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Citizens, Autocrats, and Plotters: A Model and New Evidence on Coups D'État
Author(s) -
Galetovic Alexander,
Sanhueza Ricardo
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
economics and politics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-0343
pISSN - 0954-1985
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0343.00074
Subject(s) - autocracy , recession , per capita , economics , per capita income , contrast (vision) , keynesian economics , demographic economics , political science , sociology , demography , democracy , politics , law , population , artificial intelligence , computer science
We present a model of coups in autocracies. Assuming that policy choices cannot be observed but are correlated with the short‐run performance of the economy we find that: (a) the threat of a coup disciplines autocrats; (b) coups are more likely in recessions; (c) increasing per capita income has an ambiguous effect on the probability of a coup. The implications of the model are consistent with the evidence. On average, one recession in the previous year increases the probability of a coup attempt by 47 percent. By contrast, the effect of the level of per capita income is weak.