Losing power safely: Explaining the variation in dictators' responses to anti‐regime protests.

This study aims to understand a dictator's response to large‐scale anti‐regime protests regarding their safety. While dictators tend to order the repression of such protests, in some cases, they voluntarily cede power without such repression. Earlier studies based on the assumption that leaders always act to maintain power cannot explain this variation. This article presents a novel claim that dictators choose the way in which they lose power. It argues that since dictators who lose power by coups suffer a worse fate than those who lose power following protests, they prefer to relinquish power by the latter if they anticipate that repressing dissent will result in a coup. Thus, dictators prefer a safer way of losing power over maintaining their office at all costs. Data on the post‐tenure fate of dictators from 1946 to 2010 and the case of South Korean anti‐regime protests in 1987 support this theory. Related Articles: Hellmeier, Sebastian. 2016. "The Dictator's Digital Toolkit: Explaining Variation in Internet Filtering in Authoritarian Regimes." Politics & Policy 44(6): 1158–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12189 Hiroi, Taeko, and Sawa Omori. 2013. "Causes and Triggers of Coups d'état: An Event History Analysis." Politics & Policy 41(1): 39–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12001 Hunter, Lance Y., Josh Rutland, and Zachary King. 2020. "Leaving the Barracks: Military Coups in Developing Democracies." Politics & Policy 48(6): 1062–103. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12383 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]