Mass Revolutions vs. Elite Coups
Ruth Kricheli and Yair Livne ∗
[email protected]
[email protected]
February 8, 2010
Abstract
Most of the contemporary autocracies were not replaced by a democracy after
their collapse. Instead, they were more likely to be replaced by a new autocracy
headed by the group that initiated the autocrat’s overthrow. The paper provides a
theory of authoritarian breakdown emphasizing the relationship between an autocracy’s
economic performance and the probability that it will be replaced by a democracy and
the probability that it will be replaced by another autocracy. Our theory is based
on the interaction between three political classes: the dictator, who is interested in
surviving in power; the elites, who are interested in overthrowing the dictator and in
establishing a new autocratic regime wherein they enjoy more power; and the masses,
who are interested in overthrowing the dictator and in establishing a democracy. The
theory predicts that mass revolutions are likely in bad economic periods, authoritarian
stability in good economic periods, and, surprisingly, coups in normal economic periods,
not in bad ones. This prediction still holds when we extend our model to an incomplete
information environment allowing the dictator to hold less accurate information about
his own vulnerability than the elites do. We conclude by showing that this prediction
is consistent with available data on authoritarian breakdowns from 1960 − 2000.
Keywords: autocracies, political transitions, revolutions, coups
JEL Classification Numbers: D72, D74
∗
We thank Jim Fearon, Matt Jackson, Antoine Lallour, Beatriz Magaloni, and participants of Cowbell
and the Comparative Politics Workshop at Stanford for helpful conversations and comments.
1
1
Introduction
When a contemporary authoritarian regime collapses, it is not likely to be replaced by a
democracy. A more probable scenario is that a new authoritarian regime, headed by the
group that initiated the autocrat’s overthrow, will be established. This was indeed the case
in almost 72% of authoritarian breakdowns from 1950-2006, while the alternative scenario,
in which a democracy was established, took place in only 28% of the cases.1 Why are some
authoritarian regimes replaced by democracy, while the majority of them are not? What is
the relationship between economic performance and the probability that an autocracy will
be replaced by a democracy or the probability that it will be replaced by another autocracy?
This paper provides a theoretical framework for analyzing these questions and some preliminary evidence in support of our main theoretical findings. Our theory focuses on adverse
regime changes wherein either the masses or the elites attempt to overthrow the autocrat.
It emphasizes that under authoritarian rule, military and political elites have an interest
in overthrowing the dictator and establishing a new autocratic regime wherein they enjoy
more power. The masses, on the other hand, have an interest in overthrowing the dictator
and establishing a politically open regime. Elites can attempt a coup, which, if successful,
establishes another authoritarian regime, whereas citizens can attempt a revolution, which,
if successful, completely destabilizes the current political order.
The crucial difference between the elites’ ability to threaten the dictator and the masses’
is that in order to overthrow the regime, citizens have to coordinate mass uprisings while
elites can threaten the regime almost single-handedly. This contrast is strikingly evident
throughout history: four senior military officers backed by the country’s security forces
ousted the Mauritanian president in 20082 ; the 2008 military coup in Guinea was set forth
by a small number of soldiers and officers;3 and a small group of young officers overthrew the
Egyptian King Farouk in the 1952 coup. The same was true in many other coups, including
the 1985 coup in Nigeria, the 1981 coup in the Central African Republic, and the 1957 coup
in Thailand. Even ancient dictators such as King Superbus, Julius Caesar, and Caligula
were overthrown by only a few elite members. Conversely, about a million East German
citizens participated in the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and another half million protested in
Prague in the 1989 revolution in Czechoslovakia.4
1
Figures are taken form Table 1 in Magaloni and Kricheli (2010).
See ”Army Officers Seize Power in Mauritania” (The New York Times, August 7, 2008)
3
See ”Guinea Coup Plotters Announce Curfew, New Leader” (Voice of Africa, 24 December 2008) and
”’It’s our turn for power’: Guinea coup leader tightens grip” (AFP, Dec 25, 2008)
4
See ”The Berlin Wall, 20 Years Later” (The American, November 9, 2009) and ”The fall of the Berlin
Wall: 20 years later” (Wood, 2009)
2
2
This asymmetry makes elite coups and mass revolutions likely in different economic
periods. Our theory suggests that the likelihood of coups and revolutions depends crucially
on an autocracy’s economic performance: under autocratic rule, political stability is likely
during economic prosperity; mass revolutions similar to the 1989 revolutions are likely during
economic crises; and, surprisingly, elite coups similar to the 1952 coup in Egypt and the 2008
coup in Mauritania are likely in normal economic times, not during economic crises.
The relationship between economic performance and adverse regime changes in autocracies holds even when we extend our theory to an incomplete-information environment. We
follow the literature on autocrats’ difficulty in obtaining reliable information about their
own vulnerability (Tullock’s 1987; Schatzberg 1988; Wintrobe 1998) and find that even under such circumstances, coups are only likely in normal economic times, and revolutions in
bad economic times.
This relationship between economic performance and adverse regime changes is consistent
with the general patterns in available data on coups and revolutions in authoritarian regimes
from 1960 − 2000. We examine this data and show that revolutions are most likely during
periods of economic hardship, that coups are most likely in periods of normal economic
performance, and that authoritarian stability is most likely in periods of economic prosperity.
In addition to this relationship, our theory proposes two more implications: First, instead
of inducing them to distribute rents and resources only to the elites, autocrats’ interest in
survival in fact encourages them to provide goods and benefits to the masses in an attempt
to build a basis of support among the citizens. This pattern is increasingly discernible in contemporary autocracies: most of the autocracies today use political parties to distribute rents
and privileges to the people in return for their political support (Diaz-Cayeros, Magaloni,
and Weingast 2001; Lust-Okar and Gandhi 2009; Magaloni and Kricheli 2010). The party
controls work permits, land titles, jobs, housing, food, and many other privileges whose distribution becomes a key tool for building mass support (Geddes 2006,2008; Brownlee 2007;
Magaloni 2008).
Second, the dictator will distribute privileges to the citizens, but only to a pivotal subset
of the citizens, whose identity is fixed over time. By constantly rewarding the same set
of citizens, the dictator induces them to support the regime even in bad economic times,
because they expect to receive benefits from the regime in the future. This expectation for
future benefits enables him to distribute them with less resources in each economic period
without risking a revolution. Indeed, contemporary dictatorships rely on the citizens, but
not on all of them. Instead, dictators privilege only a subset of the citizens in exchange
for their political support—party members in Communist regimes (e.g., Dickson and Ruble
3
2000; Dickson 2003) or members of an ethnic group in ethnic dictatorships (e.g., Bates 1981,
1983, 1989; van de Walle 2007) are examples of such pivotal groups.
Our paper relates to several burgeoning strands of literature. First, the theoretical literature on regime transitions sparked by Acemoglu and Robinson’s (2000, 2001, 2006) work
on transitions form democracy to autocracy and vice versa (Boix 2003; Boix and Stokes
2003; Acemoglu, Ticchi, and Vindigni forthcoming). Second, the formal literature on authoritarian regimes and the strategies autocrats follow to minimize threats to their stability
(Wintrobe 1998; Kuran 1991a, 1991b; Lohmann 1994; Gandhi and Przeworski 2006; Debs
2007; Acemoglu, Egorov, and Sonin 2008; Boix and Svolik 2008; Gandhi 2008; Egorov,
Guriev, and Sonin 2009). Third, the empirical literature on regime transitions and the relationship between political stability and economic performance (e.g., O’Donnell, Schmitter,
and Whitehead 1986; Przeworski et al 2000; Boix and Stokes 2003; Epstein, Bates, Goldstone, Kristensen, and OHalloran 2006). Lastly, the early empirical literature about the
relationship between economic growth and the likelihood of political revolutions (Davies
1962, 1969; Haggard and Kaufman 1995, 1997) and coups (Londregan and Poole 1990).
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that focuses on both elite coups and
mass revolutions using a single theoretical framework. In many respects, the paper that is
closest to ours is Bueno de Mesquita and Smith (2009), wherein the authors use Bueno de
Mesquita et al.’s (2003) framework to examine occasions in which leaders risk deposition by
challengers within the existing political rules and by revolutionary threats. Their convincing
theory explains endogenous political change, as opposed to adversary regime changes wherein
conflict is costly yet elite coups or mass revolutions in fact occur, which are the focus of this
paper.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: the next section discusses the asymmetry between the masses’ ability to threaten the dictator’s survival and the elites’. The
third section presents our model of authoritarian breakdown, and our main results. The
fourth section extends this model to an asymmetric information environment. The fifth
section presents preliminary evidence in support of our theory based on data from 115 authoritarian regimes during 1960 − 2000. Concluding remarks are discussed in the sixth and
final section.
2
Revolutions vs. Coups
Authoritarian leaders cannot rule single handedly. Every authoritarian leader therefore
forms an alliances with elite members who assist him with the task of ruling the country.
4
To fulfill their role in this alliance, elite members gain access to exclusive political and
military resources necessary to operate the government apparatuses. Thus, at the heart of
the stability problem of authoritarian leaders lies the following dilemma: On the one hand,
every authoritarian leader has to rely on elite members and to bestow upon them the social,
political, and military resources necessary for ruling the country. On the other hand, these
exclusive resources enable the elites to threaten the regime’s stability. Elite members can use
the resources bestowed upon them in order to overthrow the very same regime that supplies
these exclusive resources as a means for the sake of its own survival (Wintrobe 1998; Haber
2006; Debs 2007a, 2007b; Acemoglu, Ticchi, and Vindigni 2008; Magaloni 2008; Egorov and
Sonin 2009). Indeed, the most perilous threats to authoritarian regimes’ survival are carried
out by former close allies of the regime (Zolberg 1966; Geddes 2008; Haber 2006).
Moreover, for the following reasons, the initial support of only a handful of elite members
is essential for a successful palace or military coup. First, politically and militarily powerful
elites hold access to the necessary resources for setting out a coup. Second, these elites are
often members of a single organization (a political party, the military, etc.) which mitigates
the coordination and collective action problems associated with attempting a coup. Third,
once a small group of elite members sets out the attempt, other elite members have an incentive to join them (Geddes 2003; Haber, Razo, and Maurer 2003; Nordlinger 1977). Fourth, in
many cases, elites that currently play important roles in the governmental apparatus are the
very same elites that originally put the dictator in power, meaning that they have already
proved their ability to overthrow a regime (Haber 2006).
Contrary to elite members, individual civilians cannot single handedly threaten the stability of the regime. Civilians have no access to arms, military training, economic funds, or
many of the other resources needed for a rebellion. In order to threaten the regime’s stability, civilians therefore have to cooperate. To be successful, civilian rebellions need to be
supported by a sufficiently large portion of the population, yet such mass uprisings require
that the public overcome severe coordination and collective action problems.
When the public indeed manages to overcome these coordination problems, and mass
insurrections are set forth, the public becomes extremely powerful. The military is often
reluctant to use violence against the masses (Geddes 2006, 2008). Moreover, even if the
military does support the regime and tries to control the masses using force, this task becomes
impossible when enough people are in the streets. When they are numerous enough, citizens
can even defeat the military, as Erich Mielke, the chief of Eastern German police, said to Erich
Hoenecker, the party leader, after a mass demonstration: ”Erich, one just cannot beat that
many people” (Przeworski 1991). In addition, contrary to elite coups that usually only entail
5
a leadership change that does not influence the social and political fabric, mass revolutions
completely destabilize the social and political order (Geddes 2003, p. 66). Revolutions can
change the structure of political hierarchies and the rules of political contestation entirely.
There is thus an inherent asymmetry between the political power elite members enjoy and
the political power citizens enjoy under authoritarianism: to survive, authoritarian leaders
have to appease both the elites and the people, yet the elites are less subject to coordination
problems than citizens are, and when the citizens are in the streets in their masses, almost
no force can defeat them.
3
3.1
A Model of Authoritarian Stability
The Basic Model
Basics We consider an infinite horizon society, with an authoritarian ruler d, a group
of n elite members, and m citizens. Elites are privileged members of society who hold
government-related offices and thus have access to political, economic, military or intelligence
resources which are not accessible to other members of society. The identity of these elites
may change in different types of regimes. For example, in one-party regimes they are often
party cadres whereas in military regimes they are often military officers. The ruler of the
country can either be a single individual, as in the case of personalistic autocratic regimes,
or a group of highly influential political leaders who rule the country together, as in the
case of several military regimes in which the army’s top ranking officers are members of a
ruling council. Citizens are non-ruling members of society who have no access to political
or military resources. For the sake of simplicity we will treat all elite members as identical
and all citizens as identical.
