Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War
45 Pages Posted: 22 May 2008
There are 2 versions of this paper
Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War
Date Written: May 2007
Abstract
Assassinations are a persistent feature of the political landscape. Using a new data set of assassination attempts on all world leaders from 1875 to 2004, we exploit inherent randomness in the success or failure of assassination attempts to identify assassination's effects. We find that, on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy. We also find that assassinations affect the intensity of small-scale conflicts. The results document a contemporary source of institutional change, inform theories of conflict, and show that small sources of randomness can have a pronounced effect on history.
Keywords: assassinations, institutions, war
JEL Classification: D74, F52, P16
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
By Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, ...
-
By Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, ...
-
By Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, ...
-
Do Democracies Have Different Public Policies than Nondemocracies?
By Casey B. Mulligan, Xavier Sala-i-martin, ...
-
Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change
By Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini
-
Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change
By Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini
-
Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change
By Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini