial military regimes should be vulnerable to both regular and irregular
exits, with irregular exits taking the form of reshuffling, rather than regime changing, coups
(see Aksoy, Carter, and Wright (2015)).
Another prominent theory explaining the fragility of military rule focuses on the presence
of political parties and infrastructural power. Party-based explanations claim that military
regimes are fragile because they lack the institutional capacity to neutralize threats from regime
opponents without resorting to outright repression. Political parties provide a mechanism to
co-opt potential opponents by offering the opportunity for career advancement and access
to state resources in exchange for party membership (Gandhi, 2008; Gandhi & Przeworski,
2007).4 Political parties with strong institutions at the local, regional, and national levels
allow incumbents to mobilize party members and leverage the party’s ideological resources
in support of the regime during difficult political and economic times (Lai & Slater, 2006;
Slater, 2003). From this perspective, military-led regimes, lacking strong party institutions
and ideological resources, are less able to counter dissent through non-violent means and
often resort to overt repression when facing political and economic challenges.
The lack of a politically and ideologically dominant party in military-led regimes is
also argued to increase the likelihood of splits among ruling elites (Magaloni, 2008; Svolik,
2012), making leaders more vulnerable to internal challenges. Magaloni (2008) claims that
authoritarian political parties allow leaders to make credible power-sharing commitments
with elites by delegating the ability to fill political offices to the party. Party-based regimes
thus encourage “sunk political investments,” whereby junior party members provide greater
party service in exchange for fewer rewards in the hopes that they will be promoted to
4
Gandhi and Przeworski (2007) and Gandhi (2008) also argue that authoritarian legislatures as well
as political parties broaden support for the regime and lengthen its rule. According to their explanation,
however, political institutions are a best response to the dictator’s environment. Thus, we may not observe a
positive correlation between institutions and tenure.
9
senior positions which offer greater rewards for less party service (Svolik, 2012). This is
not to say that authoritarian leaders cannot renege on their power-sharing commitments.
However, party-backed leaders have incentives to maintain power-sharing commitments to
avoid “conspiracies, military coups, and violent rebellions” (Magaloni, 2008, p. 716). Magaloni
claims that military dictators are unable to offer the same level of power-sharing because their
dominant position within the military gives them substantial powers to select individuals into
positions of political power. Furthermore, the reliance of military dictators on repression as a
method of authoritarian control creates problems of moral hazard by empowering the state’s
repressive agents (Svolik, 2012). Hence, military dictatorships are less capable of solving
commitment problems, making military leaders more vulnerable to elite splits and coups.
Taken together, these theories predict that military-led dictatorships are more fragile than
civilian dictatorships because they lack strong party institutions.5 Military-led dictatorships
are less able to quell threats from inside and outside the regime. Accordingly, they are
expected to be more vulnerable to regime breakdown than party-based regimes. Military
dictators should also be short-lived in office, facing greater threats from revolts and coups. In
contrast to Geddes (2003), party-based arguments do not specify whether the breakdown
of military-led dictatorships is more likely to produce democratization or whether coups in
military-led dictatorships will be regime changing or reshuffling. They only expect a higher
likelihood of regime breakdown through coerced means.
Scholars using party-based theories to explain fragility define military rule in several
ways. While Geddes classifies military rule based on the locus of decision making authority,
Slater’s (2003) view of military rule shifts the focus to infrastructural power. Slater classifies
regimes as either party-backed or military-backed based on the organization that executes
the leader’s orders. Magaloni (2008) also stresses the importance of political parties for
autocratic survival, but defines military regimes as those where “the head of the executive is an
5
However, Wright and Escribà-Folch (2012) propose a dissenting view about the effect of authoritarian
parties on regime survival and democratization. They argue that authoritarian parties reduce collective
action costs for regime opponents and protect the interests of authoritarian elites in a subsequent democracy.
Accordingly, they destabilize authoritarian regimes and increase the likelihood of democratization.
10
active member of the military” (p. 732). According to Magaloni, what distinguishes military
dictatorship from party dictatorship is the organization that controls access to political office
and the main power positions. As a result, military regimes that create political parties are
not classified as party autocracies because military dictators share power with their ruling
coalition through the military institution (Magaloni, 2008). Last, as explained above, Gandhi
(2008) adopts the most inclusive definition by classifying regimes as military dictatorships
when the effective head of government is or ever was a member of the military. Despite
disagreements over the definition of military regimes, party-based theories do not emphasize
the difference between collegial and personalist military rule. Magaloni (2008, p. 740) does
consider this distinction in a footnote, but, contrary to Geddes (2003), predicts that collegial
military regimes will be more stable than personalist military regimes. Thus, party-based
theories provide few reasons to expect differences in regime transitions, leader survival, or
coups between the two types of military rule. Moreover, where two types of military regimes
are discussed by scholars taking this approach, collegial military regimes and leaders are
predicted to be more stable.
We assess assumptions in party-based theories that military dictatorships tend to lack
political parties when compared to civilian dictatorships. The left panel of Figure 1 explores
the percentage of country-years having political parties associated with an authoritarian leader,
using data from Svolik (2012). It is clear that collegial military (Junta) regimes are less likely
to have political parties associated with the leader than other types of authoritarian regimes,
including personalist military (Strongman) regimes.6 However, there is nearly an equal
probability that military personalist (Strongman) and civilian personalist (Boss) dictatorships
have a political party associated with the leader.7 We also examine the relationship between
6
We follow the previous studies’ labels (Lai & Slater, 2006; Weeks, 2012). Collegial civilian regimes are
called Machine.
7
This result is consistent with the finding that after the seizure of power, military dictators from less
professionalized militarizes created a civilian support party or allied themselves with a pre-existing party about
60% of the time (Geddes, Frantz, & Wright, 2014, 151). According to Geddes (2011), this high percentage of
strongmen with a civilian support party may be the result of these military leaders’ strategic choices. Leaders
from less professionalized militaries are more insecure in tenure, because credible power-sharing agreements
are more difficult to enforce. Thus, these leaders are more likely to create a mass-based civilian party or
11
Political parties associated with leader
1.00
●
●
●
0.75
●
0.75
●
Percent
Percent
Elected legislatures
0.50
●
0.50
●
●
0.25
0.25
0.00
●
Monarchy Junta Strongman Boss
●
0.00
Machine
Monarchy Junta Strongman Boss
Machine
Figure 1. Political parties and legislatures by autocratic regime type, 1946 – 2008. Dots show
the mean values, and vertical line segments associated with dots show the 95% confidence
intervals.
the existence of an elected legislature and authoritarian regime type, given that Gandhi and
Przeworski (2007) and Gandhi (2008) emphasizes the role of legislatures in coopting potential
opposition members. The right panel of Figure 1 shows that Junta regimes are less likely to
establish elected legislatures than other autocracies, with the exception of monarchies. Also,
more civilian personalist dictatorships rule with elected legislatures than military personalist
dictatorships.
