The separate developments of the civil war and coup literatures has meant that potential connections between the two forms of political violence have remained undertheorized and largely empirically unexplored. This dissertation seeks to remedy this, introducing three potential frameworks for understanding the relationship that exists between coup attempts and civil conflict onsets. The three proposed frameworks are the independence of events framework, the constraints framework and the trade-offs framework. The independence of events framework assumes no systematic relationship between the two phenomena, the constraints framework assumes a systematic relationship in which similar factors cause both events, and the trade-offs framework assumes a systematic relationship in which factors that make one event more likely make the other event less likely. In order to test these frameworks, I employ both large-N time-series cross-national bivariate probit analyses as well as qualitative analyses of Nigeria from 1966-1967 and Burma from 1948-1962. The results of the quantitative analysis provide strong support for the constraints framework. The ρ parameter, which measures the relationship between the error terms of the two equations comprising the bivariate probit, is consistently significant and positive, suggesting that the unobserved factors that make one even more likely also make the other event more likely. Additionally, measures of model fit reveal that modeling the two events as part of the same underlying process provides more accurate coefficients and understanding of both phenomena than does modeling the two events as independent processes. The qualitative analyses provides a more nuanced approach. Indeed, the case studies reveal that the trade-offs framework is nested within the constraints framework – the constellation of social, political and economic challenges facing a leader limit the range of possible policies they can implement, while the decisions they make about what policies to pursue within this range have the ability to manipulate the relative risks they face as well as the specific timing and order of coup attempts and civil conflict onsets. Overall, this dissertation has sought to shed light on the similarities between the dynamics leading to coup attempts and civil conflict onsets. This is accomplished through new theorizing and the development of new frameworks concerning the actors, preferences and interactions that tie the two processes together. Quantitative and qualitative assessments of the theoretical frameworks reveal that not only are there systematic connections between the two phenomena, but that those connections can be understood as the interaction between leaders’ decisions and the social, political and economic environment they find themselves confronted with.
Read
