Political Survival Through Armed Conflicts

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P ÔLITICAL S ÛRVIVAL T ^HROUGH A ^RMED C ÔNFLICTS

Kristopher Jordan

U NIVERSITY OF O ^SLO

Department of Political Science Master’s Thesis in Political Science

Spring 2016

Advisor:

Håvard Mokleiv Nygård

Senior Researcher - Peace Research Institute Oslo

Word Count: 34153

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©Kristopher Jordan 18th May 2016 Political Survival Through Armed Conflicts Kristopher Jordan http://www.duo.uio.no Print: Reprosentralen, University of Oslo

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Abstract

This thesis investigate to what degree political leaders are perceived as accountable for engaging in an armed conflicts, measured as perseverance in office. Previous research show that engaging in armed conflicts has a negative effect on political survival (Brody, 1991; Brody & Page, 1975; Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson, 1995;

Croco, 2011; Kernell, 1978; Mueller, 1973; Norpoth, 1987), but has only addressed how engaging in aninterstateconflict affect degree of survivability. By using Gled- itschet al. (2002); Pettersson & Wallensteen (2015) framework, I explore how different types of armed conflicts alter the leaders perseverance in office differently.

Additionally, I use two theories on political accountability, the selectorate theory (Bueno De Mesquitaet al., 2005) and Weeks´(2014) index on autocratic regimes, to explain how a reduced degree of liability gives political leaders a greater leeway in their policy.

Using data on political leaders and armed conflicts from 1946 to 2014, this thesis provides three main contributions. Firstly, I find that different types of conflicts affect political survival differently. Secondly, the degree of accountability the political leaders has to their citizens and political elites influence their perseverance in office after engaging in an armed conflict. Although same regimes have the same Polity- IV value (Marshall, 2002), the implementation of regime categories (Weeks, 2014) explains variations in survivability. Secondly, utilising penalised splines on some continuous variables gives an explanation of how pre-conflict tenure and starting age affect political survival. Thirdly, the discrepancy between the theoretical expec- tations and the statistical findings, questions the measurement validity (Adcock, 2001) of the selectorate theory.

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Acknowledgements

There are many people to whom I am grateful for their contribution to finalize this thesis, both on an academic and personal level. Words do not suffice when describing the significance of your help and support through this process. I can unfortu- nate only name some.

Firstly, I want to thank my advisor, Håvard Mokleiv Nygård. Your methodolog- ical knowledge, theoretical insight and thorough commenting have been of great importance.

Secondly, I want to give a huge thanks to family, friends and fellow students.

Magnus, your patience and help when I stumbled upon problems inR have been significant. Thank you mom and dad for proof reading and other forms of support these past years.

Finally, I would like to thank my wonderful wife. Your encouragement and support has been imperative throughout this whole process.

Any mistakes within this text are fully my own.

The data and documentation is available at

https://github.com/KristopherJordan/MasterThesis

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To Eva, for her tremendous love and support, and to Viktoria, Wilhelm and Benjamin,

for their awesomeness and ability to keep things in perspective.

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List of Figures

1 Welfare of coalition members . . . 11

2 Weeks (2014): Autocratic regime types . . . 15

3 Total Duration for Political Leaders, based on starting age and PolityIV 21 4 Total Duration for Political Leaders: 1946-2014 . . . 40

5 Total Duration for Political Leaders, based on starting year . . . 40

6 Average Duration: Selectorate Theory . . . 43

7 World Map 2006: Size of Winning Coalition . . . 44

8 World Map 2006: Size of Selectorate . . . 44

9 Correlation matrix: Weeks and GWF regime categories . . . 45

10 UCDP/PRIO: Number of armed conflicts by type: 1946-2014 . . . 48

11 Age when entering office for political leaders . . . 51

12 Size of Winning Coalition and Selectorate on Conflict Type . . . 56

13 Weeks(2014)-regimes on Conflict Type . . . 57

14 Hypotesis 1: The Selectorate Theory on Duration . . . 60

15 Model 6: GDP Per Capita and Starting Age . . . 63

16 Survival Curve: Winning Coalition . . . 64

17 Hypotesis 2: Weeks(2014) Regimes on Duration . . . 66

18 Model 3: Engaging War . . . 69

19 Model 3: Pre-Conflict Tenure . . . 71

20 Deviance Residuals . . . 77

21 Hypotesis 1: Score Resiuals . . . 79

22 Hypotesis 2: Score Resiuals . . . 80

23 Weeks(2014) Regime Index on Polity-IV Value . . . ix

24 GWF Regime Index on Polity-IV Value . . . ix

25 UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflicts: 1946-2014, Intensity level . . . x

26 Pre-Conflict Tenure . . . x

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List of Tables

1 Summary of Weeks (2014) assumptions on autocratic regimes . . . . 17

2 Summary of Hypotheses . . . 29

3 Overview of the dataset . . . 52

4 Coefficients Model 1: S and W Matrix . . . 61

5 Subsets of Model 1 and 2 . . . 75

6 Descriptive statistics . . . xi

7 Imputated Modell . . . xii

8 RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS1 . . . xiii

9 RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS2 . . . xiv

10 RESULTS: MODEL3 . . . xv

11 Proportional Hazard Assumption Test . . . xvi

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1 - Introduction

When you’ve spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment, it’s exciting to have a real crisis on your hands.

Margaret Thatcher On the Falkland Islands war

S

^TATE leaders are perceived as their country´s de facto leader. They have considerable influence on policy, both domestic and abroad. Questions of whether engaging in conflicts or pursing more peaceful solutions is one of central policy field, where their leadership is of great importance. Mar- garet Thatcher´s quote above indicates how some policy areas are more important than others for state leaders. Manoeuvring their state through a crisis is one of their greatest concerns. If failing, a shrinking approval rate or losing office is prob- able consequences in the aftermath. The greater risk for losing office, the higher importance the situation has, for both citizens and leaders. This thesis will investigate to which degree citizens and political elites hold their state leaders accountable for policy crisis, measured as duration and perseverance in office. Engaging in an armed conflict is a potential crisis. High death tolls and prolonged wars could give the opposition support, increasing the probability of losing office for the incumbent government or leader. The next paragraph will investigate some cases of political leaders, whose commonalities are engaging in an armed conflict.

In April 1982, General Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina lead their military forces to occupy the British overseas territory Falkland Islands. The British forces struck back, resulting in a severe defeat to the Argentinian forces after 74 days. Likewise, in August 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. In this case a large Western coalition intervened, leading to Kuwait´s renewed independence. These two cases have a lot of similarities, and some differences. Leopoldo Galtieri and Saddam Hussein where both dictators in the same time period; They ruled ruthlessly upon their citizens at large, and where only accountable to a small group of political elites; They initiated an armed conflict on a superior Western military power. The dissimilari- ties are striking. While Saddam Hussein continued his rule an additional thirteen years, Leopoldo Galtieri was replaced by another general four days after defeated.

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What could explain the variation in duration after engaging in an armed conflict?

In the same matter, George H. W. Bush intervened in Kuwait after aforesaid attack from Saddam Hussein and Margaret Thatcher dispatched the British Navy to recapture the Falkland Islands. While George Bush Sr. lost office after one period in office, Thatcher boosted her popularity significant during this war. Scholars argue that post-conflict support allowed her to regain office twice (Norpoth, 1987). The events have some similarities and differences. Both had a positive war outcome against dictatorships, both intervened as an answer to the other parts military ag- gression and both lead military superpowers in the same time period. The dissimi- larities are mainly that Thatcher defended own territory, while Bush sr. intervened in a domestically area of interest.

From these two examples, there seems to be some different factors affecting post- conflict duration in office for political leaders. Saddam Hussein and Galtieri were leaders in autocratic regimes, with a low degree of accountability to their citizens.

The former ruled as a personalistic dictator in a military regime, and the latter was elected from his comrades, with a higher degree of political constraints to domestic elites (Arquilla & Rasmussen, 2001, p. 762). This variation in accountability to elites may explain the difference in post-conflict tenure for these leaders, but not the differences between Thatcher and G. W. Bush. The similarities is striking; the seemingly similar political systems and ruling in the same period of time. The differences lie maybe in type of conflict? While Thatcher engaged in an interstate war, between two national states, Bush intervened in an ongoing conflict. Could this variation explain their post-conflict popularity?

Horowitz et al. (2015) argue that the history of political events is made by people (p. xi). The theory assumes that political leaders are actors with influence, rather than just marionettes incentivized by international structures and domestic politics (ibid, p. 186). This thesis treats political leaders likewise, as an important actor in both international and domestic politics, whose influence on policy should not be underestimated.

This thesis will mainly investigate to what degree the political leader is held accountable for their country´s policy when engaging in an armed conflict. It assumes that political leaders are rational, and one of their main goals is to maximise their duration in office. An instrument to strengthen their own probability to maintain office, is relocation of the country´s capabilities. Bueno De Mesquita & Smith (2010, p. 936) argue that political leaders want to maximise their political influence and designpolicies that shape the provision of private goods and public goods as the basis for

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doing so.¹ How can engaging in an armed conflict be seen as rationale behaviour for political leaders? And to which degree are they identified as responsible for their policy to the electorate, both those entities supporting and not supporting them in the previous election. As in the example above, the electorate, both voters and/or political elites, will punish or reward their leaders depending on circumstances in the country (Lewis-Beck & Stegmaier, 2000). Bueno De Mesquita & Smith (2010, p.

936) points out that individual political leaders, as an unit of analysis, is a growing theme in political science. This may be, as Goemans (2000) argue, because the impact individual leaders have on the states policy, especially through crisis, should not be underestimated. This thesis will focus on perseverance in office for political leaders through these policy crises. The research question for this thesis is therefore:

RESEARCH QUESTION: To what degree does engaging in an armed conflict affect the duration in office for political leaders in the post-war era?

This thesis will seek to explore important factors affecting the duration for political leaders through armed conflicts. In the examples above, degree of accountability, autocratic regimes and conflict type could be prominent explanations for the variation in post-conflict tenure. Measuring accountability is an ambitious task without utilizing a theoretical framework. The analysis will therefore be conducted with the basis in two existing theories regarding political survival; the first on degree of accountability and the second concerning political leaders in autocratic regimes.

In the Selectorate theory, Bueno De Mesquita et al. (2005) utilizes the degree of accountability the political elite have as the main explanation for the regimes latitude in policy. The different size ratios between the enfranchised entities and the subset of these needed to empower the political leaders gives them a divergent degree of leeway. In a typical democratic state, the political leadership is empow- ered by approximately one half of the enfranchised citizens. In autocratic regimes, due to, for example, rigged election systems, the proportion of enfranchised citizens needed to constitute political leaders is much smaller. Before presenting the theoretical framework utilised, some central concepts will be discussed.

1This implies that political leaders behaviour is primarily based onrational choicetheory. There are some weaknesses in regard to this theory. See Hindmoor (2011) for a brief discussion around some controversies concerning rational choice theory, and its appliance in political science.

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1.1 Central Concepts

To facilitate reading, I will first clarify the main terminology of the thesis. These concepts include: political survival, armed conflict and political regimes.

1.1.1 Political Survival

The main concept for this thesis is the degree of perseverance in office for political leaders. Political survival is defined as the probability of holding office for the effective incumbent political leader. By effective leader, I utilize the same term as Goemanset al. (2009), which implies the person whode facto exercised power in a country. This thesis assumes, like Downs (1957, p.150), that political leaders chose policies to maximise their duration in office, throughattaining the income, power, and prestige that go with office. These sets of policies affect to what degree the political leaders manage to hold office. The higher odds a political leader has of loosing office, the lower survival probability the leader have.

The thesis will utilise the same assumptions regarding the behaviour of political leaders as Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson (1995). First, politics is competitive, even in autocratic regimes. The topics contested over and its regulations alters, both spatial and longitudinal. Second, it is a high priority for political leaders to maintain in office, hence power, and use the available sets of instruments at hand to accomplish this objective. Third, political leaders view the holding of office as a prize rather than as a burden. When maximising the probability of maintaining in office, the leaders utilize the set of applicable tools suitable in their polity. The next section will address armed conflict as a concept.

1.1.2 Armed Conflict

An armed conflict is more than epic battles, fought between two or more rivalling states, like the napoleonic wars, the battle of the Somme or the Vietnam War. This thesis will utilize a broader definition of armed conflict. The definition will also en- compass modern conflicts; whose battle related death tolls not necessary surpasses six digits and where the total duration could be counted in days. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) and Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) have col- laborated on the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset. Here an armed conflict is defined as a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in one calendar year(Pettersson & Wallensteen,

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2015). The research cited in this thesis has varying definitions, but the analysis utilize this aforesaid definition on armed conflicts.