Taken together, Figure 1 demonstrates the importance of differentiating between collegial
and personalist military regimes. If ruling parties enhance regime stability, only collegial
military regimes should be less stable than other autocratic regimes, with the exception of
monarchies. Additionally, insofar as elected legislatures contribute to regime stability, the
greater propensity of personalist civilian regimes to rule with elected legislatures relative to
personalist military regimes should result in greater regime stability.
Finally, the fragility of military rule has also been explained by the post-tenure fates of
ally themselves with a pre-existing party to counterbalance military forces. However, we cannot reject the
possibility that the role or influence of political parties may be different across regimes: political parties may
be more influential and effective under civilian personalist rule than under military strongman rule. Given
the lack of data on details of authoritarian regime parties, we are not able to verify this point.
12
regime elites. Geddes (2003, p. 63) states that all but the highest ranking regime officers in
collegial military regimes have incentives to voluntarily leave office because doing so allows
them to continue their military careers with few consequences. However, she states that
personalist leaders are less likely to initiate transitions because they are likely to lose their
privileged positions in society, and possibly lose their lives. Accordingly, personalist military
leaders are more likely to resist negotiating transitions to democracy with domestic opponents
than are leaders of collegial military regimes (Geddes, Wright, & Frantz, 2014).8
More recent scholarship has extended Geddes’s argument by claiming that even military
regime leaders, not just a large portion of the officer corps, can improve their post-tenure fates
by voluntarily leaving office. However, these explanations focus on military-led dictatorships
broadly. Using the Cheibub et al. (2010) measure of military-led dictatorship, Debs and
Goemans (2010) find that, when compared with other dictators, military dictators face a
higher likelihood of being exiled, imprisoned, or killed when exiting office. However, military
dictators face substantially better post-tenure fates when their exit occurs through a negotiated
democratic transition (Debs, 2016). Debs (2016) explains that democratic transitions solve
a commitment problem between former leaders and their successors. Military leaders, as
specialists in violence, pose a threat to their successors. This is particularly the case with
autocratic successors who can improve their survival prospects by eliminating other specialists
in violence. Democratic successors, however, are expected to have weaker incentives to harshly
punish military leaders for two reasons. First, democratic transitions favor politicians who
can win elections, not those with a high capacity for violence. This means that democratic
leaders often lack the capacity to punish outgoing military leaders. Second, the protection of
political rights in democracies means that democratic leaders expect substantial opposition
to emerge following any non-constitutional military intervention in politics. This reduces the
threat of future military intervention and decreases the incentive to exile, imprison, or kill
outgoing military leaders during democratic transitions. Military leaders are thus expected
8
Wright and Escribà-Folch (2012) also argue that authoritarian elites are less reluctant to accept democratization when they believe they can protect their interests in a subsequent democracy.
13
to democratize quickly to secure the best possible post-tenure fate. By extension, democratic
transitions from military rule can also be expected to take place without coercion.
Although Debs (2016) does not distinguish between collegial and personalist military
leaders, his argument implies that both types of leaders improve their post-tenure fates
through democratization. If this assumption is correct for both collegial and personalist
military leaders, we should not expect the distinction between the two types of military
rule to be consequential for regime or leader survival. However, if the two types of leaders
and regimes face different prospects following democratization, as Geddes (2003) suggests,
the type facing the most improved status following democratization should be the most
short-lived. Unlike the argument of Geddes, no clear hypotheses can be deduced from this
argument on the likelihood or type of coups against the two types of leaders.
We empirically analyze the post-tenure fates of authoritarian leaders after making
the additional distinction between collegial personalist military leaders. Figure A1 in the
Supporting Appendix shows that the distinction between collegial and personalist leaders
produces a different picture. As the top panel of the figure illustrates, Strongman leaders of
personalist military dictatorships tend to have worse post-tenure fates that leaders of other
authoritarian regimes. Conversely, more than the majority of Junta leaders avoid harsh
post-tenure punishments. We further differentiate post-tenure fates following transitions to
another autocratic regime from post-tenure fates following democratic transitions since Debs
(2016) emphasizes post-tenure fates after democratization. Following autocratic transitions
(middle panel), there is little difference in the post-tenure fates of Junta, Strongman, and
Boss leaders. However, when we focus on post-tenure fates following democratic transitions
(bottom panel), the percentage of OK fates for Junta leaders jumps substantially. By contrast,
both military and civilian personalist leaders see little improvement in their post-tenure fate
after democratization, which is consistent with the argument of Geddes, Wright, and Frantz
(2014). The personalist dimension seems to play a greater role in determining post-ouster
fates than does the military-civilian dimension.
14
Additionally, the number of dictators facing democratization, presented in the bottom
panel of Figure A1 challenges Debs’s argument. Of 121 Junta leaders, 79 (65%) of them
experienced democratization, while only 9 of 38 Strongman leaders (20%) experienced democratization. This shows that not all types of military dictators democratize quickly. If, as
Debs argues, the consequences of losing power loom large in autocrats’ minds, only Junta
leaders should democratize quickly.
This is not to say that the scholars discussed above have not considered the distinction
between collegial and personalist military rule. For example, Debs (2016) discusses Geddes’s
coding of collegial military regimes, arguing that this coding is problematic for predictive
purposes because it relies on the observed behavior of leaders (see Pepinsky (2014)). Instead, he
uses the CGV classification of military-led dictatorships. This measure does have advantages
for isolating certain causal processes as it only contains information available prior to the
leader’s ascension to power. At the same time, this measure is problematic because it
does not distinguish between leaders and political regimes. Leaders and regimes are not
conceptually equivalent. When we use Gandhi’s approach, we can only connect leaders’
personal background to regime instability or coup risk. Unlike Gandhi’s argument, a dictators’
military background does not necessarily imply that they rule through the armed forces,
as emphasized in Geddes, Wright, and Frantz (2014). When we are interested in how the
structure of control over policy, leadership selection, and the security apparatus influences
regime/leadership instability, we must use other measures.
Furthermore, while the Geddes coding of regimes may reflect the strategic behavior of
leaders, this does not preclude using these measures to analyze regime and leadership survival.
