by: Jun Koga Sudduth
| How do political leaders promote the consolidation of power in dictatorships? This paper examines this question by exploring whether dictators’ efforts to control personnel via elite purges allow them to further expand their power by creating institutions loyal to the dictators. Using newly collected data on elite purges between 1980 and 2010 and matching methods, I provide the first systematic analysis of whether and how elite purges enable dictators to further promote the consolidation of power by creating puppet parties and paramilitary forces. The empirical results show that repeated purges targeting high-level non-security positions within the decision-making bodies, such as cabinets and ruling parties, increase the probability that leaders create new regime parties or paramilitary forces loyal to themselves. My findings suggest that the underlying mechanism in which elite purges promote the consolidation of power has less to do with diminishing elites’ abilities to oust leaders via a coup. Rather, elite purges concentrate power in the dictator’s hands by allowing him to control the decision-making processes and make unconstrained decisions. |
Authoritarian Political Systems Group 