1.1.3 Political Regimes

Choosing between different democracy indexes should be a result of the research question Collier & Adcock (1999); Hadenius & Teorell (2005). This thesis focuses on how engaging in armed conflicts affect duration in office for political leaders, hence, the degree of democracy could be highly influential. The more autocratic a regime is, the less accountable the leader may be to their citizens at large. The reduced degree of accountability autocratism entail, could give the leader more leeway in his policies. Following Bratton & Van de Walle (1997, p. 38) political regimes is defined asthe sets of procedures that determine the distribution of power.²

Defining democracy and dictatorship is not straightforward. The differences that has to be considered is whether democracy is a continuous or dichotomous variable (Adcock, 2001; Munck & Verkuilen, 2002); whether the existence of particular institutions or some underlying principles is most important (Beetham, 1999;

Cheibubet al., 2010); and thirdly, which sets of characteristics and traits that hall- mark these regimes (Knutsen, 2011). The different approaches have their benefits and disadvantages. Every regime classification and index have problems with re- liability or validity (Cheibub et al. , 2010; Munck & Verkuilen, 2002). Therefore, as mentioned above, choosing how to measure democracy should be chosen as a means to answer the research question.

The degree of accountability that the political leaders have, could be highly influential on their political survival. This thesis will therefore utilize two different measures of democracy, who focus primarily on the degree of accountability. The Selectorate Theory (Bueno De Mesquitaet al., 2005) theorise that it is the size difference between the selectorate and the winning coalition, those given suffrage and the subset of these needed by a political leader to gain and hold office, that is most important. This index does not differ between political regimes, but measures political accountability as a continuous scale. Svolik (2012, p. 45) argue: the difference between democracies and autocracies is first one of kind and only then one of degree.

Therefore Weeks (2014) autocratic regime index will also be utilized. This is because it classifies regimes in two dimensions: the degree of accountability the political leadership has and whether the leader has a military or civilian background. The inclusion of the accountability-aspect could be of great importance when analysing autocratic regimes.

2"The regime" could be utilized referring to the incumbent leadership rather than regime type.

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1.2 The Plan of the Thesis

The thesis is organised as follows. Chapter 2 presents the theoretical framework, and derive a set of empirically testable hypotheses relating to political survival through armed conflicts. Chapter 3 review the scholarly debate on political survival, both concerning the utilized theories and political survival. Chapter 4 presents the quantitative research design utilized, based on event-history analysis. The findings are reported in Chapter 5, with its statistical robustness examined in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 will discuss the findings from Chapter 5, based on the theoretical framework utilised, preceding findings and the statistical limitations. Finally, some concluding remarks will be given.

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2 - Theory

I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don’t agree with each other, but that’s OK.

If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.

Georg W. Bush, 18th December 2000³

After meeting the congressional leaders, newly elected US. President Georg W.

Bush stated the quotation above. Does he implicitly want to rule as a dictator, without the accompanying constraints imposed by democratic institutions? Did he think the reduced degree of accountability would give him a greater leeway in implementing his policy? In this chapter, I will present the theoretical framework, emphasising the political leaders and elites´ degree of accountability as the main explanation for why some leaders persevere in office after engaging in armed conflicts.

Political leaders have a substantial impact on their country´s policy, especially in foreign policy crisis. This chapter presents a theoretical framework for how engaging in an armed conflict may affect political survival, in light of his degree of accountability and the potential type of autocratic regime. If a state leader has a low degree of liability, the country ruled is most often an autocratic regime. On the other hand, this is not always the case. States with both autocratic and democratic institutions will not necessary meet those criteria required to be defined as an autocratic regime. Gateset al. (2006); Gurr (1974) argue that the most systemic unstable regimes is found in states where the political institutions have both autocratic and democratic characteristics. Thus,both Autocracies and Democracies exhibit institutional consistency that is self-enforcing(Gateset al., 2006, p. 907). This may affect duration after engaging in an armed conflict. When facing a severe policy crisis, the lack of self-enforcing political institutions may affect the ability to persevere in office.

3Remarks by the President-Elect Following a Meeting with Congressional Leaders. 18th Decem- ber 2000.http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=84891

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In this chapter I will present two theories on how the degree of accountability may affect political survival through an armed conflict: the selectorate theory (Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson, 1995) and Weeks´(2014) theory on autocratic regimes. The selectorate theory emphasises the leaders degree of accountability to political elites and/or citizens, which is important for gaining or maintaining office or re-election. The key elements of the selectorate theory is the size ratio between those possessing the role as electors, and the size of the subset of these that is sufficient for the political leader to gain office. The smaller winning coalition, the subset of the electorate the leaders need to gain office, compared to the electorate, the lower degree of accountability. In Weeks (2014) theory, autocratic regimes are divided through two dimensions: the military - non-military axis and the degree of accountability the leader has upon political elites. This creates four different autocratic regimes, whose labels are collected from Slater (2003): Machine, Junta, Boss and Strongman. The theory emphasises how autocratic regimes, where the leaders have a military background, are more likely to utilize military measures in policy crisis, because of their knowledge of these. Likewise will political leaders with a low degree of accountability to political elites have a greater leeway in their foreign policy. These two theories emphasise two different aspects of consideration in political survival: the degree of accountability the leader endows and the potential military background.

When measuring political accountability, several factors are seemingly important. First, the degree of support a leader needs for their day-to-day policy making.

With a low degree of accountability a political leader have fewer restrains in their policy. Although accountability is important, regime type does also affect political survival. Different regimes could have a variety of underlying characteristics that could alter the total tenure for political leaders. Following Svolik (2012), both regime type and political accountability is included in the analysis. The reason for this is that different measurements could give complementary explanations on how engaging in an armed conflict could affect duration in office.

The chapter will proceed as following. First I will present Bueno De Mesquita et al. (2005) Selectorate theory on political accountability. Second a presentation of Weeks (2014) regime classification. One hypothesis is derived from each of the theories, summarised in Table 2.

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2.1 Degree of Accountability

Bueno De Mesquitaet al. (2005) initially investigates different characteristics autocratic regimes have that best could explain the perseverance of political leaders in office. They argue that it is not the type of regime in it self that affects their survivability, but the regime type is a result of how broad support the leader needs to obtain and preserve his position. The selectorate theory emphasises the percentage of citizens with suffrage the incumbent leader needs to accede to for maintaining office as the most important aspect of political survival.

The selectorate theory categorises citizens in polities according to their importance for the political leaders survival. The residents (R) are the total amount of inhabitants in a polity. Nested within the residents, there is aselectorate(S), defined asthe set of people whose endowments include the qualities of characteristics institutionally required to choose the government’s leadership and necessary for gaining access to private benefits doled out by the government’s leadership(ibid, s.42). This definition is different from an electorate, those citizens with suffrage. The definition of the selectorate implies that all residents have a desire to be in the selectorate, so that they could benefit from the private commodities granted by the leader. In post-modern democracies, the selectorate is usually citizens with suffrage, where there are few formal restric- tions on voting in the election.