The Economy In each period t the economy generates a surplus which can be distributed
as rents by the ruler and is given by Yt , a non-negative random variable with density f ,
taking values between y and ȳ. We assume that this surplus is distributed identically and
independently across periods. This surplus should not be thought of as the entire production
of the country’s economy, but rather only the parts of the state’s budget which the ruler can
freely allocate as spoils.
Timing of the Game In each period, the ruler first decides on the allocation of available
rents between himself, elite members, and ordinary citizens. Specifically, he decides on a
6
fraction wti ∈ [0, 1] of Vt to be allocated to citizen i, 1 ≤ i ≤ m, a fraction wte ∈ [0, 1] to be
allocated to elite member e, m + 1 ≤ e ≤ m + n, and a fraction wtd ∈ [0, 1] of Yt to himself,
with the ruler’s budget constraint being:
m
X
i=1
wti
+
m+n
X
wte + wtd = 1
e=m+1
Following the distribution decision, Yt is realized. The reasoning behind this ordering is
that rents in society are allocated through institutional mechanisms such as government jobs,
party positions, and the allocation of franchises and licenses. These sorts of mechanisms allow
the dictator to credibly commit in advance to allocating the pie of available rents, as they
cannot be changed overnight. Establishing powerful courts can further assist the dictator in
credibly committing to an allocation in advance.5
After the realization of Yt , both the citizens and the elites observe the state of the economy
and the ruler’s distribution decision. First, each citizen decides sequentially whether or not
to support a political revolution, where the sequence of citizens is picked at random and
citizens’ choices are observable to subsequent citizens.6 Finally, each elite member can opt
to initiate a coup.7
To clarify, as depicted in Figure1 the order of the one-period game repeating in every
period is as follows: the ruler first determines the shares of the rents each member of society
will receive; the stochastic realization of the state of the economy Yt is realized; citizens and
elites receive payoffs through institutional mechanisms; citizens sequentially decide whether
to support a revolution, and finally elite member simultaneously decide whether to initiate
a coup.
Revolutions A revolution occurs if at least k + 1 citizens decide to support a revolution
in a given period. The ruler is then overthrown and society goes into turmoil, causing a
fraction β of the period’s rents to perish, where 0 < β < 1. The revolution is assumed to
utterly destabilize the current political structure, and therefore, after the revolution, society
can either become a democracy or a new authoritarian regime supported by a new elite. To
reflect the political turmoil associated with a revolution, we assume that ex-ante, before the
5
See Myerson (2008).
We assume that citizens make their decisions sequentially to get rid of degenerate equilibria where no
citizen supports a revolution, or all citizens always support one. Alternatively, we can assume citizens move
simultaneously and act ”as if pivotal”, a common assumption in the voting literature
7
The results would not change if the coup decisions happened simultaneously with citizens’ decision to
support a revolution, or if elites acted first.
6
7
Figure 1: Order of the One-Period Game
new political structure emerges, all citizens and elite members have uniform expectations
regarding how they will fare after the revolution. Thus, each one of them expects that in
1
each future period, his share of society’s rents will be m+n
. This assumption is not crucial
in any way to the analysis, and changing future expected payments after a revolution to any
fixed amount would not substantively affect the results. For simplicity, we do not model an
individual cost for citizens supporting a revolution, but adding one would not change the
nature of the results as we discuss in section 3.2.
Coups If one or more elite members attempts a coup, the attempt is successful with
a probability p, independently of the realization of the economic variable Yt . This is to
correspond with the asymmetry between the elites and the citizens, according to which
elite members hold the power to single-handedly threaten the regime, either because elite
members have an incentive to support a coup once it is initiated by other elite members
(Geddes 2003), or because elite members have access to exclusive organizational, political,
and military resources. Upon success, the autocratic ruler is replaced by a new autocratic
leader, with one of the current elite members becoming the new ruler. We assume that once
8
a coup has been initiated each member of the elite is equally likely to become the new ruler,
regardless of the identity of those who chose to initiate the coup.
Following a coup attempt, a new autocratic regime is established in the country. Other
than the new ruler, previous elite members retain their status as elite members. This is
to correspond to the fact that coups usually result only in a change in leadership without
any deep changes in the political structure and the rules of political contestation (Geddes
2003). Since the number of elite members represents the number of privileged office holders
in the country, we assume a new player enters the game in the position of an elite member,
and the number of elite members remains n. The previous ruler is completely excluded from
society and its economic resources—he is either sent to exile, to prison, or to death row. In the
following period, the new ruler—one of the elite members in the previous period—announces
a new distribution of rents, and the game proceeds as in the previous periods. Coups do
not cause wide scale damage to the economy8 . However, following an unsuccessful coup, the
authoritarian leader prevails, and all members of the current elite suffer a cost reflected by a
share c of their current period income. This cost reflects the leader’s retaliation and purges
against the current elite due to the coup attempt.
Revolutions Trump Coups If the elite attempts a coup in the same period in which at
least k citizens support a revolution, then the coup attempt has no influence on the political
outcome. The reason for this is that when a sufficient number of citizens supports a major
political transition, we assume that neither the previous regime nor the newly established
authoritarian regime can stop it, nor can the dictator impose any costs on the elites in the
midst of a revolution. This stems from our understanding of a revolution in the model as an
event which fundamentally changes the nature of the political order, while a coup against a
dictatorship only replaces the identity of the ruler, but not the nature of the regime (Geddes
2003).
Preferences All agents’ utilities are determined solely by the rents they consume, with
all agents having the same utility function, represented by a linear indirect utility function
over net income and a discount factor δ ∈ (0, 1).
Since the ruler uses a credible commitment mechanism to transfer the announced distribution of goods to the other agents, this allocation is assumed to be ”sticky”—even if
there is a coup or a revolution, the distribution of rents in the period of the revolution or
8
This assumption is not restrictive— if we assume that following a coup a share 0 < α < β < 1 of current
surplus is destroyed, then the results do not change qualitatively, though the ranking between periods with
coups and periods with stability may blur.
