A 2003 review of the academic literature found that the following factors influenced coups: • officers' personal grievances • military organizational grievances • military popularity • military attitudinal cohesiveness • economic decline • domestic political crisis • contagion from other regional coups • external threat • participation in war • collusion with a foreign military power • military's national security doctrine • officers' political culture • noninclusive institutions • colonial legacy • economic development • undiversified exports • officers' class composition • military size • strength of civil society • regime legitimacy and past coups The literature review in a 2016 study includes mentions of ethnic factionalism, supportive foreign governments, leader inexperience, slow growth, commodity price shocks, and poverty. Another 2016 paper finds that government crises, political stability and absence of violence, purges, the level of political terror, general strikes, population growth, legal structure and security of property rights, and the share of democratic countries in the same region, predict the occurrence of a coup. Harkness (2016) finds find that concentration of force in a small number of units near the capital and ethnic or factional imbalance inside the army increase the likelihood of a coup. Several papers suggest that economic crises are associated with regime upheavals. Djuve et al. (2020) report robust evidence that low income, slow or negative growth, predict a higher likelihood of regime breakdown. Moreover, they find that intermediate democracy levels clearly predict coup-induced breakdowns and incumbent-guided transitions. Coups have been found to appear in environments that are heavily influenced by military powers. Multiple of the above factors are connected to military culture and power dynamics. These factors can be divided into multiple categories, with two of these categories being a threat to military interests and support for military interests. If interests go in either direction, the military will find itself either capitalizing off that power or attempting to gain it back. Oftentimes, military spending is an indicator of the likelihood of a coup taking place. Nordvik found that about 75% of coups that took place in many different countries rooted from military spending and oil windfalls. find that the probability of a coup d'état is immediately elevated by acute exogenous shocks (stressors). The stressors include compromised economic growth, deterioration of the external financial position, and elevated levels of generalized and food price inflation. Also, a destabilized political and internal security environment serves as a potent proximal trigger for coup attempts. The study a phenomenon called the coup trap. A 2014 study of 18 Latin American countries found that the establishment of open political competition helps bring countries out of the coup trap and reduces cycles of political instability. A 2025 study challenges earlier findings by showing that coup dynamics can be contagious, but primarily through post-coup trajectories that reshape the abilities and incentives of would-be plotters.
Regime type and polarization Hybrid regimes are more vulnerable to coups than very authoritarian states or democratic states. A 2021 study found that democratic regimes were not substantially more likely to experience coups. A 2015 study finds that terrorism is strongly associated with re-shuffling coups. A 2016 study finds that there is an ethnic component to coups: "When leaders attempt to build ethnic armies, or dismantle those created by their predecessors, they provoke violent resistance from military officers." Another 2016 study shows that protests increase the risk of coups, presumably because they ease
coordination obstacles among coup plotters and make international actors less likely to punish coup leaders. A third 2016 study finds that coups become more likely in the wake of elections in autocracies when the results reveal electoral weakness for the incumbent autocrat. A fourth 2016 study finds that inequality between social classes increases the likelihood of coups.One study found that coups are more likely to occur in states with small populations, as there are smaller coordination problems for coup-plotters. In autocracies, the frequency of coups seems to be affected by the succession rules in place, with monarchies with a fixed succession rule being much less plagued by instability than less institutionalized autocracies. A 2014 study of 18 Latin American countries in the 20th-century study found the legislative powers of the presidency does not influence coup frequency. A 2024 study found that civilian elites are more likely to be associated with instigating military coups while civilians embedded in social networks are more likely to be associated with consolidating military coups.
Territorial disputes, internal conflicts, and armed conflicts A 2017 study found that autocratic leaders whose states were involved in international rivalries over disputed territory were more likely to be overthrown in a coup. The authors of the study provide the following logic for why this is:However, two 2016 studies found that leaders who were involved in militarized confrontations and conflicts were less likely to face a coup. A 2019 study found that states that had recently signed civil war peace agreements were much more likely to experience coups, in particular when those agreements contained provisions that jeopardized the interests of the military.
Popular opposition and regional rebellions Research suggests that protests spur coups, as they help elites within the state apparatus to coordinate coups. A 2019 study found that regional rebellions made coups by the military more likely.
Economy, development, and resource factors A 2018 study found that "oil price shocks are seen to promote coups in onshore-intensive oil countries, while preventing them in offshore-intensive oil countries". The study argues that states which have onshore oil wealth tend to build up their military to protect the oil, whereas states do not do that for offshore oil wealth. A 2021 study found that oil wealthy nations see a pronounced risk of coup attempts but these coups are unlikely to succeed. On the contrary, a 2014 study of 18 Latin American countries in the 20th century found that coup frequency does not vary with development levels,
economic inequality, or the rate of economic growth. It may also involve frequent salary hikes and promotions for members of the military, and the deliberate use of diverse bureaucrats. Research shows that some coup-proofing strategies reduce the risk of coups occurring. However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness, and limits the
rents that an incumbent can extract. One reason why authoritarian governments tend to have incompetent militaries is that authoritarian regimes fear that their military will stage a coup or allow a domestic uprising to proceed uninterrupted – as a consequence, authoritarian rulers have incentives to place incompetent loyalists in key positions in the military. A 2016 study shows that the implementation of
succession rules reduce the occurrence of coup attempts. Succession rules are believed to hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters by assuaging elites who have more to gain by patience than by plotting. A 2017 study finds that countries' coup-proofing strategies are heavily influenced by other countries with similar histories. Coup-proofing is more likely in former French colonies. A 2018 study in the
Journal of Peace Research found that leaders who survive coup attempts and respond by purging known and potential rivals are likely to have longer tenures as leaders. A 2019 study in
Conflict Management and Peace Science found that personalist dictatorships are more likely to take coup-proofing measures than other authoritarian regimes; the authors argue that this is because "personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler". In their 2022 book
Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism, political scientists
Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way found that political-military fusion, where the ruling party is highly interlinked with the military and created the administrative structures of the military from its inception, is extremely effective at preventing military coups. For example, the
People's Liberation Army was created by the
Chinese Communist Party during the
Chinese Civil War, and never instigated a military coup even after large-scale policy failures (i.e. the
Great Leap Forward) or the extreme political instability of the
Cultural Revolution. Some scholars have posited that the recruitment of foreign legionnaires into national armies can reduce the probability of military coups. == The mechanics of coups ==