The subset of the selectorate the leader needs to obtain or gain office is called the winning coalition(W). This group is defined as the subset of the selectorate of sufficient size such that the subset’s support endows the leadership with political power over the remainder of the selectorate as well as over the disenfranchised members of the society (ibid, s. 51). The endowment of a leadership from a sufficient size of the selectorate leads to a winning coalition empowering the leader. The disenfranchised entities is residents not in the selectorate,N −S, and does not have any political influence on a day-to-day policymaking.

All relevant polities have aleader(L), all whom is facing one ore more potential challenger (C).⁴ Leaders and challengers compete in support from a large enough share of the selectorate to gain or maintain office. This could be through allocating resources in their control, or pledging potential resources for the challengers.

In an ideal world the political leadership needs support fromS/2 + 1members of the selectorate to obtain or acquire his post. IfS ≈N, there will be few disenfranchised entities because of the broad support the leader has throughout the polity.

4The abbreviations used in the selectorate theory will be embedded throughout this thesis. Resi- dents=R; Selectorate=S; Winning Coalition=W; Leader=L and Challenger=C.

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Liberal democracies differ from countries where the political institutions have autocratic characteristics. These regimes create a set of required qualities for accessing membership in the winning coalition, creating an artificial scarcity of members in this group (ibid, p. 54). The different combinations of sizes of W and S give the leader different sets of appropriate policies.

The selectorate theory utilises the size difference between the selectorate and the winning coalition as the main explanation for why some leaders have a greater degree of perseverance, especially through policy-crisis. This relationship W/S, which they callthe loyalty norm, has a theoretically high explanatory power for the leaders degree of accountability (ibid, p.65f). One of the most important aspects in the selectorate theory is that individual members of the winning coalition are interchangeable with members in the selectorate. This is most apparent in policies with a small winning coalitions and a large selectorate. This combination is most common in autocratic regimes, because the demand of attaining a membership in the winning coalition far exceeds the supply. As a result of this created scarcity, the leader could create a coveted upper class, from which he could sustain his position by granting private goods, and other benefits, to the members of the winning coalition. In the unlikely event of an individual member redrawing from a small winning coalition, the individual concerned is easily replaced by someone in the large pool of selectorate-members. This creates a high cost for members in the winning coalition for opposing the current regime and gives the leader great latitude in their policy. In case a potential challenger or their supporters oppose the regime, leaders in autocratic regimes, with a small W and a large S, could engage in the most brutal and extensive oppression. The high loyalty from the small winning coalitions will make these leaders prevail through policy crisis.

Bueno de Mesquita et al. theorises that, although there is a wide range of seemingly different regime types, such as democracy, monarchy, autocracy, junta, oli- garchyet cetera, very few political systems are spatial or temporal identical. Bueno De Mesquitaet al. (2005, p. 69) argue thatthe size of the winning coalition and the selectorate can be readily related to conventional labels for describing different political systems.

In democratic statesS ≈N and W is typical a simple majority of S. In a single-party dictatorship, S could be less than 10 percent of N, and the leader could ignore the vast majority (N−S) in a day-to-day policy making. In juntas the selectorate is also small, and the winning coalition could be a handful of colonels or generals. But even though regime categories exist, the selectorate theory emphasises the importance of estimating the values of W and S on a continuous scale. Regime categories cannot explain variations within, for example, juntas, but the selectorate theory

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could find an explanation for these variations in small fluctuations in the size of W or S.

The likelihood for a new leader in regimes with a small W is therefore low. Be- cause of this, we find the most repressive political leaders in these regimes. The larger size of the winning coalition, the harder it is for the leader to maintain the aforesaid loyalty from W. The larger W, the more the leader has to rely on public goods to appease the winning coalition. This is due to the cost of private goods is lower when doled out to many, instead of private benefits. When W is large, all members of the winning coalition only grant public goods. Since public goods in nature is public, all residents get the approximately the same benefit. The loyalty to a particular leadership with a large winning coalition will therefore be low. The theoretical welfare of individual members of W is highest with a very small or a large W. This relationship is illustrated in Figure 1, a replication of Figure 3.2 in Bueno De Mesquitaet al. (2005, p.97).

Figure 1: Welfare of coalition members

The main reason this theory is important when conducting research on political survival, is that the size of the selectorate and the winning coalition could set the premises for the leaders post-conflict survivability. In countries with a large winning coalition, the political leader needs a broad consensus from the large winning coalition before applying military force as a policy-instrument. Without this support the leader would suffer an increased odds for allocation. Because of the large W, the leader cannot compensate the winning coalition with private goods in an

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event of a foreign policy failure. It follows that democratic leaders generally only attack when anticipating an easy victory and needs a broad political consensus for not loosing office. Democratic states are therefore highly selective on which conflicts to fight or negotiate. In those cases where democracies chose to fight, they are more likely to win (ibid, p.236).

The size ratio between W/S is important when deciding whether to fight or to negotiate. States engage in an armed conflict when the expected utility exceeds that of negotiation: P_A > (χ+ Ψ + k)/(1 + Ψ) +R_A/(1 + Ψ)W_A. WhereP_A is country A´s probability to win the armed conflict; χ is the military balance for country A, 1−χfor country B;Ψis the leader´s utility for remaining in office;k is the players per capita cost for engaging war, where the utility for victory equals to1−k and defeat −k; R_A is the total pool of resources available for country A and W_A is the size of the winning coalition in country A. Given the large winning coalition in a democratic state, the term R_A/(1 + Ψ)W_A will be small. The importance of the term (χ + Ψ +k)/(1 + Ψ) depends on the value of holding office. This indicates that political leaders in democratic states, with a large winning coalition, have to be almost certain of a favourable military outcome before engaging in an armed conflict, or else risk an increased odds of loosing office (Bueno De Mesquitaet al., 2005, p.238ff).

As illustrated in Figure 1 on the previous page, the members of a small winning coalition have incentives for maintaining the small coalitions, or else potentially lose their welfare. The selectorate theory discusses primarily small or large winning coalition, and gives little attention to medium-sized coalitions. In fact, the word medium is not used once in their book. From Figure 1 on the preceding page we see that the medium-sized winning coalition have a small amount of welfare. How will this affect political survival? There is a tipping point where the loyalty to their leader diminishes, because the probability of a new leadership surpasses a certain level. Because of the low level of welfare, combined with the raised possibility of a leadership change, political leaders in medium sized W will have little room for errors and policy-crisis.

There is some uncertainty about the policies and degree of accountability for political leaders in medium sized coalitions. Bueno De Mesquitaet al. (2005, p. 96) points out that an enlarged W has two effects: the individual reward of a membership in W decreases, because the overall number of members the leader has to allocate resources is increased. Second, because of the reduced benefits each member of the winning coalition receives, their loyalty decreases.

