Share It or Lose It? Authoritarian Power-Sharing

and Regime Stability in Multi-Ethnic States.

Yannick I. Pengl1 and Ilyas Saliba2,3

1International Conflict Research, ETH Zurich2Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences, Humboldt University

3Department Democracy and Democratization, Berlin Social ScienceCenter (WZB)

June 17, 2015

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the impact of ethnic cooptation on authoritar-ian stability. We argue theoretically and demonstrate empirically that theinclusion of elites from politically relevant ethnic groups significantly reducesthe risk of authoritarian breakdown. We also showhow this e↵ect varies acrossdi↵erent forms of regime change and type. While a prominent explanatoryfactor in conflict research, inter-ethnic competition for state power has sofar been understudied within the literature on authoritarian regime survival.Although accounts of cooptation strategies have recently gained prominence,most remain structuralist and focus on formal institutions such as authori-tarian parties, parliaments and elections that facilitate cooperation between adictator and coopted elites. We go beyond institutionalist analyses and shiftthe attention to the identity of those who need to be coopted, the degree towhich cooptation is actually achieved and the contexts in which cooptationworks best. We present three main findings: 1.) Ethnic cooptation stabilizesauthoritarian regimes. 2.) It reduces the risk of irregular and autocratic butnot of regular and democratizing forms of regime change. 3.) It is most e↵ec-tive where formal institutions are weak, namely in personalist dictatorships.

1

Introduction

In this paper, we examine how ethnic cooptation strategies a↵ect authoritarian

stability. While cooptation in general has figured quite prominently in the recent

comparative authoritarianism literature, strategies that address specifically ethnic

challenges to regime survival remain understudied. Most recent work on the role

of cooptation in authoritarian regimes focus on how formal, often semi-democratic

institutions such as regime parties, authoritarian legislatures, and more or less com-

petitive elections tie in potential challengers and facilitate monitoring and commit-

ment among the dictator and his ruling elite (see e.g. Svolik, 2012; Gandhi and

Przeworski, 2006).1

While providing novel insights in the sources of authoritarian stability, analyses of

formal cooptation institutions often remain quite detached from the actors involved.

As Pepinsky (2014) has recently argued “the institutionalist turn in comparative

authoritarianism” may all to liberally gloss over how institutions are shaped by the

preferences of and power balance among the most important political agents. In

this vein, formal institutions undoubtedly provide opportunities for the cooptation

and inclusion of potential regime challengers. However, it remains opaque who

these challengers are and whether this cooptation potential is realized. Only by

identifying the most relevant social actors and gauging the extent to which they

are coopted one can judge whether formal institutions actually perform the task

they are assumed to perform in the authoritarian institutions literature. Shifting

the attention to relevant social groups and their representation in political regimes

thus seems promising to improve our theoretical understanding and empirical tests

of cooptation mechanisms in authoritarian regimes.

In this context, we regard politicized ethnicity as particularly relevant to the

question of authoritarian stability. Where political competition is structured along

ethnic lines, included and excluded groups struggle for material resources and po-

litical power, quite frequently by violent means (Olzak, 1983; Horowitz, 1985; Ce-

derman, Gleditsch and Buhaug, 2013). If ethno-political competition is linked to

political instability in the form of violent conflict, it may also matter in determining

the stability and instability of authoritarian regimes. Focusing on ethno-political

power struggles between included and excluded groups thus allows us to move one

step closer to the actual locus of agency than has been the case in previous analyses

of formal institutional contexts that may or may not serve cooptation purposes. In

short, we see ethnic elites excluded from the regime as especially important potential

challengers. Thus, ethnically targeted cooptation strategies may be needed to foster

1Other relevant studies highlighting the role of formal cooptation institutiuons include Levitskyand Way (2002), Levitsky and Way (2010), Lust-Okar (2004), Brownlee (2007), and Wright andEscriba-Folch (2012).

2

authoritarian stability.

In further developing and testing this argument, we borrow concepts and opera-

tionalizations from seminal work on ethnic conflict (Cederman, Wimmer and Min,

2010) as well as from the literature on neopatrimonialism (Bratton and Van de Walle,

1994) and apply them to the study of autocratic resilience. Our approach provides

a novel and we believe more suitable and actor-centered way of modeling the role

of cooptation in authoritarian regimes. In what follows, be briefly summarize the

theoretical building blocks that we borrow from the previous literature before we

turn to the main theoretical part of the paper.

Theoretical Building Blocks

Let us briefly discuss the most important concepts and insights from the three

literatures upon which we base our theoretical argument.

Comparative Authoritarianism: First and as already discussed above, com-

parative authoritarianism research provides the most natural point of departure for

our study. In line with recent work from this strand of literature, we regard coop-

tation as an essential pillar of authoritarian stability (Gerschewski, 2013; Wintrobe,

1998). The other most important pillars are repression and legitimacy (Gerschewski

et al., 2013). Cooptation is often defined as the strategic targeting of resources, gov-

ernment posts and policy concessions to potential regime challengers (Gandhi and

Przeworski, 2007). The aim is to buy their loyalty and provide them with a vested

stake in the continued survival of the regime (Frantz and Kendall-Taylor, 2014).

Authoritarian institutions may facilitate this in two main ways. First, they provide

posts and forums, in which coopted elites can be placed (Malesky and Schuler, 2010;

Schedler, 2009; Gandhi and Przeworski, 2006). Second, they reduce uncertainty and

enhance the credibility of authoritarian powersharing arrangements. Formalized

procedures and repeated interaction within legislative bodies and regime parties are

expected to alleviate ruling coalition members’ fears of a dictator defecting from

a powersharing deal (Geddes, 1999; Brownlee, 2007; Boix and Svolik, 2013; Maga-

loni, 2008). Recent quantitative analyses indicate that formal institutions such as

authoritarian legislatures and regime parties e↵ectively reduce the risk of at least

some forms of regime failure (Wright and Escriba-Folch, 2012; Boix and Svolik,

2013).

We see two main reasons why getting a more fine-grained understanding of au-

thoritarian cooptation strategies requires moving beyond formal institutions. First,

the mere absence or presence of specific institutions does not tell much about the

degree to which cooptation is actually achieved. Even in the absence of authori-

3

tarian legislatures and parties, potential challengers may be coopted through more

informal channels, as e.g. the literature on neopatrimonialism suggests. Second,

most institutionalist analyses do not identify the most relevant social actors that

need to be coopted. In many authoritarian regimes, ethnicity is one societal fault

line along which political competition takes place and challenges to the incumbent

regime are organized.

Neopatrimonialism: Referring back to Max Weber’s work, the concept of pat-

rimonialism re-entered mainstream political science literature in the 1970s and has

mainly been applied to the Global South in general and Sub-Saharan African polit-

ical systems in particular (see e.g. Lemarchand, 1972). In his seminal contribution

Eisenstadt (1973, p. 14) concludes that “patterns of political organization” that

are partially yet insu�ciently penetrated by institutionalized formal relationships

among political elites result in authoritarianism and clientelism.

In similar vein, Clapham (1996, p. 48) defines neopatrimonialism is “a form of

organisation in which relationships of a broadly patrimonial type pervade a political

and administrative system which is formally constructed on rational-legal lines.”

Authority is based on exchanging material benefits for loyalty through largely in-

formal clientelist networks that range from the very top to the bottom of political

hierarchy (Jackson and Rosberg, 1984; Bratton and Van de Walle, 1994). Patron-

age, clientelism, nepotism, and corruption are thus seen as characteristic features

of neopatrimonial regimes (Erdmann and Engel, 2007). In this sense, neopatrimo-

nial patronage politics represent informal forms of cooptation that may be just as

important as cooptation via formal, quasi-democratic institutions such as parties,

parliaments and elections. Despite their informality, neopatrimonial patron-client

exchanges “take place within the framework of, and with the claim to, legal-rational

bureaucracy or ‘modern’ stateness” (Erdmann and Engel, 2007, p. 105). Thus,

access to the state apparatus is key to secure a share of patronage rents.

Ethnic Politics: While the clientelist networks just described do not have to fol-

low ethnic lines, in practice they frequently do (Clapham, 1996). Wherever neopat-

rimonial or other forms of political relations are ethnically structured, intense com-

petition for controlling the state ensues (Bates, 1974; Olzak, 1983). Especially in

weakly institutionalized multi-ethnic developing countries, the state tends to be the

main source of economic rents and opportunities (Wimmer, 1997).Those in power

may channel public spending to their ethnic constituency and only grant selective

access to positions in government, the bureacracy or the armed forces.

Recent empirical work shows that ethnic favoritism is a common theme, espe-

cially so in Sub-Saharan Africa (Franck and Rainer, 2012; Kramon and Posner,

4

2012; Burgess et al., forthcoming). This may motivate challenges to the regime in

the name of groups that are excluded from state power. Cederman, Gleditsch and

Buhaug (2013) show how a lack of ethnic representation leads to a higher risk of eth-

nic civil war. In what follows, we outline how the cooptation of ethnic elites at the

executive level may a↵ect the risk of other, more common threats to authoritarian

regime stability.

Our Argument & Hypotheses

The brief review of the literature suggests how concepts and mechanisms from studies

on neopatrimonialism and ethnic politics may further improve our understanding of

cooptation in authoritarian regimes. Moving beyond the focus on formal institutions

seems key to more fully grasp the extent and e↵ectiveness of autocratic cooptation

strategies. The more informal character of neopatrimonial patronage networks as

well as the frequently observed structuring of political competition along ethnic lines

motivate our emphasis on ethnic elites and their inclusion at the executive level. In

short, we argue that ethnically inclusive cabinets indicate a greater extent of ethnic

cooptation and thus contribute to a reduced risk of regime failure.

Before we outline our reasoning behind this claim in greater detail, it needs to be

clarified what we refer to as autocratic regime breakdown and/or stability. Along the

lines of Geddes (2003, p. 44) Geddes, we conceive of a political regime as a “set of

formal and informal rules” determining who will rule, how the rulers will be chosen

and how the basic distributive decisions will be made. It is autocratic, if it comes into

existence in a non-democratic way, if it suspends democratic rules once achieving

power, or if it emerges from nominally competitive elections in which one or more

parties with realistic chances of success are banned (Geddes, Wright and Frantz,

2014, p. 317). Autocratic regimes survive as long as the given set of key formal and

informal rules remains in place. They are replaced by regular or irregular means.

Regular regime change occurs in two main ways. First, an incumbent dictator or the

ruling party may be defeated at the ballot box, comply with the electoral verdict, and

allow the election winners to assume o�ce. Second, the incumbent ruling coalition

may reform a regime to such an extent “that the identity of the group from which

leaders can be chosen or the group that can choose major policies changes” (Geddes,

Wright and Frantz, 2014, p. 318). Irregular regime change comes in the form of

coups, successful rebellions, popular uprisings, foreign invasions, or similar events.

The common characteristic of these forms of regime failure is the coerced and extra-

institutional nature of political change (ibid.). A further distinction can be made

according to whether authoritarian breakdown results in a democratic or autocratic

successor regime.

5

What role does ethnic cooptation or the lack thereof play in preventing autocratic

regimes from collapsing in general or in one of the specific ways just outlined? In

contexts where ethnic cleavages are present and salient, organized challenges to the

incumbent regime frequently emanate from specific ethnic groups and/or the elites

that (claim to) represent them. Ethnicity provides both opportunities and motiva-

tion to challenge the current rulers. As far as opportunities are concerned, ethnic

identities may serve as a powerful tool to mobilize support and organize collective

action. First, co-ethnics often live in geographically concentrated settlement areas

within a country and share a common language, religion or culture. This should

make it easier to organize politically in order to influence where public goods spend-

ing is targeted, what language policies are chosen and which religious or cultural

practices and symbols are allowed or even actively promoted (Hardin, 1997; Bates,

1974). Second, a shared language and common understandings and norms facilitate

communication and in-group cooperation (Habyarimana et al., 2007). Third, denser

social networks within than across ethnic groups facilitate the identification and pun-

ishment of potential defectors (Fearon and Laitin, 1996). Finally, in-group norms

of cooperation and reciprocity also contribute to a higher organizational capacity of

ethnically homogeneous regime challengers (Habyarimana et al., 2007).

Turning to the motivational side, a lack of access to the regime provides ethnic

elites and their followers with material and non-material incentives to change their

lot. In many developing-world autocracies, the state apparatus is the key source of

economic rents and opportunities (Olzak, 1983; Arriola, 2009). As clientelist net-

works in neopatrimonial systems are often structured along ethnic lines, securing

access to the pool of resources that is the executive apparatus is highly important

for actual and prospective ethnic patrons and their clients (Clapham, 1996). Less

tangible, yet arguably equally important are ethnonationalist ideologies making the

political domination by ethnic others appear particularly intolerable (Cederman,

Gleditsch and Buhaug, 2013). Thus, both hard material interest and ethnonation-

alist grievances motivate ethnic elites outside of the regime to challenge the existing

order. (Cederman, Wimmer and Min, 2010) have prominently shown that exclusion

from state power is associated with a higher risk of ethnic civil war. In principle,

however, both the opportunity and the motivation mechanisms may facilitate other

forms of regime challenges as well, regardless of whether they take the form of elec-

toral competition by an opposition party that appeals to specific groups, a popular

uprising, or a coup plot in the name of a particular group.

