Which Way Out?

Abstract

Most of the burgeoning theoretical and empirical literature on the role of leaders in comparative politics and international relations is built on the assumption that leaders choose policies to stay in office. However, leaders can lose office in a variety of ways. Leaders can lose office as a result of ill health; they can lose office in a regular manner; or they can be removed in an irregular manner such as by a coup. How a leader loses office, moreover, significantly affects the leader's subsequent fate. A broader perspective on not just the probability, but also the manner of losing office—and its associated consequences—thus suggests an additional mechanism to explain the behavior of leaders. If policy significantly affects not just whether, but also how, leaders lose office, leaders might design policy to minimize the anticipated negative consequences of losing office. Once we unpack the manner in which leaders lose office, for example, we see that the postulated logic of diversionary war only holds for a subgroup of leaders: those who fear an irregular removal from office.