The number of disenfranchised members will also potentially decrease with a

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higher W. The motives to protest diminish when the society is dependent on a large coalition, because there are a low number of oppressed disenfranchised entities.

Likewise, the willingness to protest is reduced when the costs is too high, because the probability of a new leader is low, due to a small W. The implication of this is that there may be a set of W and S, approximately corresponding to a medium sized winning coalition, which could enhance the probability of internal unrest.

Based on these assumptions on states with medium-sized coalition, a testable hypothesis is deducted:

• H1: For political leaders in countries with a medium sized winning coalition, their duration in office shortens significantly in case of an armed conflict.

Monarchies and juntas with possible the same size of W and S, could inherently have different properties, concerning to which sets of policy they most likely utilize in policy crisis. Chang & Golden (2010) find evidence that the size of the winning coalition is approximately the same across authoritarian regimes, but the selectorate differs in this theoretical order: military juntas and monarchies < single-party dictatorships < personalistic regimes. This gives support for that regime categories have some explanatory power because juntas and monarchies have approximately the same size combination of W and S. Juntas and monarchies have seemingly different characteristics, most apparent because of the differences in the political leaders military background.

Weeks (2014, p.8) does not manage to find the same linear relationship between the winning coalition, the selectorate and their respective policy implications, as the selectorate theory assumes. Weeks makes the point that, in case of a change in political leadership, not all of the members in the winning coalition will lose their power and influence. This is because many of the members in small winning coalitions have their own independent bases of power, and the potential new leader, the challenger, needs support from these bases to legitimate their role as a leader (p. 8). Different autocratic regimes could therefore be important for explaining variations in duration for political leaders when engaging in an armed conflict. The next section will present Weeks´(2014) theory on autocratic regimes.

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2.2 Authoritarian Regimes

In this study, I will analyse how engaging in an armed conflicts may subsequently affect duration in office for political leaders. Scholars often use one-dimensional measures of democracy and autocracy, although some exceptions exists, for example Gateset al. (2006). While this provides some insight on whether an increase or decrease in the aggregated level of democracy or autocracy is associated with different patterns of post-conflict duration for political leaders, it masks the variation between democracies and different types of autocratic regimes. Thus, including autocratic regimes in the analysis may give some explanations for variations, besides merely the degree of democracy.

Weeks (2014) theorises that different types of autocratic regimes will have divergent incentives for engaging in war or to negotiate, when solving international affairs. This is apparent even though these regimes could have the sameW/S-ratio.

According to Weeks, it is the variance between different types of autocratic regimes that has the greatest explanatory power, when explaining their policy. The probability of using military force as a policy instrument, according to Weeks, differs across four aspects: the benefits of winning a war compared to maintaining status qou; the costs of engaging war; the cost of eventually losing the war and the likelihood of winning the war (Weeks, 2014, p.15).

In Weeks´ theory, autocratic regimes are arranged in a two-dimensional index:

whether the political leader is accountable or not to a strong domestic actor and whether the leader has a civilian or military background. This leads to four ideal types of autocratic regimes: nonpersonalistic civilian regimes, where the leader have a civilian background and a high degree of accountability to strong domestic civil elites; nonpersonalist military regimes, where the leader have military background and a high degree of accountability to strong domestic military elites; personalised non-military regime, where the leader have a civilian background and a low degree of accountability to a weak domestic civil elites; and a personalised military regime, where the leader have military background and a low degree of accountability to weak domestic military elites (ibid, p.17ff). Weeks adopt Slater (2003) labels on autocratic regimes: nonpersonalistic civilian regime, (machines);

nonpersonalist military regimes, (juntas); personalistic regimes led by civilians, (bosses);

and personalistic regimes led by military officers, (strongmen).

Weeks utilise cut-points on the regime index. The countries surpassing a certain level on both the accountability axis and the background axis, will be classified as a regime. If the country does not exceed both of these criteria, the regime will

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not be defined as a Weeks(2014)-regime, and be classified as inapplicable in the regime index. This is illustrated in Figure 2. The X-axis illustrates whether or not the political leader has a military background, and the Y-axis illustrates in which degree the leader is constrained from a influential domestic actor. The stapled line illustrates the theoretical cut-points and the boxes those combinations of X an Y that is applicable to be defined as a regime.

Figure 2: Weeks (2014): Autocratic regime types

A contemporary example of a civilian-led machine is China. These types of regimes are highly selective in which conflicts to escalate with military force. The theory explains this by the leaders high degree of accountability to domestic civil elites, in this example the Communist Party, and their willingness to attain a consensus among these. Additionally the leader and elites of a typical Machine do not have a military background, at least not to a great extent. They are therefore not in the same way acquainted to these policy-instruments compared to Junta and Strongmen regimes. This leads to a very low number ofmachinesthat have engaged in an armed conflict (Weeks, 2014, p. 36).

In juntas the political leader, with a military background, is accountable to a domestic elite composed primary from within the armed forces. The leader could on the one hand be reluctant of using force in a policy crisis, because he is strongly accountable in case of failure. On the other hand, Juntas are more likely to engage in armed conflicts thanmachinesbecause of their knowledge about military as a policy instrument. The military elites does not have the same confidence in diplomacy

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as an effective and reliable policy instrument, and the costs of using the armed forces as a tool are perceived as lower. Juntasmay also engage in an armed conflict more often because their military training implies the advantages of offensive action and first strikes. To possess the initiative in an armed conflict can reduce thefog of war (Clausewitz, 1976), the uncertainties arising during these crisis (Weeks, 2014, p.24ff).

Personalistic dictators in the regime type bosses have a low degree of accountability upon their inhabitants and elites. They are therefore resilient for punishment from domestic actors in case of a policy failure. This could lead to enhancing the probability of utilising the armed forces. Personalistic dictators are less likely to perceive high costs for using military force or defeat at war, due to their biased cost analysis. Whilejuntasandmachinescompute for their domestic audiences potential wrath in a polity crisis, Personalistic dictators only account for their own personal cost (Weeks, 2014, p.29ff). Because of the dictator´s low degree of accountability to their political elites, the consequences of a policy-failure are low. On the one hand, they are typically only accountable to a few chosen Generals and/or politicians, who safely could control their subordinates with an iron fist. On the other hand, these leaders do not have military background, so they could therefore be more reluctant of using armed forces as a policy instrument.