Against this backdrop, coopting ethnic elites into the ruling coalition turns

regime outsiders into insiders and makes them invested in the maintenance of the

current order (Geddes, 1999; Gandhi and Przeworski, 2006, 2007). Both the in-

dividual rents and opportunities that ethnic elites secure from holding o�ce and

6

their ability to distribute patronage toward and politically represent their ethnic

constituency depend on the further existence of the regime (Arriola, 2009; Magaloni

and Kricheli, 2010; Brancati, 2014). As Arriola (2009) has pointed out, granting

access to executive power, or more specifically the cabinet is arguably more im-

portant to credibly promise the continued flow of patronage than inviting outsiders

to join authoritarian parties or legislatures. Even where the access to patronage is

quite limited or policies are still far from what coopted elites and their constituencies

want, these elites tend to prefer trying to change the system from within over openly

challenging it in a risky gamble such as a rebellion or a coup attempt (Gandhi and

Przeworski, 2006). Thus, we expect ethnic cooptation at the executive level to be

an e↵ective strategy to increase the stability of authoritarian regimes. In contrast to

much of the institutionalist literature on authoritarian cooptation that highlights the

role of parties and parliaments in managing the power-sharing arrangement between

a dictator and his ruling coalition (see e.g. Svolik, 2012), our argument relates to

the previous step. Instead of fostering facilitating the monitoring and enforcement

of an already given power-sharing deal, ethnic cooptation determines the identity of

those included in power-sharing in the first place.

The need to coopt potential ethnic challengers depends on the political salience of

ethnicity and the number of politically relevant ethnic cleavages in a given society.

In line with Posner (2004, p. 852), we argue that what matters here are “the

groups that are actually doing the competition over policy, not the ones that an

ethnographer happens to identify as representing distinct cultural units.” Taken

together, this line of reasoning leads to our first testable hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1 The more politically relevant ethnic groups are represented at the

executive level of an authoritarian regime, the lower the likeli-

hood of regime failure.

Quite obviously, this general hypothesis might gloss over important di↵erences

between di↵erent types of regime failure as well as di↵erent authoritarian regimes.

In fact, some accounts of authoritarian survival strategies have questioned the un-

ambiguously stabilizing e↵ects of cooptation (see e.g. Brancati, 2014). Including

potential ethnic challengers may backfire if it empowers them politically and equips

them with resources and opportunities that may make them more likely to challenge

the seating incumbent at some point in the future (Wright and Escriba-Folch, 2012).

The former Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is but one example of

a powerful rival and opposition leader who has acquired political capital, resources

and some of his allies during his time in the ruling regime party (Brancati, 2014).

In addition, coopted elites may become more powerful over time, forging alliances

within the ruling coalition and pressing the dictator to implement institutional re-

forms credibly ensuring his continued adherence to ethnic power-sharing (Acemoglu

7

and Robinson, 2005). If such reforms are su�ciently far-ranging, they might amount

or at least contribute to a process of elite-led and negotiated regime change. In both

cases, we would expect coopted elites to first work through existing political channels

and aim at a regular, i.e. an electoral or elite-led process of regime change.

When it comes to irregular forms of regime change, Roessler (2011) has promi-

nently argued that ethnic inclusion reduces the risk of ethnic rebellion but, on the

other hand, heightens the threat of coups. While inter-ethnic coups staged by insid-

ers of ethnic power-sharing arrangements are an empirically relevant phenomenon,

as Roessler (2011) convincingly shows, the question of how general of a pattern

they are remains unanswered. Horowitz (1985) regards situations where some eth-

nically defined faction of the military is dissatisfied with a lack of representation in

the civilian regime as particularly dangerous. This suggests that carefully targeted

ethnic cooptation might actually reduce the risk of inter-ethnic coups. In addi-

tion, Roessler’s (2011) analysis also shows that the risk of coups decreases with the

number of included groups. In more inclusive ethnic power-sharing regimes, the co-

ordination of coup attempts arguably requires cooperation across group boundaries.

Moreover, the dictator’s long-term commitment to ethnic power-sharing seems more

credible the more groups are included. This should reduce the incentive of ethnic

elites to plot a coup in order to pre-empt being excluded by a ruler defecting from

ethnic power-sharing (Roessler, 2011).

On these grounds, we expect ethnic cooptation to be a particularly e↵ective strat-

egy against irregular forms of autocratic regime failure. The political empowerment

e↵ect of ethnic cooptation may weaken or even counteract the regime-stabilizing

e↵ect when it comes to regular instances of regime change. Stated as hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2 Ethnic cooptation more e↵ectively reduces the risk of irregular

than regular forms of autocratic regime failure

A similar point can be made with respect to the distinction between democratic

transitions and autocratic regime changes. Most irregular regime breakdowns (75%)

result in subsequent autocracy or state failure whereas most regular regime changes

result in a democratic successor regime (84%) (Geddes, Wright and Frantz, 2014).

Acemoglu and Robinson (2005) have famously argued that democratic concessions

may be the best or even only institutional reform enabling the dictator to credibly

commit not to defect from power-sharing or promised policy reforms. Thus potential

ethnic elites may use their new influence to push for democratic or at least semi-

democratic reforms. On the other hand, Acemoglu and Robinson (2005) claim that

ruling elites are more likely to acquiesce to democratization when it preserves some

of their power and privileges. Forging an inclusive ethnic coalition that stands a

realistic chance of winning even truly democratic elections may thus make democ-

8

ratization more palatable to the incumbent rulers (Bormann, 2014). This leads to

our third hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3 Ethnic cooptation more e↵ectively reduces the risk of autocratic

than of democratizing forms of regime failure.

Finally, the e↵ect of ethnic cooptation may depend on the specific type of author-

itarian regime. Geddes (1999) has prominently distinguished between personalist,

party-based, and military dictatorships, depending on who controls access to politi-

cal power, key policy decisions, and the executive apparatus including the country’s

security forces. In her account of regime stability and breakdown, Geddes (1999)

argues that authoritarian power-sharing is more challenging in military than in per-

sonalist or party-based regimes. For members of a personalist dictator’s clique or

a regime party, personal career prospects, political power and access to resources

depend to a larger extent on the continuation of the regime than for a military junta.

Quite frequently, o�cers remain in high-ranking military positions even after

episodes of regime change away from military dictatorship. As a result, breakdowns

of military regimes often originate in internal splits whereas in the case of person-

alist and party-based regimes, disintegration is initiated by external events such as

economic crises, rebellions, popular protest, and the like (Geddes, 1999). This sug-

gests that military regimes face a lower need for cooptation in the first place. In

addition, the inherent fragility of power-sharing under military rule may counteract

any stabilizing e↵ects of cooptation in such regimes. It is arguably in this context

that Roessler’s 2011 “internal security dillemas” and the associated risk of coups

are most pronounced. The fact that military dictatorships are the most repressive

authoritarian regime type (Escriba-Folch, 2013) may further reduce the likelihood

and e↵ectiveness of cooptation strategies. Frantz and Kendall-Taylor (2014) argue

that repression and cooptation are substitutes.

We have argued above that ethnic cooptation strategies are particularly relevant

in neopatrimonial contexts where informal patronage networks are both important

and follow ethnic lines. The degree to which the informal trading of material benefits

for political loyalty pervades the system most likely depends on the institutional-

ization of a particular authoritarian regime. In line with Geddes (1999), we thus

expect neopatrimonial clientelism to be a characteristic feature of personalist dicta-

torships. It is less important in party-based regimes and in military dictatorships

that broadly conform to what O’Donnell (1973) has famously dubbed “bureaucratic

authoritarian” systems. Mostly found in the Latin American context of the 1970s,

bureaucratic military regimes practice a more professionalized, rule-based and ra-

tional type of rule than the typical neopatrimonial personalist regime.

In addition, formal cooptation institutions such as parties and legislatures may

fail to perform their intended functions in personalist regimes (Wright, 2008; Wilson

9

and Wright, forthcoming). Authoritarian power-sharing between the dictator and

his ruling elite needs to be made credible in order to remain intact (Svolik, 2009,

2012). In this sense, cooptation institutions may serve as a credible commitment

on behalf of the dictator to maintain power-sharing and to refrain from arbitrarily

reducing the size of the ruling coalition or changing key policies (Gehlbach and

Keefer, 2012; Wright, 2008). Moreover, parties and legislatures reduce information

asymmetries allowing the dictator and the ruling elites to monitor each other. This

makes threats to detect and punish defections from the agreed-upon power-sharing

arrangement much more credible (Boix and Svolik, 2013; Svolik, 2012). In order to

perform these functions, authoritarian institutions need to e↵ectively constrain the

dictator. This is unlikely to be the case in personalist regimes, where power over

key policies and appointments is concentrated in the hands of the leader.

The large power di↵erential between the dictator and the elites represented in

the legislature or the regime party prevents the latter from credibly threaten the

dictator with punishment, e.g. in the form of a coup (Svolik, 2009). Recent em-

pirical work on growth, investment and expropriation risk in authoritarian regimes

shows that authoritarian legislatures indeed fail to constrain dictators in personal-

ist regimes (Wilson and Wright, forthcoming; Gehlbach and Keefer, 2012; Wright,

2008). On these grounds, we expect other forms of cooptation to be more important.

Where parties and legislatures are not enough, access to more high-level positions

in the executive apparatus ensuring direct control over at least some budgets and

appointments may be needed to successfully coopt potential external challengers.

Taken together, these mechanisms motivate our final hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4 Ethnic cooptation more e↵ectively reduces the risk of regime fail-

ure in personalist than in party-based autocracies. The e↵ect is

even weaker in military regimes.

In short, we expect ethnically inclusive authoritarian regimes to be more stable

than their more exclusive counterparts (H1) and predict this e↵ect to di↵er across

regime and failure types (H2–H4).2 Testing these hypotheses requires us to identify

the most relevant data sources and employ adequate empirical strategies. In what

follows, we briefly outline our methodological approach.

Data & Methods

In order to test our hypotheses about general regime stability (H1 and H4), we

run simple time-series cross-section logistic regression models including controls for

temporal dependence as recommended by Carter and Signorino (2010). While more

2We have no clear theoretical expectation of how ethnic cooptation plays out in monarchies.

10

advanced survival analysis methods could be performed, the simple method chosen

here should yield equivalent results in the absence of strong assumptions about

the time dependencies of the baseline hazard of regime breakdown as well as the

temporal e↵ects of the various predictors (Beck, Katz and Tucker, 1998). To test H3

and H4, we use multinomial logit models with duration controls to assess the e↵ect

of our predictors on the competing risks of regular vs. irregular and democratic

vs. autocratic regime change respectively. Our sample consists of all authoritarian

regimes in multiethnic countries and covers the period 1946–2010. The unit of

analysis is the country-year. In identifying autocracies, we rely on the data set

provided by Geddes, Wright and Frantz (2014). This data set codes all regimes

conforming to the definition of autocracy cited above, records the date and the

type of regime failure and classifies regimes as personalist, party-based, military, or

monarchical. To identify multiethnic autocracies, we use the Ethnic Power Relations

(EPR) data set (Cederman, Wimmer and Min, 2010). The EPR data identifies all

politically relevant ethnic groups in independent states with more than 500’000

inhabitants for the period 1946–2013 and codes whether these groups have access

to executive state power or not. A group is deemed politically relevant if it is either

represented by at least one political organization active at the national level or

“subjected to state led discrimination” (Cederman, Wimmer and Min, 2010).

Our dependent variable in the logit models is an authoritarian regime breakdown

dummy that is coded one for country-years in which an authoritarian regime col-

lapses and zero otherwise. Country-years in which more than one regime collapsed

are also coded as one. This means that we lose some information, but if anything,

ignoring very short-lived regimes should produce somewhat more conservative es-

timates of the e↵ects of our main independent variables. In the multinomial logit

models testing H2, we use categorical dependent variables coded 1 in the case of

regular regime failure, 2 in the case of irregular regime failure, and 0 otherwise. The

dependent variable distinguishing between democratic and autocratic regime failure

(H3) is constructed equivalently.

The focus on authoritarian regimes instead of indiviudal leaders or authoritarian

spells is the theoretically most appropriate one and well in line with recent work

by Svolik (2012) and Geddes, Wright and Frantz (2014). Cooptation institutions

and strategies should have an e↵ect on the longevity of a particular regime, not

necessarily on the time in o�ce of one particular dictator. Quite obviously, ethnic

inclusion does not a↵ect the odds of a dictator dying in a given year. Neither is it

likely to prevent a certain rotation scheme, e.g. in a military governing council, from

operating. A focus on authoritarian spells would be equally misleading, since they

end, by definition, in a democratic transition or the collapse of statehood. These

are, of course, only some and not even the most frequent forms of authoritarian

11

breakdown Svolik (2012). Thus, we look at authoritarian regimes, which are defined

as “a set of formal and/or informal rules for choosing leaders and policies” (Geddes,

Wright and Frantz, 2014, p. 315). As soon as these rules are replaced by another

set of rules, an authoritarian regime breakdown is coded.

