Road Hazards: Does Political Polarization Increase Coup Likelihood?

• In Event: Democratic Backsliding: New Measures and Approaches

Abstract

While the effects of political polarization on democratic backsliding has been studies in the recent years, there is a gap in our understanding of whether it can also lead to regime breakdown and irregular leader removal. The most common form of such removal comes in the form of a coup d’état. This article addresses the following questions: Does high political polarization increase coup threat in a country? If yes, is there a difference between democracies and autocracies in coup likelihood? I analyze this question with a cross-national empirical analysis of coup events in 176 countries over a span of six decades from 1960 to 2019. I look at both unrealized (failed attempts and conspiracies) and realized (successful) coups. The findings show that all other things equal, the likelihood of both failed and successful coup attempts increase as the level of political polarization increases in a country. Moreover, I find that the effect of polarization in inciting coup activity is stronger in autocracies compared to democracies. However, the risk remains prominent in democratic regimes as well. The results are robust to various different specifications, including the introduction of lagged variables to address the problem of endogeneity.

Author

• Ekim Arbatli, Higher School of Economics