9
the coup remains proportional to the ruler’s initial distribution, taking into account the
costs associated with coups or revolutions. In the following periods, however, the distribution of goods results from the new ruler’s distribution-decision. Thus, in a period of a
successful revolution, citizen i’s expected utility from the present and future is, for example,
δ
δ
E [Yt], and elite member e’s expected utility is βwteYt + (1−δ)(m+n)
E [Yt].
βwti Yt + (1−δ)(m+n)
The reason for this stickiness is that the mechanisms by which regimes transfers goods to
citizens or to elites usually require an institutional infrastructure which cannot be abolished
overnight.
3.2
Analysis and Main Result
The solution concept we use is Markov Perfect Equilibrium (MPE). That is, we look for a
profile of strategies for the players that constitute perfect equilibrium with respect to the
payoff relevant history.9 Note that in our setting, the authoritarian ruler makes the distribution decision before the realization of Yt , which is an independent, identically distributed
random variable across periods. Hence, a Markov strategy for him cannot be conditioned on
the state of the world nor the history of play, and must be a fixed, pure or mixed strategy.
Citizens and elite members, on the other hand, decide whether or not to attempt an overthrow after the state of the economy is realized. Hence, during a single dictator’s rule, their
Markov strategies can depend only on Yt .
To simplify the analysis and focus on the first order mechanisms behind the occurrences
of intra-elite coups and mass revolutions, we regard the political positions – dictator, elite
members and citizens – as the players in the game, in the context of solving for a MPE.
Thus, we assume that all dictators throughout history use the same strategy in a MPE and
elite members and citizens do not condition their strategies on the identity of the current
dictator. This assumption is in line with much of the political transitions literature, which
often considers political classes as the actors in the game (e.g. Acemoglu & Robinson, 2001).
All proofs are provided in the appendix.
We first prove that a MPE exists in the game we described. To do this we modify the
proof of Theorem 1 in Jackson and Morelli (2009) to our model.
Theorem 1. There exists a MPE in the above game.
We can now proceed to our main result, the characterization of the structure of MPEs
in which dictators play a pure strategy.
9
On the definition of MPE in non-stationary games see Fudenberg and Tirole (1991, section 13.2).
10
Theorem 2. Any MPE of the game, in which the dictator plays a pure strategy, is defined
by two economic thresholds sR ≤ sC : when Yt < sR citizens start a revolution, when sR <
Yt < sC the elites attempt a coup against the dictator, while citizens do not revolt, and when
Yt > sC the regime is stable. In any such MPE, the dictator allocates a share w1 ≥ 0 of the
rents to some privileged set of m − k citizens, while the remaining k citizens receive no rents,
and allocates a fixed share w2 ≥ 0 to all elite members.
While we present the full proof in the appendix, it is instructive to understand the main
mechanisms behind it informally. In a given period, with the state variable (which is the
realization of available rents) being the realized Yt , we first look at the elites’ decision. If
a revolution has started earlier in the period, the elites can no longer effect the political
outcome. If a revolution has not started, elites must decide whether to initiate a coup or
not, conditioning on Yt . A successful coup carries with it benefits which are independent of
the state variable – namely the possibility of becoming the new dictator and earning high
expected rents in future periods, while a failed coup leads to costs to the elite which are
proportional to the state variable, in the form of lost rents. Thus, elites will prefer a coup
for low levels of the state variable, and prefer stability for high levels. Each elite member
has the power to start a coup, and thus the elite member least satisfied with the current
regime, in terms of the current share of rents he is receiving, will be pivotal. We will denote
the level of the state variable where he is indifferent by sC .
Ordinary citizens in turn choose, according to a random sequence, whether to go out into
the streets and support a revolution. Like the dilemma facing elites, the benefits for citizens
from a successful revolution are independent of the state variable, yet costs are increasing in
it, since citizens suffer from the upheaval following a revolution. Thus, a citizen will support a
revolution if the state variable is low enough. Since k + 1 citizens are needed for a revolution,
the citizen k + 1-th least satisfied with the current regime will be pivotal, and will denote
the level of the state variable where he is indifferent by sR . We thus immediately observe
that in an MPE, the dictator will allocate 0 resources to the k citizens most unsatisfied with
the regime.
In equilibrium, it must be that sC ≥ sR . If it is otherwise, then sC < sR and whenever
elite members prefer a coup to stability, a revolution is already taking place. Thus, coups
never takes place , while the dictator does allocate some resources to the elites (otherwise we
would have sC = ȳ ≥ sR ). The dictator can therefore decrease this share for the elites while
still keeping sC < sR , and increase his own share of the pie, thereby increasing his rents
while not changing his probability of survival. The dictator is better off after this change,
and therefore the initial ranking between sR and sC could not hold in MPE.
11
Note that if citizens faced a fixed cost for supporting a revolution the ranking of political
outcomes in a MPE would not change, as long as this cost was not too large. When making
their decision, citizens would now take into account the cost of a revolution, and would thus
need to have less resources available to them in order to prefer a revolution (recall that
citizens make their decisions sequentially in a random order). They would thus choose a
lower threshold sR for coordinating on a revolution. Other than this, the reasoning behind
Theorem 2 stands as before, and thus the ranking result.
3.3
Ranking of Political Threats by Economic Outcomes
Theorem 2’s most important and novel implication is the linkage it establishes between the
state of the economy in authoritarian regimes on the one hand and the political transitions
that are likely to follow on the other.10 As sC ≥ sR , coups are more likely than revolutions
in periods with higher levels of distributable surplus, and vice-versa. In regimes where both
threats to authoritarian stability are present, that is when sR > y and sC < ȳ, revolutions
are likely when the economy is performing badly, coups are likely when the economy is
performing moderately well, and stability is likely when the economy is performing well, as
described in figure 2.
Figure 2: The Ranking of Political Transition by Economic Outcomes
The intuition behind this result is the following: because of the high costs associated
10
Note that Theorem 1 does not ensure the existence of a MPE where the dictator uses a pure strategy,
which Theorem 2 requires. However, even if the dictator uses a mixed strategy in MPE, the ranking Theorem
2 establishes between political outcomes based on the underlying economic conditions holds in expectation.
Thus, the main empirical prediction of Theorem 2 holds in any case.
12
with mass uprisings, citizens only opt to revolt when the state of the economy is sufficiently
low to make the risk of a revolution worthwhile. In such periods, the elites have no incentive
to initiate a coup since they expect the masses to go out to the streets. Moreover, because
in MPE dictators will not allocate more resources to the elites than necessary to completely
eliminate the coup threat, in intermediate economic times the elites find it worthwhile to
risk a coup, whereas the masses do not find it worthwhile to risk a revolution. Lastly, in
prosperous economic times, both the elites and the masses have too much to lose out of
political conflicts.