Any measure of political regimes that considers rules, procedures, and institutions of political
power reflects the strategic behavior of political actors, since political regimes are equilibrium
outcomes. For example, scholars argue that for democracy to work, it must be a self-enforcing
equilibrium in the sense that “incumbents choose to hold regular, competitive elections and
comply with the results” (Fearon, 2011, p. 1661; Przeworski, 1991; Przeworski, 2005). The
15
same can be said of the measure of single-party or multiparty autocracies in the Wahman
et al. (2013) dataset and Magaloni (2008) dataset in that they reflect key political actors’
strategic behavior. Nevertheless, we revisit these concerns after presenting our findings by
providing an assessment of how they might influence our results.
For the ease of comparison, Table 1 summarizes the existing theory’s observable implications for military dictatorships’ regime and leadership instability.
Regime failure
Autocratic breakdown
Democratic transitions
- Coerced democratization
- Non-coerced democratization
Autocratic transitions
Leadership failure
Regular leadership turnover
Irregular leadership turnover
Coups
- Regime-changing coups
- Reshuffling coups
Scholars
Officers’ preferences
for unity
Party-based
Post-tenure fates
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
Slater (2003)
Magaloni (2008)
Geddes (2003)
Debs (2016)
3
Geddes (2003)
Table 1. Summary of Existing Arguments. The check mark (3) implies that a theory associates
military dictatorships with a greater probability of the variable in the first column.
Data
We examine the relationship between military regimes and regime and leader failure rates
to test competing arguments on the fragility of military regimes. Our unit of analysis is
the country-year. Our main sample covers around 3,200 observations on 213 authoritarian
regimes between 1952 and 2009, subject to data availability.
16
Measuring Collegial and Personalist Military Regimes
To measure authoritarian regimes, we use the regime-type data constructed by Geddes,
Wright, and Frantz (2014) (hereafter GWF). The GWF dataset classifies autocracies as
military regimes, dominant-party dictatorships, personalist regimes, hybrids of these three
pure types, and monarchies. To distinguish between dictatorships, GWF focus on “whether
control over policy, leadership selection, and the security apparatus is in the hands of a ruling
party (dominant-party dictatorships), a royal family (monarchies), the military (rule by the
military institution), or a narrower group centered around an individual dictator (personalist
dictatorships)” (p. 318).9 Using this dataset, we differentiate between authoritarian regimes
using both personalist and military-civilian dimensions, resulting in the following regime
categories: personalist military (Strongman), collegial military (Junta), civilian personalist
(Boss), and collegial civilian (Machine) regimes. Emphasizing rule by military institutions,
GWF define military regimes as those in which “the dictator consults with other high-ranking
officers and can be constrained by them” (p. 152). Military dictatorships in Argentina
1955–1983, Brazil 1964–1985, and Uruguay 1973–1984 belong to this category. We code
military regimes identified by GWF as Junta regimes.
To measure Strongman, we follow GWF’s recommendation: a country-year qualifies as
military strongman rule when it is coded both as personalist by GWF and as military by
Cheibub et al. (2010).10 The Cheibub et al. classification of dictatorships depends solely
on the identity of the regime leader and does not consider the institutional configuration
and composition of the political leadership. It codes a dictatorship as a military dictatorship
if the effective leader is a military officer or was a military officer prior to seizing power.
Thus, military dictatorships coded by Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland identify military-led
autocracies, and the strategy of combining the GWF dataset with the Cheibub et al. dataset
9
For example, they code a regime as a military regime if the proportion of questions regarding military
rule answered by “yes” is high and the proportion of questions regarding personalist and party rule answered
by “yes” is low. A regime with high scores in multiple categories is coded as a hybrid regime.
10
The Supporting Appendix presents the list of collegial military rule and strongman military rule.
17
allows the identification of personalist military (Strongman) rule, a subset of military-led
autocracies. Idi Amin in Uganda (1971–1979), Yahya Jammeh in Gambia (1994–), Ali
Abdullah Saleh in Yemen (1978–2012) are notable examples of Strongman rule. Additionally,
we include the civilian counterparts of personalist and collegial military regimes, Boss and
Machine regimes. We code the remaining civilian personalist regimes in the GWF data
as Boss. Dominant-party dictatorships are coded as Machine. In addition to these four
autocratic regimes, we include Monarchy as a separate regime category.
Dependent Variables
To test our hypotheses regarding autocratic regime survival, we probe three dependent
variables: autocratic regime collapse, leadership removal, and coups. Following Geddes,
Wright, and Frantz (2014), a regime is defined as a set of “rules that identify the group
from which leaders can come and determine who influences leadership choice and policy” (p.
314). Regime change then occurs when there are significant changes in leadership and the
set of formal and informal rules for choosing leaders and policies. As GWF emphasize, this
definition has two important implications: 1) the removal of a dictator does not necessarily
coincide with regime change, and 2) autocratic breakdown includes autocracy-to-autocracy
transitions as well as democratization.
To identify the two forms of autocratic breakdown, we again use the GWF’s dataset
that provides information on when and how the autocratic regime starts and ends and what
the subsequent regime is. We further distinguish between coerced transitions and non-coerced
transitions. Coerced transitions refer to regime changes via foreign invasions, coups, uprisings,
or ouster by insurgents. Non-coerced transitions imply regime changes through elections or
rule changes made by insiders.
A second dependent variable is leadership turnover. To obtain the information on
leadership turnovers, we rely on the Archigos database (version 4.1) (Goemans, Gleditsch,
& Chiozza, 2009), covering the period of 1875–2015. Since we expect that the leaders of
Junta regimes are short-lived and reshuffled by coups, we examine both regular and irregular
18
turnover, as coded in the Archigos dataset. A leader turnover is coded as regular when a leader
is “removed in accordance with explicit rules or established conventions of his or her particular
country” and is coded as irregular when a leader removal is “in contravention of explicit rules
and established conventions.” Regular turnovers include leader changes through term limits
and defeat in elections, while irregular turnovers include turnovers through coups, revolts,
and assassinations. Leadership turnovers do not include deaths from natural causes, suicides,
retirement due to illness, or leaders deposed by other states, all of which are right-censored.
The last dependent variable is coups, the modal type of irregular leader removal in
dictatorships. We examine both all coup attempts and successful coup attempts. The
information on coups is taken from the dataset constructed by Powell and Thyne (2011),
covering the period of 1950 to the present year. By carefully differentiating coup attempts
from other types of anti-regime activities, such as riots, protests, or civil wars, they define
coup attempts as “illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state
apparatus to unseat the sitting executive” (p. 252).
We further differentiate between reshuffling coups and regime changing coups, relying
on the dataset developed by Aksoy et al. (2015). They define reshuffling coups as those “in
which the leader atop the regime changes but the group of elite in power remains the same”
and regime changing coups as those that change “the group of elite who hold power and the
way decisions are made” (p. 428). To identify regime changing coups, they combine the GWF
regime data with the coup data from Powell and Thyne (2011). They not only distinguish
successful regime changing coup attempts from reshuffling coup attempts but also do so for
failed coup attempts. To this end, they assess whether a failed coup attempt would have
led to a reshuffling of elite within the regime, or to the establishment of a new regime if it
had been successful.11 In the sample of autocratic countries from 1971 to 2006, their dataset
identifies 38 successful regime change coups, 77 failed regime changing attempts, 40 successful
reshuffling coups, and 73 failed reshuffling attempts.
11
See Aksoy et al. (2015) for details of their codings.
19
Control Variables
To control for potential confounding variables, we include a number of control variables based
on the existing literature on political liberalization and democratization. All variables are
lagged by one year.
First, we control for several measures of political instability. We include two dichotomous
variables Interstate war and Civil war, which equal 1 if a country has experienced the
corresponding war in the previous year and zero otherwise. These variables are taken from the
Correlates of War data (Sarkees & Schafer, 2000). We also include a measure of mass political
mobilizations using data drawn from Banks and Wilson (2013). We sum the incidents of
antigovernment demonstrations, general strikes, and riots that occur in the previous year and
log-transform the sum.
Second, we control for domestic political conditions that might affect regime and leader
survival. More liberalized regimes may be more likely to break down and suffer from coups
(e.g., Powell, 2012). We include the electoral democracy index (v2x_polyarchy), ranging
from 0 to 1, constructed by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project (Version 6.2) project
(Coppedge et al., 2016). This index is formed by averaging the following indices: clean
elections, elections for the chief executive, extensive suffrage, freedom of association, and
freedom of expression. These indices capture the political characteristics of the regime that
the GWF measures of authoritarian regimes do not address. A higher electoral democracy
index is expected to be associated with a greater likelihood of regime change.
Next, the level of economic development and economic growth affect autocratic regime
and leader survival. If the modernization theory holds true, economic development may
generate greater domestic pressure for democracy. On the other hand, short-term economic
growth may have the opposite effect on regime changes. We thus include a natural log of real
GDP per capita, and the annual percentage change of real GDP per capita. Data on GDP
per capita are taken from Penn World Table 7.0 (Heston, Summers, & Aten, 2011).
Fourth, global and regional environments may influence autocratic regime instability.
20
For example, international factors such as the Cold War struggle between the United States
and the Soviet Union or regional preponderance of democracies may independently affect
both military intervention and rivalries. Magaloni and Kricheli (2010) contend that “Cold
War conditions were particularly conducive to the emergence of closed dictatorships, and in
particular to military dictatorships, which strategically used the communist threat to get
funds from international financial institutions and from the United States to repress their
opponents” (p. 135). Conversely, regional preponderance of democracies may provide the
context for autocratic breakdown. We thus include a dummy variable for the post-Cold War
period and the proportion of democratic neighbors.12
Last, we include the natural log of regime duration or leader tenure, ln(t), in order to
control for negative duration dependence.
Empirical Analysis
Autocratic Regime Breakdown
We first examine the relationship between military regimes and regime survival. Table 2
presents the results of multinomial logit models in which the dependent variable can take
three possible values: autocratic regime survival, transition to another autocratic regime,
and democratization. This test allows us to compare the effect of military regimes on two
different types of autocratic breakdowns. The survival of the current autocratic regime is set
as the baseline category.
Model 1 includes two dummy variables, Military dictators and Monarch, and compares them with Civilian dictators, the baseline category. Consistent with existing studies
on military dictatorships, Military dictators are more likely to democratize than other
types of dictators. However, when we examine the likelihood of transitions to an alternative
autocratic regime, the difference between Military dictators and Civilian dictators
12
We define a country’s neighbors as all countries within 1001 km minimum distance, as reported in the
cshapes R library.
21
(1)
(2)
Transition to
Transition to
Military dictators
Monarchy
Democracy
Autocracy
0.995∗∗
(0.295)
-0.893
(1.002)
0.024
(0.292)
-0.583
(0.744)
79
78
<0.001
79
Monarchy
Protest
ln(GDP per capita)
GDP growth
Neighbor democratic transition
Post-Cold War
ln(t)
Constant
H0: Junta=Strongman (p-val.)
Transitions
N
Log-Likelihood
0.45
78
2.710∗
(1.057)
0.513∗
(0.248)
0.215
(0.560)
0.248
(0.183)
-0.328∗∗
(0.117)
-0.035∗∗
(0.009)
0.504∗
(0.224)
-1.519∗∗
(0.357)
-0.205
(0.137)
-1.610∗
(0.816)
Boss
Interstate War
0.774∗
(0.334)
0.536+
(0.324)
1.006∗∗
(0.345)
-0.327
(0.717)
3.074∗∗
(0.922)
0.477∗
(0.239)
0.228
(0.591)
0.190
(0.192)
-0.312∗∗
(0.111)
-0.040∗∗
(0.010)
0.507∗
(0.225)
-1.717∗∗
(0.371)
-0.050
(0.138)
-2.471∗∗
(0.724)
3.894∗∗
(1.024)
0.117
(0.293)
0.123
(0.600)
0.756∗∗
(0.127)
0.120
(0.134)
-0.032∗
(0.013)
0.441+
(0.233)
-0.032
(0.338)
-0.025
(0.111)
-6.471∗∗
(0.941)
Strongman
Civil conflict
Autocracy
3.050∗∗
(0.379)
0.349
(0.578)
1.559∗∗
(0.385)
0.007
(1.063)
4.092∗∗
(1.012)
-0.137
(0.350)
0.197
(0.649)
0.598∗∗
(0.155)
-0.068
(0.132)
-0.053∗∗
(0.014)
0.437+
(0.247)
0.081
(0.385)
0.566∗∗
(0.164)
-7.322∗∗
(1.082)
Junta
Electoral democracy index
Democracy
3111
-661.21
3111
-626.63
Table 2. Multinomial logit model of autocratic regime change , by transition outcomes. All
covariates are lagged by one year. Standard errors are clustered by country (reported in
parentheses): +p < 0.1, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
22
Democractic Transition
Autocractic Transition
●
Junta
●
●
Strongman
●
●
Machine
●
●
Boss
●
●
Monarchy
0%
●
5%
10%
15%
20%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
Figure 2. Predicted probabilities of autocratic breakdown across different autocratic regime
types. Dots show the point estimates, and vertical line segments associated with dots show
the 95% confidence intervals.
is close to zero and not significant. This suggests that, contrary to what many existing
studies argue, military-led dictatorships are not simply more fragile than civilian-led dictatorships. They are, however, more likely to experience autocratic collapses that result in
democratization.