Our main independent variable simply counts the number of included groups and

is taken from the EPR data set (Cederman, Wimmer and Min, 2010). Since this

variable codes group-level access to the highest echelons of the executive apparatus,

it seems a useful proxy for the cooptation of ethnic elites. We expect ethnically

motivated challenges to the regime to become less likely the more groups are coopted.

Quite obviously, including three groups in a country populated by four politically

relevant ethnic groups implies a higher degree of inclusiveness than including the

same number of groups in a country, which is home to, say, nine ethnic groups. To

control for this di↵erence, we include the total number of politically relevant ethnic

groups in all models that use the number of included groups measure as a proxy for

the degree of inclusion. To test whether the e↵ect of ethnic inclusion a↵ects di↵erent

authoritarian regime types in di↵erent ways (H4), we interact our ethnic cooptation

variable with regime-type dummies indicating whether we observe a party-based

regime, a military dictatorship or a personalist regime Geddes, Wright and Frantz

(2014).

To avoid biased estimates, we need to accommodate for alternative cooptation

explanations as well as other factors a↵ecting regime stability that might correlate

with ethnic power-sharing. Our choice of control variables is losely based on Ger-

schewski’s (2013) three-pillar model that regards the broad factors of cooptation,

repression and legitimiation as main sources of authoritarian stability. We control

for cooptation institutions highlighted in the previous literature by including dum-

mies for the presence of a legislature and/or a single regime party. The data comes

from Cheibub, Gandhi and Vreeland (2010). As mentioned before, the presence of

a legislative body or political parties is expected to serve as a source of institution-

alized cooptation of relevant elites. Concerning repression, we include an indicator

measuring the extent to which physical integrity rights are violated. We employ the

latent physical integrity rights score developed by Fariss (2014). Fariss’ (2014) ap-

proach uses a whole range of pre-existing human rights data sets and combines them

into a score that o↵ers greater temporal coverage (1946-2010) and is better suited

to take changes in the standard of accountability into account. Successful coop-

tation and repression heavily depend on the availability of resources to any given

authoritarian regime (see e.g. Beck, 2009). Especially windfall revenues from natural

resources are often thought to stabilize authoritarian regimes (Wright, Frantz and

Geddes, 2015). We thus control for the logged value of annual petroleum rents per

capita. The data comes from Ross (2012) and covers revenues from oil and natural

12

gas production.

Lastly, we have to take the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes into account.

Conceptually, political legitimacy consists of two main dimensions: output and input

legitimacy, generating specific and di↵use regime support on behalf of the population

(Easton, 1967; Gerschewski, 2013). Specific support can be expected where a regime

satisfies the material needs of the country’s population. Economic well-being as

well as current economic performance are particularly relevant here. To control for

output legitimacy, we thus include a logged variable of the country’s per capita

GDP and the annual rate of economic growth. The input dimension of legitimacy

or di↵used support are defined in less materialist terms and include factors such

as political ideologies, nationalism, or charismatic leadership (Gerschewski, 2013).

These concepts are notoriously di�cult to pin down in quantitative analyses and

tend to di↵er starkly across countries. In light of this operationalizational ambiguity,

we are currently not able to explicitly control for the di↵used support dimension of

political legitimacy. If ethnic inclusion is chosen primarily by authoritarian regimes

already enjoying high levels of di↵use support, any statistical association between

inclusion and regime stability may be spurious, since both factors are explained

by legitimacy. If, on the other hand, cooptation via ethnic inclusion is chosen to

compensate for low levels of di↵use regime support, our inability to control for this

dimension of legitimacy will lead us to underestimate the ‘true’ e↵ect of inclusion

on regime stability.

In order to reduce the impact of this and other unobserved variables a↵ect-

ing both the likelihood of regime failure and ethnic power-sharing, we also esti-

mate models including country-specific fixed or random e↵ects. Since fixed-e↵ects

models restrict the analysis to within-country variation in both the dependent and

independent variables, they imply dropping all countries that have never seen an

instance of regime failure. Moreover, the e↵ects of time-invariant or only weakly

time-varying covariates cannot be adequately estimated. Random-e↵ects models do

not have these problems yet make the assumption that the country-specific random

error term is uncorrelated with the other right-hand side variables of the model.

This assumption is most likely violated in our case. To balance the advantages

and disadvantages of these approaches to modeling unobserved heterogeneity across

countries, we estimate pooled, random-e↵ects, and fixed-e↵ects models and compare

their results.3 In all models, time-varying predictors are lagged by one year in order

to limit potential simultaneity bias. Table A1 in the Appendix provides summary

statistics of all the variables just described.

3See Clark and Linzer (2015) and Bell and Jones (2015) for discussions of fixed and random-e↵ects models.

13

Results & Interpretation

Before we turn to the results of our multivariate regression analysis, we take a

brief descriptive look at the data. Table 1 cross-tabulates our dependent variable

regime breakdown against an ethnic cooptation dummy that is coded one for all

country-years in which an authoritarian regime is includes more than one politically

relevant ethnic group at the executive level. In our sample, we observe 2244 country

years without and 1614 country years with such powersharing arrangements. The

failure rate in powersharing regime years is 4.29% and thus somewhat lower than in

ethnic monopoly regime years. Based on this simple cross-tabulation, the cooptation

of elites from one or more politically relevant ethnic groups is associated with a

reduction of the failure rate by roughly 17%. This is broadly in line with our

theoretical expectations reflected in H1.

Table 1: Ethnic Powersharing & Regime Failure, 1946–2010

Ethnic Powersharing

No Yes Total

Regime BreakdownNo 2123 (94.61%) 1541 (95.48%) 3664 (94.97%)Yes 121 (5.39%) 73 (4.52%) 194 (5.03%)

Total 2244 1614 3858

Percentages in parantheses sum to 100 across columns

Table 2 illustrates the distribution of ethnic powersharing across di↵erent types

of authoritarian regimes as well as the failure rates of power-sharing and non-

powersharing monarchies, party-based, personalist, and military regimes. Quite

strikingly, military regimes appear as the odd man out. While we observe ethnic

powersharing in more than half of all other regime years, military dictatorships em-

ploy ethnic inclusion in less than 22% of the observed country years. In addition,

the failure rate of powersharing military regimes is almost twice as high as the one

of their less inclusive counterparts. In personalist and party-based regimes, power-

sharing is associated with lower rates of regime failure and the decrease seams most

pronounced in the case of personalist autocracies. This is in line with our theo-

retical reasoning underlying H4, in which we highlight the potentially destabilizing

e↵ects of powersharing in military regimes as well as a particular relevance of ethnic

cooptation in personalist autocracies.

