I wanted to post more data relevant the recent post at Monkey Cage. That post only advertises the post-Cold War period and only uses one democracy indicator to illustrate what happens after revolts or coups, so I wanted to offer a more comprehensive look. This can partially be seen as an extension of a recent post by Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz.
These figures show what happens after revolts (called "revolutions" here because I was apparently zoning out while making the figures) and coups when looking at different specifications of democracy. Here I use Boix, Miller, & Rosato, Geddes, Wright, & Frantz, Cheibub, Gandhi, & Vreeland, and Polity (>+5) to determine if a state is a democracy. Coup & revolt data come from Svolik (with coding updates from Erica Frantz).
DISCLAIMER: I am not suggesting that these countries are democratizing because of a coup or revolt. In many cases a state might democratize in spite of an otherwise adverse event and in other cases "democratizing" might be nothing more than returning to the state of affairs prior to the coup/revolt. If/when Thailand returns to democracy for example, it would be quite a stretch to say the coup led to democracy.
These figures show what happens after revolts (called "revolutions" here because I was apparently zoning out while making the figures) and coups when looking at different specifications of democracy. Here I use Boix, Miller, & Rosato, Geddes, Wright, & Frantz, Cheibub, Gandhi, & Vreeland, and Polity (>+5) to determine if a state is a democracy. Coup & revolt data come from Svolik (with coding updates from Erica Frantz).
DISCLAIMER: I am not suggesting that these countries are democratizing because of a coup or revolt. In many cases a state might democratize in spite of an otherwise adverse event and in other cases "democratizing" might be nothing more than returning to the state of affairs prior to the coup/revolt. If/when Thailand returns to democracy for example, it would be quite a stretch to say the coup led to democracy.
Full Sample
Here I'll just point to the major point I wanted to get at, which is underplayed in the Monkey Cage piece: democratization seems to follow revolts quickly or not at all; democratization can follow coups, though at a slower rate. It is helpful to look at a wider timeframe.
Cold War (to 1991)
I didn't expect to see this, but those quickly-born democracies that follow revolts seem to have been very fragile during the Cold War. Coups, meanwhile, continue to show a slow trend toward democracy (though at about half the rate seen in the post-Cold War.
Post-Cold War (since 1991)
This is what stayed in the Monkey Cage post. Over 50% of post-revolt countries are democracies 5 years on, while this is true for around 35-40% of countries following coups.
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