Model 2, which sets collegial civilian Machine regimes as the baseline category, shows
that not all types of military-led dictatorships are prone to democratization by displaying
a significant difference between Junta and Strongman. For ease of interpretation, Figure
2 displays the predicted probabilities of democratic transitions and autocratic transitions
across different autocratic regime types.13 Junta regimes are most likely to democratize, and
the difference between Junta and other regimes is substantial. For instance, the estimated
annual probability of democratization in Junta regimes is 15 percent. Junta regimes are 15
times more likely than Machine regimes (1 percent) and 10 times more likely than Strongman
regimes (1.5 percent) to democratize. In contrast, Strongman regimes are less likely to
democratize than their civilian personalist counterpart Boss regimes (1.5 percent versus 3
13
We adopt the observed value approach, setting all the other covariates to the values observed for each
observation, and obtain average effects.
23
percent; p-value < 0.05) and are not significantly different from collegial civilian Machine
regimes (p-value ≈ 0.38) . This suggests that the difference between military-led and civilianled dictatorships, found in Model 1, is mainly driven by the difference between Junta regimes
and other autocratic regimes.
When we examine autocracy-to-autocracy transitions, little evidence shows that the
fragility of military rule applies to autocratic transitions. Boss regimes are most prone to
autocratic collapses that result in transitions to subsequent dictatorship (about 4 percent),
and both types of military dictatorships (Junta: 3.2 percent and Strongman: 3 percent) are
more likely to experience autocratic transitions than Machine regimes (2.7 percent). Thus,
we cannot conclude that military dictatorships are more likely to be replaced by another
autocratic regime than civilian dictatorships. Additionally, no significant difference between
Junta and Strongman regimes is found.
These results are more consistent with Geddes’s argument than with other arguments
that aggregate two types of military autocracies. No significant evidence suggests that
personalist military dictatorships are less durable than personalist civilian dictatorships.
Indeed, we find evidence that suggests the opposite, supporting the claim of Geddes, Frantz,
and Wright (2014) that simply focusing on military dictators conceals substantial variation
between the two forms of military rule. Furthermore, the fragility of collegial military regimes
in comparison to other autocracies is only the result of a higher likelihood of democratic,
not autocratic, transitions. This finding supports the predictions of Geddes and challenges
the predictions of party-based theories that military dictatorships are generally fragile. The
propensity for democratic transitions under collegial military rule is also more consistent with
Geddes’s argument that military officers return to the barracks when faced with political
crises that threaten to undermine unity within the military institution.
We further differentiate between coerced and not-coerced breakdowns in Table 3. Differentiating between transition outcomes and transition modes generates four kinds of autocratic
regime breakdowns: coerced democratization, non-coerced democratization, coerced auto-
24
Transition to
Transition mode
Junta
Strongman
Boss
Monarchy
Electoral democracy index
Civil conflict
Interstate War
Protest
ln(GDP per capita)
GDP growth
Neighbor democratic transition
Post-Cold War
ln(t)
Constant
H0: Junta=Strongman (p-val.)
Transitions
N
Log-Likelihood
Democracy
Non-coerced
Democracy
Coerced
Autocracy
Non-coerced
Autocracy
Coerced
3.389∗∗
(0.483)
-0.241
(0.835)
1.040+
(0.577)
-0.193
(1.105)
5.066∗∗
(1.269)
-0.531
(0.438)
-0.527
(1.122)
0.519∗∗
(0.201)
-0.029
(0.170)
-0.050∗∗
(0.015)
0.505+
(0.289)
0.342
(0.465)
0.551∗∗
(0.204)
-8.337∗∗
(1.316)
2.522∗∗
(0.680)
1.092
(0.824)
2.312∗∗
(0.607)
0.332
(1.148)
1.616
(1.560)
0.325
(0.447)
0.870
(0.753)
0.760∗∗
(0.214)
-0.179
(0.182)
-0.055∗
(0.028)
0.299
(0.367)
-0.213
(0.589)
0.566+
(0.290)
-7.117∗∗
(1.509)
1.032
(0.834)
-0.198
(1.314)
-13.356∗∗
(0.831)
-12.965∗∗
(0.756)
0.016
(2.828)
1.082
(0.926)
-13.604∗∗
(0.682)
-0.422
(0.471)
0.288
(0.318)
-0.004
(0.038)
-0.061
(0.545)
-0.360
(0.956)
-0.390
(0.344)
-6.901∗∗
(2.285)
0.642
(0.415)
0.636+
(0.336)
1.212∗∗
(0.341)
-0.145
(0.730)
3.515∗∗
(0.962)
0.366
(0.295)
0.470
(0.576)
0.278
(0.199)
-0.409∗∗
(0.122)
-0.044∗∗
(0.010)
0.575∗
(0.248)
-1.908∗∗
(0.416)
-0.004
(0.161)
-2.250∗∗
(0.814)
<0.001
53
0.03
26
0.21
10
0.99
68
3111
-687.59
Table 3. Multinomial logit model of autocratic regime change, by transition outcomes and
modes. All covariates are lagged by one year. Standard errors are clustered by country
(reported in parentheses): +p < 0.1, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
cratic transition, and non-coerced autocratic transition. Table 3 estimates multinomial logit
regressions using these four types of transitions as possible outcomes. Again supporting Geddes’s argument, Junta regimes dominate other autocracies in the probability of non-coerced
democratization, and its differences from other autocracies are statistically significant at the
25
25%
15%
●
●
10%
●
●
Failure rate
Failure rate
20%
15%
●
10%
●
●
5%
●
5%
0%
0%
Military
Civilian
Monarch
Junta Strongman Machine
Boss
Monarchy
Figure 3. Autocrat’s failure rate by autocratic regime type, 1946 – 2010
1% level. Meanwhile, Junta regimes are more likely than collegial civilian Machine regimes
to democratize via coerced means such as coups, uprisings, and ouster by insurgents but are
nearly equally likely to engage in coerced democratization as civilian personalist Boss regimes.
Next, the examination of autocratic transitions reveals a different pattern. Junta regimes are
not statistically different from Machine and Strongman regimes. Last, little evidence suggests
that Strongman regimes are fragile, regardless of how we measure autocratic transitions.14
Leader removal
Given the difference between regime and leadership survival, we examine the relationship
between autocratic regime types and leadership failure. We first take a descriptive look
at data. The left panel of Figure 3 plots leadership failure rates per year by autocratic
regime type. Military dictators tend to lose power at a higher annual rate than their civilian
counterparts. Yet a different pattern emerges when we differentiate authoritarian regimes
using the personalist dimension. As shown in the right panel of Figure 3, leaders of Junta
regimes are most insecure in office and military strongmen stay in power slightly longer on
average than civilian bosses. This suggests that the difference in tenure between military and
civilian leaders is largely attributed to Junta leaders.