The mere bivariate relationship between ethnic cooptation and regime stability

might be spurious if other factors at least partially determine both ethnic powershar-

ing and the risk of authoritarian breakdown. In our multivariate regression analyses,

we control for a host of such potential omitted variables and address the issue of un-

observed heterogeneity by including country-specific random or fixed e↵ects. Table

3 reports the results of our random e↵ects models of authoritarian stability. Re-

14

Table 2: Regime Type, Ethnic Powersharing & Failure Rates

No Powersharing PowersharingRegime Type N Share Fail Rate Share Fail Rate

Personalist 952 57.25% 7.34% 42.75% 5.65%Party-based 1961 54.67% 2.99% 45.33% 2.47%Military 496 78.43% 11.05% 21.57% 20.56%Monarchy 449 53.01% 2.52% 47.99% 2.84%All Autocracies 3858 58.16% 5.39% 41.84% 4.52%

sults from population-averaged and fixed-e↵ects models can be found in Table A2

and Table A3 in the Appendix. If anything, the fixed-e↵ects models show stronger

e↵ects of our cooptation variable than the results reported here. As our dependent

variable is regime breakdown, positive coe�cients indicate destabilizing e↵ects while

negative coe�cients imply a stabilizing impact on authoritarian regimes. All four

models include controls for repression, output legitimacy,natural resource rents, and

politically relevant ethnic diversity. Model 2-4 introduce dummies for authoritarian

legislatures and regime parties.

The coe�cient on our ethnic cooptation proxy (No. Included Groups) is negative

and significant at the 10% confidence level in Model 1 and remains so in Model 4

that also includes the institutional cooptation variables. These results lend support

to our first hypothesis postulating that the cooptation of ethnic elites is associated

with higher regime stability, ceteris paribus. Models 2 and 3 test the e↵ect of

cooptation institutions. While the coe�cient on the single-party dummy is negative

and significant, the legislature coe�cient has the expected sign yet fails to reach

conventional significance levels. Higher levels of repression seem to correlate with a

greater risk of regime failure, although only Model 2 produces a significant estimate.

While this seems somewhat counterintuitive, it may be due to a selection e↵ect

in the sense that that repression is more intensely used by inherently unstable,

e.g. military, regimes (Escriba-Folch, 2013). Economic growth is associated with

a significantly lower probability of regime breakdown, while the level of per capita

income does not reach significance. Resource rents are associated with lower odds of

regime breakdown, although the coe�cient on our petroleum rents variable misses

significance in Model 3.

Figure 1 plots the average predicted probabilities of regime failure across the

observed range of our cooptation variable. It is based on Model 1 in Table 3 assuming

that the random e↵ect is zero. Excluding one group from a three-group ethnic

ruling coalition as it happened in the final years of the long-lasting Ivorian post-

independence regime increases the risk of regime breakdown by 17% (from 3.6% to

4.2%). This di↵erence is statistically significant at the 95% confidence interval.4 Its

4calculation based on Stata’s lincom command, not reported here.

15

Table 3: Random E↵ects Logit Models of Regime Failure

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

No. Included Groups �0.164+ �0.150+

(0.085) (0.085)

Legislature �0.328 �0.289(0.238) (0.238)

Single Party �0.575⇤ �0.544⇤

(0.242) (0.240)

Repression 0.183 0.198+ 0.192 0.135(0.118) (0.115) (0.119) (0.119)

GDP p.c. (log) 0.033 0.043 �0.002 �0.003(0.138) (0.137) (0.142) (0.138)

GDP Growth �4.951⇤⇤⇤ �5.095⇤⇤⇤ �5.086⇤⇤⇤ �5.131⇤⇤⇤

(1.058) (1.068) (1.072) (1.065)

Petroleum Rents p.c. (log) �0.097+ �0.091+ �0.086 �0.092+

(0.055) (0.053) (0.056) (0.054)

No. of Groups �0.025 �0.032 �0.030 �0.020(0.024) (0.024) (0.026) (0.024)

Constant �2.885⇤⇤ �3.134⇤⇤ �2.926⇤⇤ �2.489⇤

(1.053) (1.037) (1.087) (1.061)

Observations 3248 3199 3199 3199Duration Polynomials Yes Yes Yes YesClustered SE (Country) No No No NoRandom E↵ects (Country) Yes Yes Yes YesCountry-Fixed E↵ects No No No No

Standard Errors in Parentheses

+p < 0.10,⇤ p < 0.05,⇤⇤ p < 0.01,⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001

16

Figure 1: Failure Risk across Number of Coopted Groups

substantive size is comparable to the e↵ect of increasing a country’s economic growth

rate from 0% to 3% and amounts to almost a third of the e↵ect of introducing a

single regime party.5

Distinguishing Types of Regime Change: Turning to the distinction between

di↵erent types of regime failure, Table 4 presents the results of our competing risks

analysis of regular vs. irregular forms of authoritarian breakdowns. H2 above pre-

dicts ethnic cooptation to be e↵ective when it comes to preventing coerced and

extraconstitutional forms of regime changes such as coups, rebellions, and popular

uprisings. It may be a less potent tool when it comes more regular, i.e. electoral and

elite-led instances of regime change. Model 5 is a simple multinomial logit model,

whereas Model 6 includes country-random e↵ects to account for unobserved hetero-

geneity. The results provide clear support for our hypothesis that ethnic cooptation

primarily safeguards against irregular challenges initiated by excluded ethnic elites

and their followers. In both models, the coe�cient on our main explanatory variable

is negative and significant at the 95% confidence interval.

