It's an Ill Wind that Blows No Good: Repression in the Wake of Failed and Successful Coups

Abstract

How do coup outcomes shape the types of repression leaders employ in the aftermath of political crises? While existing research shows that repression often increases following coups, it largely treats post-coup repression as uniform, overlooking strategic variation in its form and severity. This article argues that coup outcomes fundamentally alter political opportunity structures, reshaping the constraints and incentives leaders face and, in turn, their repressive strategies. Successful coups weaken institutional and international constraints, enabling leaders to pursue high-cost, high-benefit repression such as extrajudicial violence to dismantle the old order and consolidate power. Failed coups, by contrast, heighten leaders’ vulnerability while preserving existing legal and institutional frameworks, incentivizing low-cost, legally framed repression designed to neutralize threats while minimizing backlash. We test these claims using a mixed-methods nested analysis. The quantitative component employs a difference-in-differences design with entropy balancing to estimate within-country changes in repression following successful and failed coups. The results show that successful coups are associated with increases in severe, high-cost repression, whereas failed coups produce short-term increases in low-cost coercive practices. Complementary process-tracing case studies of Uganda (1985) and Zambia (1990) illustrate distinct mechanisms through which repression operates under different post-coup opportunity structures.