Political leaders in strongmen regimes, personalist leaders with a professional military background, are more likely to use military force as a policy instrument because of their knowledge and earlier experience with the armed forces. The leaders in strongmen regimes enjoy a small degree of accountability, and will therefore have decreased odds for domestic retaliation in case of a failure in foreign policy, compared to leaders injuntas who also have military background. This may lead to an increased probability for strongmen regimes to engage in an armed conflict, in comparison to juntas (Weeks, 2014, p.32f). As bosses, leaders in strongmen- regimes have biased and self-centred cost analysis when considering different policies. Compared with bosses, a political leader in strongman-regimes has increased odds for utilising the armed forces, because of their personal military background.

Table 1 summarises the political leaders different theorised likelihood for initiating an armed conflict, for defeat and for domestic retaliation, a replication of Table 1.3 in (Weeks, 2014, p.35).

As described in Table 1, the lower degree of accountability a political leader has to domestic elites, the lower probability for retaliation from domestic elites or inhabitants in case of a severe failure in policy. When the odds of a domestic punishment decrease, the sets of policy instruments a leader could utilise without domestic re-

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Table 1: Summary of Weeks (2014) assumptions on autocratic regimes

Machines Juntas Bosses Strongman

Armed conflict

initiation Low Medium High Highest

Probability

of defeat Low Medium High Highest

Probability

of punishment High Medium Low Low

Process Consultative, Consultative, but Little consultation; See juntas cautious, focus on military violence/military and bosses.

incorporates rather than force seen as civilian and diplomatic or political “business as usual”

military input aspects of decision (Saddam Hussein (North Vietnam (Argentina/Falklands and Joseph Stalin) and USSR after War and Japan

Stalin) 1930s/1940s)

taliation gets broadened. These leaders have, according to Weeks´ theory, higher odds for initiating an armed conflict. We should expect thatstrongman and bosses engage in significantly more armed conflicts, due to the leaders perceived costs of initiating them are low. They will also, because of their low accountability, in a greater degree endure through these policy crises. From this, a testable hypothesis is deducted:

• H2: For political leaders in Boss and Strongman regimes (Weeks, 2014), engaging in an armed conflict has no effect on their duration in office.

While Weeks focus on Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID)⁵, the proportion of civil wars has surpassed these in the post-war era (Themner & Wallensteen, 2014).

As discussed in the introduction, there are several types of armed conflicts. How will different types of armed conflicts affect the duration for political leaders in the different regime types? From the degree of accountability the leader have, we may expect that leaders with low accountability with a military background will not suffer a decreased probability of survival through an armed conflicts, for example a civil war. On the one hand, their vast sets of policy instruments may give them an advantage when managing threats to their position. On the other hand, the probability of a civil war is heterogeneous, some countries and regions are at higher risk of a civil war (Collier & Hoeffler, 2004; Collieret al., 2008; Fearon & Laitin, 2003;

Hegreet al., 2001). Inconsistent regimes are more prone to a civil war, because of

5From the Correlates of War (Sarkees, 2010)

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their weak institutions´ failure to address challenges to their authorities (Gateset al.

, 2006; Hegreet al., 2001). Although autocratic leaders prevail longer in office than their democratic colleagues (Bueno De Mesquitaet al., 2005), democracy as a system far exceeds both autocratic and mixed regimes in duration (Gateset al., 2006, p.900).

The causal relationship between how systemic factors affect civil war probability and duration of political leaders is uncertain. On the one hand, Gaddafi, Mubarak and Bashar al-Assad prolonged tenure could have influenced their political survivability, because of their accumulated sets of instruments and means to maximise their current and future power and authority.⁶ On the other hand, their prolonged tenure could stir up a rising level of discontent among their inhabitants and elites, which in turn lead to a domestic revolt, for example the so-called Arab spring. Po- litical leaders in bosses and strongman have a broader set of applicable repression- instruments because of their low degree of accountability, and revolts may therefore not affect their survivability.

The two theories on political survival have different explanatory factors on the leaders degree of accountability. From the theories, two testable hypotheses have been deducted. These are summarised in Table 2. Following chapter is a brief summary of earlier research on different aspects affecting political survival.

6The last part is collected from the main assumption of Gateset al. (2006).

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3 - Literature review

Warfare is a means and not an end.

Warfare is a tool of revolutionaries.

Fidel Castro, on Che Guevara⁷

The literature review will look into what factors affect political survival in general, and more specifically how engaging in an armed conflict affects total tenure.

While a prolonged tenure and avoidance of non-natural causes of death (Goe- mans, 2000), is one of the primary objects for political leaders, which factors influence political survival? This literature review will give a brief summary of important findings on this subject. Firstly, I present research relevant to political survival in general. Second, I present a more extensive discussion of the relationship between political survival and initiating an armed conflict. In the third part, I present key findings relating to the selectorate theory and Weeks´ (2014) theory. Finally, I will situate my own work as a continuation of existing work.

3.1 Political survival

Political survival is, as mentioned in earlier, defined as the degree of perseverance a political leader has in office. Several factors alters the probability of losing office.

Accumulated tenure is a good predictor of whether or not a leader will lose office. Bienen & Van de Walle (1989) find evidence showing that the tenure a political leader accumulates captures variables that we cannot measure independently, such as skill-level and the ability to build robust networks. Likewise Bienen & Van de Walle (1992) find that political leaders who have prevailed a decade, has an increased odds for retaining power. Pre-conflict tenure may be therefore be crucial for political leaders engaging in armed conflicts. Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson (1995) finds evidence thata one-unit increase in the length of their pre-war tenure [...]

reduces the risk of postwar removal by 38 percent.

7Castro (2006, p. 91)

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The effect prolonged tenure have on leader survivability is theoretically declining through infirmity, because of high age. Both Bienen & Van de Walle (1992) and Burke (2012) find evidence supporting age on entry have a negative effect on duration. Although Bienen & Van de Walle (1992) lack significant results from the age-variable when adding the squared, this effect may be non-linear in nature.

Horowitzet al. (2005) finds that, as the age of the political leader increases, the risk of engaging in an armed conflict increases. This effect is apparent in democratic states. In personalist regimes this effect is inverted. Older leaders may be driven of an interest in establishing a legacy fast, because of declining health Horowitzet al.

(2005, p.46). This could drive them to take riskier decisions.

(Svolik, 2012) argue that a dictator must solve two conflicts to gain power and enjoy a prolonged tenure: the problem of authoritarian control and power-sharing.

The first threat is from subjects over whom they govern, and the second threat is from political elites the dictators share power with. Authoritarian states lack, compared to democracies, an independent authority, like a court of law, with the power to enforce agreements among key political actors. In these states, non-constitutional brutality, repression and violence are an likely alternative in a policy crisis. There are two main types of dictatorships: contested and established autocracy. In the latter, the ruler has effectively monopolised power, like in Weeks´(2014) regimes Stongman and Boss.