Indeed, many of the mass revolutions the twentieth century has witnessed occurred after
a period of economic depression. The 1989 revolutions in East Europe followed a period of
economic stagnation in the Eastern Block economies starting in the early 1980s. In Poland,
for example, more than 60% of population lived in poverty, and inflation reached 1,500% in
the eve of the revolution (Rachwald 1990). Similarly, the 1979 revolution in Iran followed a
period of economic decay and of double-digit inflation rates wherein the regime’s attempts
to dampen inflation proved unsuccessful.
Authoritarian stability, on the other hand, is likely in periods of economic prosperity.
As is the case in democracies, higher levels of per-capita income and stronger economic
growth are also associated with stability of dictatorial institutions (Cox 2008; Geddes 2008;
Magaloni and Wallace 2008).
Lastly, surprisingly, coups seem to be associated with periods in which the economy
is performing moderately well, not when it is performing badly. Sanders (2009) suggests
that coups are likely to happen in periods wherein economic growth is below its ”normal”
levels but is not dramatically low. Correspondingly, many of the coups occurring during the
twentieth century took place in years wherein the economy was performing moderately well:
the 1991 coup in Thailand, the 1999 coup in Pakistan, the 2003 coup in Nepal, the 2005
coup in Mauritania, and the 2006 coup in Fiji are all examples of coups occurring under
moderately well performing economies.
3.4
Additional Implications
In addition to ranking political transitions by economic outcomes, Theorem 2 also sheds light
on the dictator’s behavior in equilibrium. In particular, the theorem suggests that instead of
inducing them to distribute rents and resources only to the elites while fully neglecting the
masses, autocrats’ interest in survival in fact encourages them to provide goods and benefits
to the masses in an effort to create a basis of support among the citizens. The threat of a
revolution makes it suboptimal for dictators to focus their efforts only on the elites while
13
refraining from distributing rents to the masses. Dictators would thus find it beneficial to
create patronage networks whereby privileges are distributed to citizens in return for their
acquiescence.
Indeed, in many one-party dictatorships, dictators use the party machine to distribute
rents to the people in return for their political support. The party controls work permits,
land titles, jobs, housing, food, and many other privileges whose distribution becomes a key
tool for building mass support. These privileges are distributed to them with the intention
of creating an interest in the dictator’s survival among the masses. The Communist party in
the former USSR (Havel 1978), the PRI in Mexico (Magaloni 2006; Greene 2007), and the
NDP in Egypt (Blaydes 2008) are all examples of such clientelist parties. In these systems,
the party distributes privileges to the masses in order to secure their political compliance,
thereby making each citizen who takes part in this political-exchange an active contributer
to the regime’s longevity (Diaz-Cayeros, Magaloni, and Weingast 2001). When they are
well institutionalized, autocratic parties function as giant patronage systems that create a
vested interest in the perpetuation of the regime among its citizens (Lust-Okar 2005, 2006;
Magaloni 2006; Geddes 2006, 2008; Pepinsky 2007; Magaloni and Kricheli 2010).
Autocrats also use many other social and political institutions to distribute rents to
the people. Local and low-level political offices, kinship-based patronage networks, and
legislature seats are frequently used by dictators as the infrastructure through which goods
are provided to the public. In some cases, autocrats even use intermarriage between the
property class and the ruling class as a way to secure long-lasting flows of rents to the
citizens (Haber et al 2003).
All these formal and informal institutions autocrats use to distribute rents to the people
support our result that dictators never opt to focus all their efforts on minimizing threats
from the elites while fully neglecting the people. Instead, autocrats seem to provide citizens
with privileges in return for their political acquiescence. The common depiction of dictators
as rulers who rely only on the elites and are completely divorced from the citizens is thus
undermined.
Theorem 2, however, also suggests that not all the citizens will receive these privileges.
Instead, the dictator will privilege a pivotal subset of the citizens whose identity is fixed over
time. By constantly rewarding the same set of citizens, the dictator creates an expectation
for future rents among this pivotal group, thereby creating a vested interest in his stability
among them. This vested interest allows him to distribute less resources than he would have
otherwise need to, because the pivotal citizens are willing to accept less resources today in
exchange for the assurance that they would keep receiving benefits from the ruler in the
14
future.
Indeed, even in one-party autocracies resources are not distributed to all citizens. Instead,
they are distributed only to a subset of the citizens, typically to those who are members of the
party. Membership in the Communist Party in the USSR, for example, became a privilege
which only a subset of the citizens enjoyed ( e.g., Dickson and Ruble 2000; Dickson 2003.
The perquisites party-members enjoyed included, among others, access to foreign goods,
visas for trips abroad, student enrollment in prestigious universities, and prestigious jobs.
In other types of dictatorships the autocrat is often supported by a privileged ethnic or
religious group. The Alawis in Syria, the Hutus in Rwanda during the military rule, and the
Sunnis in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq are examples of such privileged groups. The civilian support
of these regimes was concentrated in a fixed group of citizens who enjoyed a privileged status.
Bates (1981, 1989) suggests that in many African dictatorships, dictators base their mass
support on their own ethnic affiliation by discriminately transferring rents so as to privilege
their own ethnic group. The clientelistic distribution resulting in these dictatorships was
not redistributive and generally benefited only a relatively small proportion of the citizenry
which was determined ethnically (van de Walle 2007). Bates (1983), Horowitz (1985), and
Padró i Miquel (2004) further suggest that the bias in favor of the ruler’s ethnic group is
prevalent and conspicuous.
4
Asymmetric Information
We now extend our model to include the possibility that the dictator is less informed than
the elites are with respect to their ability to successfully overthrow him. This extension is of
special interest since in many cases the dictator is at an informational disadvantage compared
to elite members who are in control of the military, intelligence gathering institutions, or
other security apparatuses. The information he is exposed to is filtered by these elites, whose
incentives are often different than his (Schatzberg, 1988; Wintrobe, 1998; Tullock 1987).