14
There are only 10 non-coerced autocratic transitions, and Boss and Monarchy experienced no non-coerced
autocratic transitions. This explains the large, negative coefficients on Boss and Monarchy.
26
Table 4, presenting logit estimates of leadership turnover, shows that this finding holds
when we control for other confounding variables.15 Model 1 shows that leadership failure
rate is higher for military dictators than for other types of dictators. However, when Model
2 distinguishes between Junta and Strongman leaders, leaders of Junta regimes have the
greatest risk of removal, and failure rates of Strongman leaders are not statistically different
from those of civilian leaders.
Simply focusing on leadership failure does not directly test Geddes’s argument that
military leaders in Junta regimes are vulnerable to both regular and irregular exits and
military personalist leaders are not. We thus differentiate between regular and irregular exits:
Models 3 and 4 examine only regular leadership turnovers including those through term
limits and electoral defeats, and Models 5 and 6 consider only irregular leadership turnovers
including those through coups, revolts, and assassinations. Figure 4 illustrates the predicted
probabilities of each type of leader failure across different regime types. The estimated annual
probability that a Junta regime experiences a regular leadership turnover is 8.4 percent,
which is substantially greater than those for other authoritarian regimes (the differences being
statistically significant at 5% level). Nonpersonalist civilian Machine regimes also tend to
have more frequent regular leadership changes than both personalist regimes (4.2 vs. 2.2
percent; p-values < 0.001). When we examine irregular exits, Junta leaders are most prone
(8.5 percent), although their difference from civilian personalist Boss leaders is not statistically
significant at any conventional level. Machine leaders are least prone to irregular exits (2.4
percent), showing the importance of political parties in establishing credible power-sharing
deals between a ruler and his ruling coalition. Last, Strongman leaders face a lower risk of
irregular leader turnover than Boss leaders, their personalist civilian counterparts, but the
difference between the two personalist regimes is not statistically different from zero (4.3
percent vs. 7.2 percent; p-value of 0.22).
Taken together, the results show that leadership instability characterizes only collegial
15
We also reestimate all the models of Table 4 by using the full sample including democracies. Results
remain similar.
27
Leader exit
(1)
Military dictators
Monarchy
0.677∗∗
(0.165)
0.123
(0.485)
3.192∗∗
(0.680)
0.025∗∗
(0.007)
-0.509
(0.388)
0.733∗∗
(0.188)
0.294∗∗
(0.086)
-0.027
(0.072)
-0.006
(0.008)
-0.797∗∗
(0.198)
0.284∗
(0.122)
-0.406∗∗
(0.088)
-4.070∗∗
(0.588)
294
3171
-899.01
0.00
294
3171
-891.91
Strongman
Boss
Monarchy
Age
Interstate war
Civil war
Protest
ln(GDP per capita)
GDP growth
Post-Cold War
Neighbor democratic transition
ln(Tenure)
Constant
H0: Junta=Strongman (p-val.)
Turnovers
N
Log-Likelihood
Irregular exit
(3)
(5)
(4)
0.629∗∗
(0.230)
0.214
(0.847)
1.015∗∗
(0.209)
0.270
(0.258)
0.333+
(0.191)
0.124
(0.518)
2.784∗∗
(0.601)
0.022∗∗
(0.008)
-0.467
(0.399)
0.554∗∗
(0.173)
0.265∗∗
(0.084)
-0.066
(0.071)
-0.007
(0.008)
-0.742∗∗
(0.194)
0.305∗
(0.124)
-0.327∗∗
(0.095)
-3.659∗∗
(0.644)
Junta
Electoral democracy index
(2)
Regular exit
(6)
0.654∗∗
(0.215)
-0.011
(0.374)
3.814∗∗
(0.738)
0.037∗∗
(0.010)
-0.270
(0.559)
0.684∗∗
(0.243)
0.391∗∗
(0.118)
0.190
(0.116)
0.024∗
(0.011)
-0.218
(0.226)
0.260
(0.161)
-0.490∗∗
(0.115)
-7.470∗∗
(0.823)
0.673∗∗
(0.261)
-0.708+
(0.392)
-0.676+
(0.356)
0.061
(0.844)
3.277∗∗
(0.676)
0.031∗∗
(0.010)
-0.234
(0.540)
0.538∗∗
(0.206)
0.387∗∗
(0.109)
0.109
(0.113)
0.021+
(0.012)
-0.023
(0.227)
0.263
(0.165)
-0.401∗∗
(0.124)
-6.301∗∗
(0.825)
144
3171
-521.53
0.00
144
3171
-515.85
1.868∗
(0.859)
0.014
(0.010)
-1.306∗
(0.606)
0.608∗∗
(0.229)
0.201
(0.139)
-0.275∗∗
(0.095)
-0.022∗
(0.010)
-1.493∗∗
(0.278)
0.378∗
(0.155)
-0.297∗∗
(0.093)
-2.140∗∗
(0.736)
1.360∗∗
(0.276)
0.827∗
(0.325)
1.232∗∗
(0.246)
0.203
(0.401)
1.585∗
(0.793)
0.012
(0.011)
-1.284∗
(0.612)
0.426+
(0.226)
0.145
(0.142)
-0.264∗∗
(0.086)
-0.024∗
(0.011)
-1.609∗∗
(0.279)
0.425∗∗
(0.158)
-0.202∗
(0.098)
-2.477∗∗
(0.808)
145
3171
-542.63
0.09
145
3171
-527.61
Table 4. Logit model of leader exit in autocratic regimes. All covariates are lagged by one
year. Standard errors are clustered by country (reported in parentheses): +p < 0.1, *p < 0.05,
**p < 0.01.
28
military regimes, not personalist military regimes. On the other hand, no significant evidence
shows that personalist military rulers are more likely to be removed than civilian rulers,
regardless of whether we examine regular or irregular removal. This supports Geddes’s
argument and challenges alternative explanations regarding the tenure of military rulers.
Regular exit
Irregular exit
●
Junta
●
●
Strongman
●
●
Machine
●
●
Boss
●
●
Monarchy
0%
4%
●
8%
12%
0%
4%
8%
12%
Figure 4. Predicted probabilities of leader exits across different autocratic regime types.