Figure 2 depicts the predicted probabilities of regular and irregular regime change

based on the random-e↵ects specification (Model 6). While Increasing the number

of politically relevant groups included in the ruling coalition has no discernable

e↵ect on the risk of regular regime change, it markedly reduces the probability of

irregular regime change.Substantively, moving from a three-group to a two-group

ruling coalition increases the risk of irregular regime failure by 27% (from 1.9% to

5calculations based on Model 1 and Model 4 in Table 3, respectively

17

Figure 2: Risk of Regular vs. Irregular Regime Failure

Table 4: Competing Risks (Regular vs. Irregular Change)

Model 5 Model 6Type of Regime Change Regular Irregular Regular Irregular

No. Included Groups 0.034 �0.202⇤ 0.021 �0.254⇤

(0.108) (0.092) (0.124) (0.112)

Legislature �1.022⇤⇤⇤ 0.085 �0.944⇤⇤ 0.213(0.308) (0.307) (0.351) (0.309)

Single Party �2.352⇤⇤ 0.045 �2.456⇤⇤⇤ �0.021(0.746) (0.222) (0.739) (0.270)

Repression �0.047 0.199 0.001 0.277+

(0.165) (0.151) (0.172) (0.148)

GDP p.c. (log) 0.198 �0.151 0.240 �0.218(0.201) (0.154) (0.196) (0.178)

GDP Growth �1.645 �6.107⇤⇤⇤ �1.817 �6.667⇤⇤⇤

(1.804) (1.130) (1.882) (1.260)

Petroleum Rents p.c. (log) �0.070 �0.097+ �0.086 �0.111(0.073) (0.058) (0.074) (0.073)

No. of Groups �0.094 �0.002 �0.093 �0.006(0.059) (0.018) (0.070) (0.026)

Constant �4.068⇤⇤ �1.853 �5.068⇤⇤ �1.853(1.484) (1.250) (1.587) (1.333)

Observations 3199 3199Duration Polynomials Yes YesClustered SE (Country) Yes NoRandom E↵ects (Country) No YesCountry-Fixed E↵ects No No

Standard Errors in Parentheses

+p < 0.10,⇤ p < 0.05,⇤⇤ p < 0.01,⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001

18

Table 5: Comepting Risks (Democratization vs. Autocratic Change)

Model 7 Model 8Type of Regime Change Democratic Autocratic Democratic Autocratic

No. Included Groups 0.002 �0.288⇤⇤ �0.024 �0.341⇤

(0.094) (0.091) (0.108) (0.134)

Legislature �0.692⇤ �0.103 �0.592+ 0.020(0.293) (0.295) (0.323) (0.324)

Single Party �1.647⇤⇤⇤ 0.072 �1.733⇤⇤⇤ 0.009(0.481) (0.232) (0.487) (0.295)

Repression 0.004 0.112 0.051 0.184(0.141) (0.163) (0.156) (0.159)

GDP p.c. (log) 0.122 �0.110 0.131 �0.170(0.163) (0.148) (0.176) (0.192)

GDP Growth �3.778⇤ �5.300⇤⇤⇤ �4.197⇤⇤ �5.784⇤⇤⇤

(1.477) (1.208) (1.533) (1.364)

Petroleum Rents p.c. (log) �0.082 �0.103+ �0.095 �0.111(0.063) (0.056) (0.068) (0.078)

No. of Groups �0.050 �0.045+ �0.058 �0.056(0.035) (0.025) (0.049) (0.048)

Constant �3.627⇤⇤ �1.715 �4.166⇤⇤ �1.667(1.227) (1.164) (1.400) (1.457)

Observations 3199 3199Duration Polynomials Yes YesClustered SE (Country) Yes NoRandom E↵ects (Country) No YesCountry-Fixed E↵ects No No

Standard Errors in Parentheses

+p < 0.10,⇤ p < 0.05,⇤⇤ p < 0.01,⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001

2.5%).

Our third hypothesis predicts a similar pattern when it comes to distinguishing

between democratic transitions and regime failures that result in subsequent autoc-

racies. We expect ethnic cooptation to predominantly a↵ect the likelihood of the

latter form of authoritarian breakdown. Table 5 presents the results of the models

testing H3. Again, the first two columns report the estimates from a population-

averaged multinomial logit model, whereas columns three and four show results from

a random-e↵ects model. The coe�cients on our main explanatory variable suggest

that higher levels of ethnopolitical inclusiveness are associated with significantly

lower odds of autocratic regime failure. The e↵ect of ethnic cooptation on the likeli-

hood of democratic transitions, on the other hand, is statistcially indistinguishable

from zero. Figure 3 facilitates the substantive interpretation of these results. The

predicted probability curve plotted in the right-hand panel now looks even steeper

than it was the case in Figure 2. According to the estimates derived from Model

19

Figure 3: Risk of Democratization vs. Autocratic Regime Failure

8, moving from three to two coopted ethnic groups on average raises the risk of

autocratic regime failure by 39% (from 1.3% to 1.9%).

Distinguishing between Regime Types: To test whether the e↵ect of ethnic

cooptation found in the first few models di↵ers across regime types, we run two

models – one pooled, the other with random e↵ects – in which we interact the

count of politically included ethnic groups from the EPR data set with dummies

for personalist, party-based, and military regimes as coded by Geddes, Wright and

Frantz (2014). Monarchies constitute the baseline category. Table 6 reports the

coe�cients, standard errors, and significance levels from these models: In both

specifications, the ethnic cooptation proxy, all regime type dummies and interaction

terms are statistically significant. To facilitate the interpretation of the interactions

between cooptation and regime type, we plot the predicted probabilities of regime

failure across the range of ethnic inclusion for all four regime types. All plots are

based on the random-e↵ects specification (Model 10).

In line with our theoretical expectations, in the top-left panel, we see that only

in personalist autocracies, regime stability can be markedly enhanced by making

the ruling coalition ethnically more inclusive. the other panels suggest a moderately

stabilizing yet statistically insignificant e↵ect of ethnic cooptation in party-based

regimes and destabilizing, yet imprecisely estimated e↵ects in military dictatorships

and monarchies. Taken together, our findings suggest that in ethnically diverse

countries, ethnically inclusive authoritarian regimes are less prone to breakdown

than their more exclusive counterparts. However, this e↵ect is not homogeneous

across di↵erent forms of regime change. As predicted by our theory, cooptation

of ethnic elites seems e↵ective when it comes to preventing irregular challenges

emanating from underrepresented ethnic groups that would, if successful result in

subsequent autocracy instead of democratic transition. Moreover, ethnic cooptation

works best in personalist dictatorships in which patronage is more important and

institutional forms of cooptation are less e↵ective than in other regime types.

20

Table 6: Authoritarian Breakdown by Regime Type

Model 9 Model 10� s.e. � s.e.

