Political Institutions and Coups in Dictatorships

Does the creation of nominally democratic institutions help dictators stay in power by diminishing risk coups? We posit that effectiveness political deterring coups crucially depends on types plotters and their goals. By providing a means to address ruling coalition’s primary concerns about dictator’s opportunism or incompetence, reduce necessity reshuffling coups, which coalition replaces an incumbent leader but keeps regime intact. However, such do not diminish regime-changing because plotters’ goals overthrowing entire changing group are achievable via activities within institutions. Our empirical analysis provides strong support for our expectations. findings highlight role “democratic” is rather limited as it only applies less than 38% coup attempts.