Dots show the point estimates, and vertical line segments associated with dots show the 95%
confidence intervals.
Coups
Last, we probe a specific mode of leadership turnover–coups d’etat. While the modal dictator
exits office through a coup d’etat (Svolik, 2012), determining whether collegial and personalist
military regimes face different risks of coups is an important step toward broadening our
understanding of the fragility of military regimes. Focusing specifically on coups also allows
us to assess Geddes’s argument that coups in collegial military regimes are used primarily
as a mechanism of leader, and not regime, change. Table 5 reports logit estimates, and
Figure 5 presents the substantive impact of autocratic regime types on different types of
coup attempts. Models 1 and 2 examine successful coups. Model 1 shows that Military
dictators are more likely to experience successful coups than Civilian dictators (Model
29
1), and Model 2 demonstrates that Junta leaders are more likely to be ousted via coups
than other autocrats, including Strongman leaders (Model 2). Congruent with the results in
Table 4, coup risk for Junta leaders greatly outweighs the coup risk for other autocrats. The
same cannot be said of Strongman leaders. However, Models 3 and 4, examining failed coup
attempts, display a different pattern. Military dictators are more likely than civilian dictators
to experience failed coup attempts, while Junta and Strongman leaders are not significantly
different from each other and are more coup-prone than other civilian dictatorships.
Remaining models of Table 5 differentiate reshuffling coup attempts from regime-change
coup attempts.16 Military-led dictatorships are more likely to experience reshuffling coup
attempts than civilian-led dictatorships (Model 5), but this does not hold when we examine
regime-change coup attempts (Model 7). When accounting for the personalist dimension,
Model 6 demonstrates that Junta leaders are most prone to reshuffling coup attempts,
manifesting a substantial difference from other regime types. Conversely, Junta leaders are
less prone to regime changing coups than civilian personalist Boss and Monarchy leaders.
The results suggest that most coups in Junta regimes just reshuffle leaders without altering
the rules of the regime or the leadership group. This supports the argument of Geddes (2003)
that collegial military regimes often use coups as a method for reshuffling leaders. This also
fits well with the findings reported in Tables 2 and 3 that Junta regimes are less durable but
their insecurity manifests only in the likelihood of democratization, but not in the likelihood
of transition to another autocracy.
Robustness Checks
As a robustness check, we use an alternative measure of Junta regimes. Following GWF’s
suggestion, our main regime measures include all party-hybrids and oligarchies in the category
of dominant-party dictatorships by prioritizing the party dimension, grouping only “personalmilitary” with military regimes and classifying pure “personal” as personalist autocracies.
To explore how this coding rule affects estimation results, we use an alternative, broad
16
We also examine only successful reshuffling and regime-change coup attempts. Results remain similar.
30
Successful coups
(1)
Military dictators
Monarchy
2.131∗
(0.939)
0.255
(0.261)
-1.421
(1.046)
0.099
(0.174)
-0.193+
(0.112)
-0.021+
(0.011)
0.333
(0.218)
-1.250∗∗
(0.340)
-0.182∗∗
(0.062)
0.010∗
(0.004)
-0.000∗
(0.000)
-1.809∗
(0.780)
100
3114
-403.88
0.03
100
3114
-398.98
Boss
Monarchy
Interstate War
Protest
ln(GDP per capita)
GDP growth
Neighbor democratic transition
Post-Cold War
t
t2
t3
Constant
H0: Junta=Strongman (p-val.)
Coups
N
Log-Likelihood
(4)
0.602∗
(0.245)
0.322
(0.349)
1.040∗∗
(0.280)
0.406
(0.305)
0.745∗
(0.311)
-0.522
(0.657)
1.838∗
(0.897)
0.108
(0.258)
-1.407
(1.041)
0.026
(0.167)
-0.243∗
(0.104)
-0.023∗
(0.011)
0.362+
(0.217)
-1.346∗∗
(0.357)
-0.170∗∗
(0.064)
0.010∗
(0.004)
-0.000∗
(0.000)
-1.663∗
(0.757)
Strongman
Civil war
(3)
0.504∗
(0.232)
-0.585
(0.636)
Junta
Electoral democracy index
(2)
Failed coups
Reshuffling
(5)
(6)
1.705∗∗
(0.462)
-0.227
(1.016)
0.697
(1.308)
0.403
(0.325)
0.104
(0.493)
0.264
(0.170)
-0.074
(0.097)
0.008
(0.017)
0.370
(0.256)
-0.735∗
(0.302)
-0.225∗∗
(0.059)
0.010∗∗
(0.004)
-0.000∗
(0.000)
-2.349∗∗
(0.791)
1.200∗∗
(0.331)
1.075∗∗
(0.398)
0.851∗
(0.376)
0.598
(0.423)
0.456
(1.228)
0.326
(0.307)
0.125
(0.497)
0.190
(0.173)
-0.094
(0.094)
0.007
(0.018)
0.382
(0.255)
-0.904∗∗
(0.303)
-0.216∗∗
(0.060)
0.010∗∗
(0.004)
-0.000∗
(0.000)
-2.533∗∗
(0.806)
102
3114
-412.93
0.64
102
3114
-405.50
Regime-changing
(7)
-0.076
(0.255)
0.128
(0.694)
1.034
(1.358)
0.147
(0.400)
0.148
(0.584)
0.305
(0.193)
-0.177
(0.126)
-0.011
(0.014)
-0.067
(0.297)
-1.154∗
(0.540)
-0.338∗∗
(0.100)
0.018∗∗
(0.007)
-0.000+
(0.000)
-2.345∗
(1.171)
2.578∗∗
(0.403)
1.234∗
(0.505)
0.381
(0.773)
-0.190
(1.010)
0.029
(1.391)
-0.287
(0.285)
0.286
(0.618)
0.135
(0.213)
-0.305∗
(0.146)
-0.016
(0.018)
-0.051
(0.299)
-0.847+
(0.485)
-0.281∗∗
(0.087)
0.015∗∗
(0.006)
-0.000∗
(0.000)
-1.586
(1.240)
2.399∗∗
(0.916)
0.519+
(0.311)
-0.869
(0.994)
-0.205
(0.278)
-0.441∗∗
(0.138)
-0.030∗
(0.012)
0.280
(0.303)
-1.018∗
(0.438)
-0.345∗∗
(0.122)
0.018+
(0.010)
-0.000
(0.000)
0.304
(0.865)
0.094
(0.386)
0.404
(0.352)
1.103∗∗
(0.386)
0.414
(0.703)
2.671∗∗
(0.906)
0.433
(0.354)
-0.981
(0.995)
-0.230
(0.288)
-0.379∗∗
(0.146)
-0.029∗
(0.013)
0.292
(0.305)
-1.382∗∗
(0.452)
-0.352∗∗
(0.124)
0.019+
(0.010)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.461
(0.949)
66
2412
-261.61
0.00
66
2412
-245.87
63
2412
-260.75
0.46
63
2412
-256.59
Table 5. Logit model of coup attempts and successful coups in autocratic regimes. All
models include a cubic polynomial of years since the last coup. All covariates are lagged
by one year. Standard errors are clustered by country (reported in parentheses): +p < 0.1,
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
measure of Junta regimes by coding all military hybrids, including “party-military” and
“party-personal-military” hybrids as Junta.
