The Spatial Dependence of Coups

The current literature conceptualizes coups as a purely domestic phenomenon. We challenge the perspective by presenting a theoretical argument that takes into account international spill-over effects. More specifically we argue that both, the political leadership and potential challengers, condition their behavior on coups in neighboring countries. Hence, the choice to coup-proof (government) and to attempt a coup (challenger) are both conditional on coup attempts and their outcome in neighboring countries. Therefore, our theoretical argument implies that we have two interdependent outcomes (coup-proofing and coup attempt) that both depend on the spatial/network context. We therefore estimate a seemingly-unrelated-related network model that accounts for the endogenous nature of the main outcome variables as well as the spatial dependence. Initial results support our theoretical argument that the government (coup-proofing) and the domestic challenger (coup attempts) condition their behavior on neighboring coup attempts.