Svolik observe that those countries where the authoritarian ruler has an effective term limit, like PRI–era Mexico and post–Deng Xiaoping China, the power is not in the same way inheritable. Ambitious political clients could support the next generation of political leaders, reducing the vacuum of power normally created in dictatorships in an event of leadership successions. Another key to success is de- personalisation of political authority. This method of authoritarian power-sharing reduces the risk of a mortal post-office fate.

The youngest state leader in the dataset is Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan and Hussein bin Talal of Jordan. They gained power at the age of 17 and ruled respectively 26 and 46 years. In this dataset, presented in chapter 4, 15 political leaders gained office before the age of 30.⁸ They had an average duration in office of 16.67 years, compared to 4.44 years on all leaders. Bienen & Van de Walle (1992) use a concave curve to explain the theoretical effect age has on political survival.

The problem with this method is that the youngest and the oldest leaders are found in autocratic regimes.

Figure 3 shows how degree of democracy, measured with the Polity-IV index

8See Figure 11 on page 51

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Figure 3: Total Duration for Political Leaders, based on starting age and PolityIV (Marshall, 2002), and starting age affects the leaders duration in office. The brighter colour, the longer average duration for the groups identified by the x- and y-axis.

The Polity-IV index measures, in short, degree of democracy. The scale goes from - 10 to 10, where higher numbers indicates a more democratic state. The figure shows that the youngest leaders have the longest duration in those regimes with the most lack of democratic institutions. The most democratic countries do not have leaders with a starting age under 30. For political leaders in the middle age group, the effect of starting age and Polity-IV value have an almost linear effect on duration. Those leaders whose starting age surpassed 60 years have a reduced mean duration. This could also be because of their total potential duration is reduced due to high age.

A countries´ state of economy has a large impact on leader survival. It is especially the elected leaders degree of survivability that will be highly influenced.

Voters punish and reward leaders based on good economic achievements (Barro, 1973), which indicates that economic conditions are highly influential in developed countries. Voters reward governments in good times and cast them out in bad (Lewis-Beck & Stegmaier, 2000). This effect is unclear in developing countries, but apparent in states with an emerging market (Wilkinet al., 1997). Their findings indicate that economic growth in election-year influences the vote of the major party in office. Burke (2012, p.32) finds that GDP growth, as a result of increased prices for commodity exports, strengthens the prospects of a prolonged tenure for the leader.

Likewise will economic recession depreciate the leaders support, especially when

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utilising constitutional methods.

Burlacu (2014) finds evidence that both good economy and governance are important for political survival. Good governance is particularly significant in poor democracies with a high degree of economic growth. The importance of economic growth on political survival may therefore be more necessary in weak economies (ibid, p.181). Tir & Singh (2013) investigates how foreign crisis affect the incum- bents support. The results indicate thatcrisis-related popularity [...] cannot repair the damage caused by the economy that is faltering at a highly unusual rate(p.98). The phe- nomenon is entitled the rally ´round the flag-effect (Mueller, 1973). He argues that political leaders enhance their temporary probability for survival if they initiate an armed conflict. This demonstrates the interaction seemingly different policy areas have on political survival. Hence, the next section will examine literature relating to the research question more closely.

3.2 Political Survival and Armed Conflicts

Democracies are better at signalling their intentions in international disputes, because of their high audience cost if they choose to escalate a policy crisis to the brink of an armed conflict (Fearon, 1994). Weeks (2008) questions the low audience cost in autocratic regimes, which Fearon models with. Electoral procedures are not the only level of accountability a political leader must adhere to. Elite coordination is equivalent with electoral procedures in autocratic regimes, Weeks argue. The political leader could utilise monitoring and punishment to restrain elite coordination or prevent foreign decision makers insight of such coordination, thus it is harder to observe for outsiders.

Therally ´round the flag-effect (Mueller, 1973), mentioned in the last section, may increase the leaders support in armed conflicts. Oneal & Bryan (1995) investigate this effect in all 41 U.S. foreign policy crisis between 1950 and 1985, and find a small, but significant increase in support for the incumbent president post-crisis.

Likewise Morgan & Bickers (1992) argue that political leaders could shift focus from their personal policy failure, and blame the recession on international conflicts. The problem with the research on post-conflict popularity is that the authors mainly address support from voters in democracies, and most studies focus on presidential support in the United States (Tir & Singh, 2013, p.83). Is this effect also apparent

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in non-democratic countries? In democratic states, where the leader have support from a large selectorate (Bueno De Mesquitaet al. , 2005), the leader could initiate an armed conflict to boost, perhaps not successfully, their short-term popularity. Or like in the Falkland War, initiate an armed conflict to move the attention away from internal tumult (Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson, 1995, p. 841).

Levy (1989) argues that political leaders more often engage in armed conflicts when facing an increased risk of losing office. Likewise Chiozza & Goemans (2003, p. 459) find evidence that more time in office increases the probability of crisis initiation, and more periods in office decrease the probability of crisis initiation. This implies that leaders with a prolonged tenure may have, due to their experience, more confidence. The authors also argue that, as the risk of losing office increases, leaders become less likely to initiate a crisis. In the same way, as the risk of an international crisis increases, leaders become more likely to lose office. The literature is divergent, and it seems to be some uncertainty on the causal direction. Is it the elevated risk of international crisis that affect political survival negatively, or is the extended tenure that elevates the risk of an armed conflict? Or are there a set of independent factors that cause both extended tenure and an elevated risk of an armed conflict?

Horowitzet al. (2015) use a different perspective for why some leaders are more war-prone. They utilize a psychological perspective on leadership behaviour. The focus is more on internal factors regarding the leader than external aspects, on for example a systemic level. They investigate how events in adolescence and early adulthood affect policy, more specific future military behaviour of political leaders (ibid, p. 34f). The main findings indicate that those who served in the armed forces, but without real combat experience, have a heightened risk of engaging in a war. Those leaders who experienced real combat are more cautious in engaging an armed conflict. Horowitzet al. (2015) explain war probability with both systemic factors and leader properties. Some have a high level on one measure, but those who have a high value on both measures are very likely to engage in an armed conflict. Their main point is thatIndividual leaders do matter; heads of state are not simply interchangeable or continuously overwhelmed by exogenous factors. These executives can change the course of history in powerful ways(ibid, p. 179).

Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson (1995) is the first study that approach political survival through an armed conflict with a multinational dataset. There had been some research on political survival and war, but their concern was limited to the United States (Brody, 1991; Brody & Page, 1975; Kernell, 1978; Mueller, 1973) and Great Britain (Norpoth, 1987) in the second half of the twentieth century. Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson (1995) article applies data from theCorrelates of Warproject

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(Sarkees, 2010; Singer & Small, 1972), consisting of 191 cases of interstate conflict participation between 1823 and 1974. The main findings indicate that, when initiating an armed conflict, non-democratic political leaders have longer duration in office than leaders who govern democratic states. These findings gives some support to the selectorate- and Weeks´(2014)-theory. Because non-democratic leaders have a reduced degree of accountable to a broad public opinion among their citizens, it creates a greater leeway in their policymaking. Both Chiozza & Goemans (2003) and Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson (1995) use a threefold regime classification, based on dummy coding of the Polity index (Marshall, 2002).

Goemans (2000) examines incentives individual leaders have to end or continue a war and the implications this may have for the duration and costs of war. He does not directly estimate the leaders probability for survival, but the findings are of considerable importance when analysing their probability of holding office after engaging in an armed conflict. Individual leaders have a significant influence on war-outcome. Leaders of dissimilar regimes can expect different post-office fate depending on the war-outcome. Leaders of mixed regimes can expect the same degree of punishment whether they lose moderately or disastrously. Therefore these leaders have incentives for continuing fighting, even when facing a certain loss. Chiozza

& Goemans (2004) study supports this finding. Political leaders in autocratic and mixed-regimes suffer a much more severe punishment, measured in duration, than those in democracies, if their common denominator is losing a war. Political leaders facing a severe crisis experience a lower hazard of losing office, than those who engage in an armed conflict. This creates an incentive to continue fighting for these leaders, although the prospects of winning are limited. If the state wins the war, there is no significant positive effect on duration for political leaders, for either of the regime types.

Likewise Croco (2011) examines how individual political leaders affect the war- outcome. The results indicate that the culpable leader, the incumbent leader who either presides at the beginning of the war or a political leader from the same party that inherits the war, in greater degree achieves favourable war outcomes. Domestic audiences will spare the non-culpable leader in the event of losing the war, but not the culpable leader. On the other hand, the voters will not have mercy on the non- culpable leader forever. They have a window of opportunity to disengage their countries military engagement. If not utilised, their risk of removal is increased.

Engaging in an armed conflict is not equivalent to losing office for political leaders. It depends on factors like regime type, degree of accountability, state of economy and if the leader is culpable for the conflict. The next section will review the

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literature in regard to the selectorate theory and Weeks´(2014) regime classification.

3.3 The Selectorate- and Weeks´(2014)-Theory in Liter- ature

The selectorate theory has, as Bausch (2014) points out, emerged to become one of the major theories for scholars in international relations, especially when attempt- ing to explain the effect of domestic politics on issues of war and peace. Bueno de Mesquita and Siverson have used the theory for different policy aspects. Most apparent is Bueno De Mesquita & Smith (2010), using the selectorate theory to analyse the survivability for political leaders through revolutions and finance crisis. Al- though oil exports, GDP and population size lack a consistent statistical significant effect on leader survival, the size of the selectorate is highly significant. This implies that political survival is improved when the leader can select supporters from a large pool of inhabitants. The size of the winning coalition has no effect alone.

Combined with variables like the political leaders age, W has an effect. The age variable could therefore be considered as important in non-democratic states.

Bausch (2014) conducts a laboratory test to investigate if leaders of polities with larger winning coalitions invest more heavily in public goods. The results indicate that leaders in small coalitions keep more of the polity´s wealth for them self. Clarke (2008) finds evidence to support the notion that the size of the winning coalition is a very good measure when predicting the provision of public goods and private benefits. They contradict some of the critics from Clarke & Stone (2008), that the use of residualisation in (Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson, 1995) analysis is questionable because of omitted variable bias.

Gallagher and Hanson´s (2015) main critic of the selectorate theory is it lack of regime categories. They support Svolik (2012, p. 45) statement, that the difference between democracies and autocracies is first one of kind and only then one of degree.

The selectorate theory captures, like thePolityIV-index (Marshall, 2002), the degree of democratisation. On the other hand, regime categorisation versus degree of democracy as a continuous measure is a ongoing heated discussion (Knutsen &

Nygaard, 2015).

Baket al. (2015) utilise Weeks´(2014) regime classification to investigate which regime that is most likely to engage militarily against opponents. The results indi-

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cate that all regime types, except for military regimes, are equal cautious selecting targets in militarized disputes. Military regimes are significant more war-prone than other regime types. Likewise personalistic regimes (Weeks, 2014) are more likely than others to pursue nuclear weapons (Way & Weeks, 2014). This gives evidence that these regimes pose a serious threat to international peace and security.

Because Weeks´ regime classification is modelled along two dimensions, it seems to improve some aspects of research on autocratic regimes, capturing a broader understanding of authoritarianism.

After first presenting two theories on international relations and political survival in chapter 2, then a brief summary of previous research in the first part of chapter 3, the following section will situate my thesis as a continuation of research on this field.

3.4 Situation of Thesis

This section will situate the thesis as a continuation of earlier research. After presented the literature on political survival, it is apparent that there are some areas that need to be further scrutinised. Firstly, research on the duration of political leaders in office use mainly "old" data. For example Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson (1995) studies political leaders between 1823 and 1974. There have been some major upheavals since the nineteenth century. More citizens benefit from political leaders with a greater degree of accountability and the media coverage is more comprehen- sive in the post-modern era, compared to before. Burke (2012) uses data on political leaders from 1962 to 2006, but does not consider how engaging in an armed conflict affects leader survivability. This thesis first contribution is to also use contemporary political leaders, with data up to 31th December 2014. See Section 4.3 on page 36 for an overview.

Secondly, previous research on how engaging in an armed conflict affects political survival (Brody, 1991; Brody & Page, 1975; Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson, 1995;

Croco, 2011; Kernell, 1978; Mueller, 1973; Norpoth, 1987) has only addressed how engaging in an interstateconflict affect degree of survivability. Because there have been few interstate conflicts since 1980, implementing only these conflicts will lead to a small degree of statistical variation. Therefore other types of armed conflicts will be included, like civil wars.

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Thirdly, the use of regime categorisation is underrepresented in previous research on political survival. Analyses of systemic duration find that countries with both democratic and non-democratic institutions have a negative affect on duration (Gateset al. , 2006; Gurr, 1974). There is something about regimes with both democratic and non-democratic institutions that affect regime duration negative (Gates et al. , 2006; Gurr, 1974), and the same factors could be apparent in political survival. Bueno De Mesquita & Siverson (1995); Chiozza & Goemans (2003) and Croco (2011) operationalize democracy and autocracy as a dichotomisation of the country´s Polity value (Marshall, 2002). Implementing regime categories could potentially decrease omitted variable bias and give further understanding of these regimes.

Political Survival Through Armed Conflicts