31
(8)
Successful coup
●
Junta
0%
10%
0%
●
●
●
5%
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Boss
Regime−changing
●
●
●
Machine
Reshuffling
●
●
Strongman
Monarchy
Failed coup
●
●
5%
10%
0%
●
5%
10%
0%
5%
10%
Figure 5. Predicted probabilities of coups across different autocratic regime types. Dots
show the point estimates, and vertical line segments associated with dots show the 95%
confidence intervals.
We code residual party-based autocracies as Machine. Using these alternative measures
of Junta and Machine regimes, we re-estimate all models of Tables 2 to 5 and report the
results in the Supporting Appendix (Tables A2 to A4). Our central findings are not altered
by this alternative coding of regimes.
We also employ alternative estimators. For each of our dependent variables, we include
country random effects to control for unobserved heterogeneity among countries and cluster
standard errors at the regime level (reported in Supporting Appendix). Our main findings
are robust to these alternative estimators.
Discussion and Conclusion
Our empirical analyses demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between collegial and
personalist military rule when studying regime and leadership survival. We show that the
stylized facts of regime and leader instability under military rule are only applicable to
collegial military rule. Regime and leadership instability are not pronounced in personalist
military regimes. Also, the breakdown of collegial military regimes is more likely to result in
32
democratization, but does not increase the likelihood of transitions to alternative authoritarian
regimes. The leaders of collegial military regimes face a higher risk of both regular and
irregular leader turnover than other autocrats, and are particularly vulnerable to coups.
However, coups against collegial military leaders tend to be reshuffling rather than regime
changing coups. Previous findings showing that military-led dictatorships are more unstable
than civilian dictatorships are thus driven by collegial, not personalist, military rule.
These results provide strong support for Geddes’s predictions about the effect of military
regimes on regime survival, democratization, and coups. They are consistent with her
argument that preferences for military unity in the officer corps make collegial military
regimes more likely to break down and exit office voluntarily when facing popular threats or
economic crises than other authoritarian regimes. The leaders of collegial military regimes
face higher risks of both regular and irregular exits from office, with irregular exits often
coming in the form of coups that reshuffle leaders without toppling the regime.
Our findings call into question party-based explanations of the fragility of military rule.
Contrary to these explanations, personalist military dictatorships are not more fragile than
civilian dictatorships. Additionally, the fact that collegial military dictatorships are not
particularly prone to autocratic transitions and that democratic transitions from collegial
military rule tend to be voluntary and orderly are not congruent with the party-based
arguments.
Our results provide mixed support for Debs’s argument which connects military regime
and leadership instability to the post-tenure fates of leaders. Distinguishing between collegial
and personalist military rulers again proves to be theoretically and empirically important.
Although Debs applies his theory to all military rulers, we find that only collegial military
rulers see improvements in their post-tenure fates following transitions to democracy. This
finding, while questioning Debs’s classification of military rulers, is actually supportive of
his theoretical reasoning as more frequent transitions to democracy should only be expected
when such transitions improve the leader’s post-tenure fate.
33
One potential concern with our findings is that the GWF coding of collegial military
regimes contains information about the leaders’ observed post-seizure behavior, which is
a strategic response to the leader’s expectation about regime and leader instability.17 For
instance, our empirical results are significantly undermined if the GWF measures of collegial
military regimes simply reflect information about regime and leadership instability of collegial
military regimes. However, we find few reasons to believe this is the case. The existence of
power-sharing and leader constraints in collegial military regimes does not predict that these
regimes are short-lived. Even if the existence of power-sharing and leader constraints simply
reflect the leader’s political weakness, this can only explain leader instability, not regime
instability. In addition, as Magaloni (2008) argues, we can make the opposite argument that
power-sharing and leader constraints should result in collegial military regimes having greater
leadership and regime stability than personalist military regimes. Last, power-sharing and
leader constraints do not explain why collegial military regimes are more likely to experience
democratic, but not autocratic, transitions than other dictatorships.
Importantly, however, this study does not represent a final judgment of the efficacy of
Geddes’s theory over party-based and post-tenure fate theories.18 The empirical analyses
only provide support for the empirical implications of Geddes’s theory; they do not directly
test officer preferences for military unity. Additional work is needed to better understand
the motivations behind voluntary exits from office by military officers. Also, scholars should
pay particular attention to how to interpret frequent coups in collegial military regimes. Are
they motivated by a desire to maintain unity within the military government and prevent a
single leader from concentrating power in his hands? Or are they merely a proxy of internal
power struggles? If the latter is true, frequent coups contradict the assumption that military
officers emphasize corporate unity within the military institution.
Finally, this study has not investigated the internal consistency of the theories tested.
We have only tested the empirical implications of existing arguments. Geddes, for example,
17
18
We thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this question.
We thank an anonymous reviewer for calling this point to our attention.
34
uses a coordination (battle-of-sexes) game to explain why officers voluntarily return to the
barracks when political divisions among officers threaten military unity. Pepinsky (2014)
argues that “more theoretical work is required to produce the prediction that military regimes
are more likely to break down after internal splits because they play a co-ordination game”
(p. 638). This is because the mere existence of the two equilibria, {Intervene, Intervene}
and {Barracks, Barracks}, says nothing about the stability of a particular equilibrium, and
it is not clear whether internal splits imply a change in the relative preference orderings
of the military factions or the absolute difference in the preferences (see Pepinsky (2014)
for details). In addition to questions of internal consistency, there are also questions about
the development of post-tenure fate theories. For example, Debs’s (2016) theory links the
post-tenure fates of military leaders to regime breakdown and democratization. Geddes (2003)
provides a similar argument, but only claims that the majority of officers, not the most senior
leaders in military regimes, have incentives to return to the barracks and initiate democratic
transitions to improve their post-tenure fates. These two arguments, while both discussing
post-tenure fates, suggest distinct processes of regime breakdown and democratic transition
that have yet to be investigated.
35
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38