Even when these elites have an interest in the dictator’s survival in power, when passing
information to the dictator, they often face an incentive to over-represent the extent of power
he really enjoys (Schatzberg, 1988). This leads to what Friedrich and Brzezinski (1965) call
”the vacuum effect” surrounding the dictator—a state of asymmetry of information wherein
the dictator holds less information than his bureaucrats about his own vulnerability.
Specifically, we will maintain the same setup of the basic model, but now assume the
dictator’s vulnerability to coups is determined stochastically—before each period, nature
decides, with probability p, that a coup attempt will be successful during that period or,
15
with probability 1 − p, that coup attempts will fail during it. The ruler is aware of this prior
distribution but receives no further information regarding the success probability of a coup.
So far, this assumptions serves just as a micro-foundation for the informational structure in
the original setting.
Extending the model, we will assume that elite members may receive in each period
an informative signal as to whether a coup attempt will be successful or not. If the elites
receive such a signal, their posterior probability that the regime is weak and a coup will
succeed rises to p < q2 < 1. If they do not receive a signal, they infer that the posterior
probability of a coup’s success is q1 < p. We thus assume that all elite members have the
same information in each period. The dictator is aware that the elite is better informed,
and takes this knowledge into account when allocating free resources in the economy. Notice
that the masses (as well as the other players) do not face incomplete information regarding
the prospects of a revolution, but we do not make any assumption with regards to their
knowledge of the dictator’s vulnerability to coups.
Theorem 3. With asymmetric information, MPEs in which the dictator uses a pure strategy
are defined by three economic thresholds: a revolution threshold sR and two coup thresholds
s1C < s2C , with sR ≤ s2C . Two alternatives are possible:
1. If s1C < sR then: if Yt < sR , the masses will revolt; if sR < Yt < s2C and they receive a
signal that the dictator is weak, the elites will attempt a coup; and if Yt > s2C neither
a coup attempt nor a revolution will occur. All coups attempts will be successful with
probability q2 .
2. If s1C > sR then: if Yt < sR , the masses will revolt; if sR < Yt < s1C , or if s1C < Yt < s2C
and they receive a signal that the dictator is weak, the elites will attempt a coup; and
if Yt > s2C neither a coup attempt nor a revolution will occur. On average, coups will
succeed with some probability q1 < q < q2 .
The introduction of asymmetric information exacerbates the challenges the dictator faces
in his attempts to stay in power. Since elite members have better information regarding their
chances of staging a successful coup, the dictator may make two types of errors—handing
out too many resources to the elites when he is strong, or handing out too little resources
when he is weak. Although the equilibria of this game can have two possible forms, we can
deduce the following conclusion, which has important consequences regarding the empirical
predictions of the model.
16
Corollary 1. In the presence of asymmetric information the relationship between the underlying state of the economy and the likelihood of regime transitions becomes noisier—
revolutions are still likely when the economy performs badly and stability when it performs
well, yet both stability and coup attempts may be possible at the same moderate realizations
of the state of the economy.
Note that the prediction presented by Corollary 1 changes the empirical prediction of
the basic model. In the basic, symmetric information model, economic variables could be
directly mapped to political outcomes—whether a revolution, coup attempts (which could
be successful or not), or stability. The introduction of asymmetric information excludes this
determinism, as in this setting coups and stability can happen in moderate realizations of
the state of the economy. This implies that empirically, stability should be likely when the
economy is performing well, revolutions when it is performing badly, and both coups and
stability when it is performing moderately well.
5
Preliminary Evidence
In this section we present preliminary evidence in support of the conclusions of Theorems 2
and 3. The aim of this section is not to fully test our theory, but rather to suggest that the
theory’s main conclusions are compatible with available data from contemporary authoritarian regimes. The evidence will focus on our main result with regards to the relation between
the state of the economy and the likelihood of coups and revolutions:
H1 : revolutions are likely when the economy is performing badly, coups are likely when the
economy is performing moderately well, and stability is likely when the economy is performing
well
Notice also that if the incomplete information version our model holds, the relationship between the state of the economy and the threats to the dictator survival is noisy—
revolutions are still likely when the economy performs badly and stability when it performs
well, but although coups are likely in periods wherein the economy is performing moderately
well, they do no take place in every such period.
5.1
Data
To test this hypothesis we use data from 115 authoritarian regimes during 1960 − 2000. Our
data-set consists of 3, 388 country year observations, all coded as authoritarian regimes by
Przeworski et al. (2000). To measure the state of the economy, we use the World Bank’s
17
(2009) measure of annual GDP growth, measured in percentages. The reason we use GDP
growth rates is that in our model, the state of the economy Yt represents the available
resources the dictator holds which can be distributed to the elites and the masses. Yt should
thus be understood as a surplus of rents available to the dictator and can be proxied by
annual GDP growth rates.
To measure whether a palace or military coup was attempted by the elites, we code a
dummy variable equaling one when the military or any other governmental governmental
actor overthrows the ruler or attempts to do so based on the Archigos database (Goemans
et al. 2004) and on the Coups d’Etat dataset (Marshall and Marshall 2007); and equaling
zero when both datasets indicate that in a given country-year observation, neither a coup
nor an attempted coup took place.
To measure whether a citizen-driven revolution occurred, we code a dummy variable
equaling one when the the ruler of the country is overthrown by popular protest or by
civilian rebels based on the Archigos database (Goemans et al. 2004); and equaling zero
otherwise. Notice that our variables indicate whether an attempted coup took place but
not whether an attempted revolution took place. The reason for this is that our model
predicts that an attempted coup—successful or unsuccessful—is likely when the economy is
performing moderately well; but that only successful revolutions are likely when the economy
is performing badly.
5.2
Revolutions, Coups, and Economic Performance
Figures 3 and 4 display the level of GDP growth and the years wherein a citizen-based
revolution or an elite-based coup took place for twelve countries over time. Years wherein a
coup was attempted by the elites are indicated in blue, and years wherein a citizen-driven
revolution occurred are indicated in red.11
[Figures 3 and 4 about here]
Figures 3 and 4 support our hypothesis regarding the relationship between the state of
the economy and the likelihood of a coup or a revolution. Revolutions seem to be likely
when the economy is performing badly, whereas coups seem to be likely when the economy
is performing moderately well. Additionally, when the economy is performing well, neither
a coup nor a revolution is likely.
11
Some country-year observations are missing from the plots because the World Bank does not have an
estimate of the annual GDP growth for these observations.