No. Included Groups 0.797⇤⇤⇤ (0.206) 0.801⇤ (0.339)

Personalist Regime 2.713⇤⇤⇤ (0.816) 2.750⇤⇤ (0.861)

Personalist x Incl. Groups �1.024⇤⇤⇤ (0.246) �1.042⇤⇤ (0.381)

Party-Based Regime 1.763⇤ (0.694) 1.779⇤ (0.801)

Party-Based x Incl. Groups �0.877⇤⇤⇤ (0.214) �0.884⇤ (0.354)

Military Regime 3.037⇤⇤⇤ (0.789) 3.071⇤⇤⇤ (0.864)

Military x Incl. Groups �0.644⇤⇤ (0.220) �0.653+ (0.370)

Legislature �0.008 (0.251) 0.000 (0.239)

Single Party �0.372+ (0.212) �0.373 (0.232)

Repression 0.018 (0.104) 0.022 (0.105)

GDP p.c. (log) �0.039 (0.111) �0.048 (0.125)

GDP Growth �5.009⇤⇤⇤ (1.049) �5.056⇤⇤⇤ (1.051)

Petroleum Rents p.c. (log) �0.079+ (0.043) �0.079+ (0.046)

No. of Groups �0.024 (0.023) �0.024 (0.023)

Constant �4.802⇤⇤⇤ (1.203) �4.808⇤⇤⇤ (1.161)

Observations 3199 3199Duration Polynomials Yes YesClustered SE (Country) Yes NoRandom E↵ects (Country) No YesCountry-Fixed E↵ects No No

Standard Errors in Parentheses

+p < 0.10,⇤ p < 0.05,⇤⇤ p < 0.01,⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001

21

Conclusion

Our analysis highlights the importance of ethnic cooptation strategies in multi-

ethnic autocracies. Including elites from politically relevant ethnic groups at the

executive level may indeed influence authoritarian regime survival. The empirical

results confirm a strong e↵ect of ethnic cooptation across a number of models and

specifications. We have also demonstrated how this e↵ect varies across di↵erent

regime types and how it only reduces the risk of irregular and autocratic forms

of regime change. Our results are robust to including controls for other typically

mentioned explanations of regime stability. In sum, our analysis suggests that ethnic

inclusion at the executive level not only reduces the risk of ethnic rebellion, as e.g.

Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010) have shown, but also prevents other threats to

regime stability.

These findings complement previous cooptation research, which predominantly

highlights the role of formal institutions instead of focusing on the most relevant

actors that need to be coopted. In addition, moving beyond seemingly democratic

institutions such as legislatures and political parties enables the study of less formal,

more clientelistic or neopatrimonial cooptation strategies. We regard both of these

points as promising avenues for future research. Methodologically, our large-n re-

search design allows us to show that ethnic inclusion matters yet remains too crude

to pin down the precise mechanisms of elite cooptation in multi-ethnic autocracies.

Moreover, it seems extremely challenging to rule out all potential sources of omitted

variable bias and reverse causality in quantitative models of authoritarian stability

(Pepinsky, 2014). In order to better understand whether our hypotheses and the

underlying causal mechanisms hold true, process-tracing case studies may fruitfully

complement the large-n analysis presented in this paper.

22

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Appendix

Table A1: Summary Statistics

count mean sd min max

Regime Failure 3889 0.050 0.219 0 1Irregular Failure 3889 0.032 0.176 0 1Regular Failure 3889 0.018 0.134 0 1Democratic Transition 3889 0.023 0.149 0 1Autocratic Change 3889 0.026 0.158 0 1No. Included Groups 3858 1.964 1.457 1 13Legislature 3764 0.806 0.396 0 1Single Party 3764 0.264 0.441 0 1Repression 3780 0.492 0.947 -2.091 3.134GDP p.c. (log) 3807 7.625 1.115 4.703 11.626GDP Growth 3781 0.021 0.078 -0.646 0.661Petroleum Rents p.c. (log) 3334 2.357 2.859 0 10.903No. of Groups 3858 5.754 7.402 2 57

Table A2: Pooled Logit Models of Regime Failure

(1) (2) (3) (4)

No. Included Groups �0.135⇤ �0.120+

(0.067) (0.065)

Legislature �0.433+ �0.390+

(0.234) (0.230)

Single Party �0.519⇤ �0.490⇤

(0.202) (0.203)

Repression 0.121 0.153 0.139 0.083(0.098) (0.101) (0.100) (0.105)

GDP p.c. (log) 0.052 0.061 0.004 0.016(0.115) (0.121) (0.123) (0.120)

GDP Growth �4.519⇤⇤⇤ �4.680⇤⇤⇤ �4.580⇤⇤⇤ �4.735⇤⇤⇤

(0.941) (0.938) (0.949) (0.955)

Petroleum Rents p.c. (log) �0.084+ �0.083+ �0.069 �0.081+

(0.044) (0.045) (0.045) (0.044)

No. of Groups �0.021 �0.029 �0.030 �0.019(0.016) (0.023) (0.026) (0.020)

Constant �2.615⇤⇤ �2.802⇤⇤ �2.467⇤ �2.197⇤

(0.878) (0.909) (0.968) (0.934)

Observations 3248 3199 3199 3199Duration Polynomials Yes Yes Yes YesClustered SE (Country) Yes Yes Yes YesRandom E↵ects (Country) No No No NoCountry-Fixed E↵ects No No No No

Standard Errors in Parentheses

+p < 0.10,⇤ p < 0.05,⇤⇤ p < 0.01,⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001

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Table A3: Fixed-E↵ects Logit Models of Regime Failure

(1) (2) (3) (4)

No. Included Groups �0.428⇤ �0.464⇤

(0.185) (0.189)

Legislature 0.123 0.171(0.274) (0.275)

Single Party �0.568+ �0.625⇤

(0.311) (0.311)

Repression 0.502⇤⇤ 0.483⇤⇤ 0.474⇤⇤ 0.507⇤⇤

(0.173) (0.176) (0.175) (0.179)

GDP p.c. (log) �0.435 �0.461 �0.451 �0.370(0.480) (0.486) (0.481) (0.495)

GDP Growth �4.564⇤⇤⇤ �4.782⇤⇤⇤ �4.834⇤⇤⇤ �4.693⇤⇤⇤

(1.213) (1.229) (1.239) (1.233)

Petroleum Rents p.c. (log) �0.106 �0.113 �0.125 �0.120(0.112) (0.112) (0.113) (0.114)

No. of Groups 0.287⇤ 0.242+ 0.224+ 0.300⇤

(0.142) (0.135) (0.134) (0.144)

Observations 2349 2325 2325 2325Duration Polynomials Yes Yes Yes YesClustered SE (Country) No No No NoRandom E↵ects (Country) No No No NoCountry-Fixed E↵ects Yes Yes Yes Yes

Standard Errors in Parentheses

+p < 0.10,⇤ p < 0.05,⇤⇤ p < 0.01,⇤⇤⇤ p < 0.001

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