Leadership Transitions and Survival: Coups, Autocoups, and Power Dynamics

Ph.D. Defense Presentation

Zhu Qi

2024-10-18

Contents

1. Motivation and Main Questions

2. Main Contributions

3. Main Arguments

4. Main Findings

5. Limitations and Future Research

1 Motivations and Main Questions

Examining coups and autocoups in the context of irregular leadership transitions

  • Analyzing key factors driving their occurrences

  • Comparing leadership survival between coup-installed and autocoup leaders

  • Alarming decline of democracy and rise of autocratization

  • Surge in autocoups since 2000

  • How do power dynamics among ruling groups affect classic coup attempts?

  • How can we analyze autocoups within a unified framework alongside coups in terms of irregular leadership transitions?

  • How does the method of power acquisition impact leadership longevity?

Contents

1. Motivation and Main Questions

2. Main Contributions

3. Main Arguments

4. Main Findings

5. Limitations and Future Research

2 Main Contributions

1. Emphasizing the key role of power dynamics and regime types in shaping coup attempts

2. Refining the definition of autocoups and introducing a novel dataset

3. Establishing a unified framework for analyzing coups and autocoups as irregular power transitions

4. Conducting a novel comparative analysis of leadership survival between coup-installed and autocoup leaders

Contents

1. Motivation and Main Questions

2. Main Contributions

3. Main Arguments

4. Main Findings

5. Limitations and Future Research

3 Main Arguments

1. Balance of power between incumbents and other elites in ruling groups significantly shapes potential outcomes of coups or autocoups, consequently determines their attempts

2. Regime types pre-determine the balance of power among different factions.

3. Method of power acquisition significantly impacts leadership survival

Contents

1. Motivation and Main Questions

2. Main Contributions

3. Main Arguments

4. Main Findings

5. Limitations and Future Research

4 Main Findings

1. Coup Attempts by Regime Type:

  • Military regimes are 277.7% more likely to experience coups than dominant-party regimes

  • Attributed to differences in power dynamics among ruling groups

2. Autocoup Analysis (1945-2023):

  • Personalist regimes significantly more likely to experience and succeed in autocoup attempts compared to democracies

3. Leadership Survival Comparison:

  • Coup-installed leaders are 2.23 times more likely to be ousted than autocoup leaders

Contents

1. Motivation and Main Questions

2. Main Contributions

3. Main Arguments

4. Main Findings

5. Limitations and Future Research

5 Limitations and Future Research

Further refinement needed for autocoup definition and dataset

  • More empirical analyses on autocoups based on the developed dataset

  • Exploration of long-term impacts of coups vs. autocoups on regime stability and economic development

Thank you.

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