18
The Figures also support the incomplete-information extension of our model in which
the elites hold more accurate information about the vulnerability of the dictator than the
dictator himself. Coups seem to be likely when the economy is performing moderately well,
yet a coup is not attempted in every year wherein the economy performs moderately well,
as predicted by the incomplete information version of our model.
One might worry that part of the reason we observe that revolutions occur in bad economic periods is that revolutions burden society with severe costs, which our measure of
growth might be picking. The worry is that because our economic performance measures are
based on country-year observations and because a revolution might occur early in the year,
we might be picking the results of a revolution instead of its causes. One way to address this
concern is to examine the relationship between the likelihood of a revolution and last year’s
growth levels which cannot be affected by the revolution. When we examine this relationship
in Figure 3, we find the same support for our hypothesis: expect of one case in Azerbaijan,
all of the revolutions in our plots occurred after a period of economic decline.
Figure 5 displays three box-plots of the annual levels of GDP growth, depicting the
distribution of GDP growth in years wherein a revolution took place (right-hand box), years
wherein a coup was attempted (center box), and years wherein neither a coup nor a revolution
took place (left-hand box). The horizontal line in each box represents the median of the
relevant distribution, and the upper and the lower limits of the box represent the 75%
quantile and the 25% quantile respectively. The Figure also presents the mean value of GDP
growth in each subset of the data (in blue).
[Figure 5 about here]
Figure 5 is also consistent with our hypothesis: On average, revolutions occur in periods
with low growth levels, and coups occur in periods with moderate growth levels. Additionally,
stability, i.e., a period wherein neither a coup nor a revolution take place, occurs in periods
with high levels of growth. Notice also that the high level of variance in growth levels during
stability and the fact that there is a significant degree of overlap between the lowest levels
of growth during stability and the levels of growth during coups support the incomplete
information version of our model, as they suggest that coups are likely when the economy
is performing moderately well but that the elites do not attempt a coup in every year with
moderate levels of growth.12
Interestingly, our findings support the empirical literature about the the conditions that
foster revolutions, but not the literature about the conditions that foster coups. Early
12
We repeated the same analysis using lagged growth levels instead of growth levels in order to address
the possible endogeneity problem described above. The results were similar to those depicted in Figure 5.
19
studies of revolutions highlighted that they are more likely to occur in periods of economic
decline, when citizens’ expectations exceed actual economic performance (Davies 1962, 1969;
Haggard and Kaufman 1995, 1997), which is consistent with our theoretical and empirical
findings. However, the most systematic account on the influence of economic performance on
the likelihood of coups suggests that coups are likely to occur in poor countries (Londregan
and Poole 1990). At first sight, this finding seems to be at odds with our theoretical and
empirical finding that coups are likely in moderately well economic periods, not in economic
crises. However, Londregan and Poole’s analysis focuses on across-country variation while
ours focuses on within-country variation. They ask what countries are more likely to suffer
coups, while we ask when is a specific regime more likely to suffer a coup.
6
Concluding Remarks
To survive, authoritarian leaders have to appease both the elites and the people. Yet citizensdriven threats to the regime’s stability are different than elites-driven threats. Citizens face
coordination problems, but when they are in the streets in their masses almost no force can
stop them from destabilizing the the entire political and social structure of society. Elite
members, on the other hand, face less coordination problems, but they can overthrow the
regime over night, without changing the basic social and governmental apparatuses in the
country. Our theory is founded on the asymmetry between these two types of threats to
authoritarian stability.
The theory has three main implications. First, coups are likely under different conditions
than revolutions are: specifically, revolutions are likely when the economy is performing
badly, stability is likely when the economy is performing well, and, surprisingly, coups are
likely when the economy is performing moderately well, not when it is performing badly.
This relationship still holds when the dictator faces less accurate information than the elites
about his own vulnerability to coups, but it becomes more noisy: stability is likely when the
economy is performing well, revolutions when it is performing badly, and both coups and
stability are likely when it is performing moderately well.
Second, authoritarian leaders do not try to buy-off elite support without trying to do the
same with regards to the masses. Elite support is not sufficient for authoritarian survival
and the threat of a mass-driven revolution induces autocrats to distribute privileges and
spoils to the citizens with the aim of building a basis of support among the citizens.
Third, although dictators rely on the citizens’ support, they do not buy off all of their
citizens. Instead, they transfer resources to a privileged group of pivotal citizens whose
20
identity is fixed over time. By constantly rewarding the same citizens, dictators manage to
induce sufficient mass support at the lowest possible cost.
From a theoretical perspective, our theory contributes to the literature by providing
a single framework whereby both elite coups and mass revolutions can be analyzed. To
the best of our knowledge, this is the first theoretical paper that examines when coups or
revolutions are likely to occur using such a comprehensive theoretical framework. Looking
at the relationship between economic performance and coups or revolutions separately is
problematic, because, in reality, the political reaction to economic performance can come
either from the elites or from the masses.
From an empirical perspective, our paper suggests that examining the conditions that
foster coups and the conditions that foster revolutions in the same analysis is a worthwhile
avenue for future research. When we begin to do so, we find that, surprisingly, coups are
not likely in times of economic crisis, as was previously believed, but rather, in moderately
good economic times.
21
7
Appendix
Proof of Theorem 1 The proof is a straightforward adaptation of Jackson and Morelli
(2009) to our setting. The full proof will be added later.
Proof of Theorem 2 First, since all player in the same positions play the same Markov
strategies in all periods and the state variable Yt is i.i.d. across periods, being in a political
position (citizen, elite or dictator) in a future autocracy is associated with a continuation
value which is fixed across all periods. We will denote these values by Vi for citizen i, Ve for
elite member e, and Vd for the ruler.
Since we assume that revolutions trump coups, we can first look at the citizens’ decisions
of supporting a revolution, despite the fact that elites move last. If a revolution occurs,
it eliminates a share of the income a citizen receives in the current period, while giving a
citizen more resources in all future periods. On the other hand, if the regime remains stable
or is overthrown by a coup, citizens receive their original allocated rents, but receive the low
continuation value Vi . Thus, citizen i strictly prefers a revolution for any realization of Yt
below some threshold value siR , which can depend on i. Explicitly, a citizen strictly prefers
a revolution to stability or coup if:
(1 − β)wti Yt +
δ
E
[Yt ] > wti Yt + δVi
(1 − δ)(m + n)
which happens if and only if13 :
E
[Yt ]
δ
− Vi
Yt <
βwti (1 − δ)(m + n)
We denote the revolution threshold value
δ
E
[Yt ]
i
sR := min
− Vi , ȳ
βwti (1 − δ)(m + n)
(0)
and order these bounds without loss of generality s1R ≥ s2R ≥ ... ≥ sm
R . We claim that in a
k+1
k+1
MPE a revolution will occur if Yt < sR , and would not if Yt > sR . Assume that Yt < sk+1
R ,
i
and look at the last of citizens the citizens with Yt < sR to act. If by the time this citizen
called to act at least k + 1 citizens have supported a revolution, then a revolution would
occur in any case. If that number is exactly k, then in an MPE this citizen must support
13
If citizens were to suffer some cost k from participating in a revolution,
then the last
h
i m − k + 1 citizens
E
[Yt ]
δ
k
to act in period t would support a revolution in MPE if Yt < βwi (1−δ)(m+n) − Vi − δ each i among them.
t
22
a revolution, and if less than k citizens supported the revolution before him, a revolution
would occur in any case. Continuing by backward induction, if we now look at the k + 1-th
to last citizen to act with Yt < siR (and by assumption there are at least k + 1 such citizens).
If before him any citizen supported the revolution, then a revolution would occur regardless
of his action, by the induction argument. If no citizen before him supported the revolution,
then in a MPE he must support the revolution, since the backward induction argument
shows that all subsequent citizens with Yt < siR will also support it, and thus it will occur.
An analogous argument proves the case Yt > sk+1
R .
Thus, in a MPE, the ruler need only pay-off a blocking coalition of m − k citizens.
By equation 7, the cheapest m − k citizens to pay-off are the m − k citizens with the
highest continuation values. Also note, that setting the weights wti such that the thresholds
m
sk+1
R , ..., sR are not equal would be a waste of resources for the dictator, as only the pivotal
sk+1
effects the outcome. Thus, in a MPE the ruler will allocate wti = 0 to the k citizens
R
with the lowest continuation values from autocracy, and will allocate some wti ≥ 0 to the
other citizens, such that the threshold siR is equal across this group. We will denote this
threshold by sR .
Since the dictator is using a pure strategy in this MPE, for the privileged group of m − k
citizens who receive a non-negative amount of resources are fixed across periods. For these
citizens, the above argument shows that those with a strictly higher continuation values from
autocracy get strictly less resources from the dictator. This can only hold in equilibrium if
all the continuation values of these m − k citizens are the same, and so are their weights of
society’s product wti , which we will denote by w1 .
Turning to the elites, first note that if a revolution has already started, and more than k
citizens are in the streets, then by assumption the elite is powerless to stop them. Otherwise,
elite members are free to contemplate the possibility of a coup. Elite member e prefers a
coup attempt over the continued rule of the current dictator, if:
wte Yt
+ pδ
1
n−1
Vd +
Ve
n
n
+ (1 − p) (−cwte Yt + δVe ) > wte Yt + δVe
which happens if and only if:
Yt <
p
δ
[Vd − Ve ]
1 − p ncwte
23
We denote the elite’s coup threshold by:
seC
:= min
p
δ
[Vd − Ve ] , ȳ
1 − p ncwte
Since any elite member has the resources to start a coup, this shows that to prevent coups
the ruler must worry about the elite member with the highest coup threshold SRe . Therefore,
in equilibrium, all elite members will have the same threshold seC . Since continuation values
are fixed across time, this implies that elite members with lower continuation values receive
a higher share of the economy’s resources. As before, this is possible in equilibrium only if
all elite members receive the same share of resources and thus have the same continuation
values. We will denote the fraction elite members receive in equilibrium by w2 and the
common threshold for them to prefer a coup by sC .
To complete the proof, it remains to show that in equilibrium sR ≤ sC . To see this,
assume the opposite. First note that this implies that sR < ȳ – otherwise the leader is
always replaced by a revolution and is thus better off by setting wd = 1, making sC = ȳ = sR ,
contrary to the assumption. Now consider the following one-stage deviation by the ruler:
to decrease we by > 0 for one of the elite members, and to increase wd by at the same
time, making those changes only for period t. We know that this deviation is possible since
sC < sR ≤ ȳ implies that we > 0 for one of the elite members. Since it increases wd , this
deviation increases the ruler’s expected one-stage payoff by a strictly positive amount, yet
if is small enough, it does not increase the ruler’s probability of being dethroned. This is
because for sC < sR there is no real threat of coup, and a small change in we for one period
does not change that. This completes the proof.
Proof of Theorem 3 The proof of this theorem corresponds to the proof of Theorem 2
up to the analysis of the coup threshold. In the setting with asymmetric information the
elites’ decision of whether to initiate a coup or not depends in this setting on the signal that
they get. Ignoring the possibility of a revolution, if elite members receive a signal that the
dictator is weak in period t, an elite member e will prefer initiating a coup if:
wte Yt
+ q2 δ
n−1
1
Vd +
Ve
n
n
+ (1 − q2 ) (−cwte Yt + δVe ) > wte Yt + δVe
which happens if and only if:
Yt <
q2
δ
[Vd − Ve ]
1 − q2 ncwte
24
We denote the elite’s threshold upon receiving the signal by:
se,1
C
:= min
q2
δ
[Vd − Ve ] , ȳ
1 − q2 ncwte
and similarly the elite’s threshold in a period when do not receive a signal by:
se,2
C
:= min
q1
δ
[Vd − Ve ] , ȳ
1 − q1 ncwte
Note that for every elite member e these two thresholds are a multiple of one another by
Therefore, as in the proof of Theorem 2, the dictator will just be concerned with
the elite member with the minimal thresholds, as this member is the pivotal decision maker
for coups no matter what the signal is in that period. Using the same logic, we can conclude
that in equilibrium the dictator will set the resource weights we such that these thresholds
are the same for all elite members, and we can denote them by s2C > s1C . Continuing the
proof in the same manner as in the proof of Theorem 2, only replacing the ranking of sR
and sC , with ranking of sR and SC2 , yields the required result.
q1(1−q2 )
.
q2(1−q1)
25
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Figure 3: Revolutions, Coups, and Growth
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Figure 4: Coups and Growth
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Figure 5: Growth and Political Stability
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