Coordination, Learning, and Coups

This paper proposes a theory of coups that centers around coordination and learn-ing. The military is modeled as many officers who only want to join a coup if others join as well (i.e., coordination). If the current regime has survived past coup attempts, it is common knowledge that it is relatively strong (i.e., learning). Combining these ef-fects, once the regime survives the first period, officers know that the regime is strong enough that theymay refrain from staging a coup – regardless of how dissatisfied they may become with the status quo – under the mutually enforcing expectation that no other officer will rebel. The model has other equilibria where coup attempts can occur after the first period, allowing for more detailed empirical predictions. The analysis highlights several reasons why new regimes are prone to coups, but among regimes surviving the initial turmoil structural factors that would seem to predict coup at-tempts can have an ambiguous effect. The model also makes novel predictions about how the “initial conditions ” of a regime as well as what kinds of changes to payoffs affect the likelihood of coups. ∗Department of Government, Cornell University