Paradoxically, many dictators agree to institutionalized succession rules even though these rules could regulate their removal from office. This study shows that succession rules, like other pseudo-democratic institutions in authoritarian regimes, provide survival benefits for dictators. Specifically, they protect dictators from coup attempts because they reduce elites’ incentives to try to grab power preemptively via forceful means. By assuaging the ambition of some elites who have more to gain with patience than with plotting, institutionalized succession rules hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters, which ultimately reduce a leader’s risk of confronting coups. Based on a variety of statistical models, including instrumental variables regression that addresses potential endogeneity between succession rules and coup attempts, the empirical evidence supports the authors’ hypothesis that institutions governing leadership succession reduce the likelihood that dictators confront coups. This study clarifies one of the ways in which institutions in dictatorships help autocratic leaders survive.

The media hold democratically elected leaders accountable by exposing corruption and policy failures. Although many politicians accept media criticism as intrinsic to liberal democracy, some politicians rein in freedom of the press or intimidate media outlets to silence their critics. We identify circumstances that motivate and enable presidents to curb media freedom in presidential democracies. We argue that (a) presidents who hold ideological positions contrary to those of the mainstream media adopt the media as viable opponents in the absence of an effective electoral opposition, and (b) the media are vulnerable to presidential infringements on their freedom where legislatures and judiciaries hold weak powers relative to presidents, and are therefore unable to constrain presidents’ actions against media freedom. We support our argument with quantitative analyses of press freedom ratings in presidential and semi-presidential democracies from 1993 to 2013.

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This paper proposes that dissident leaders aiming to build mass opposition movements follow the mainstream press to help them gauge government tolerance for anti-government mass actions in repressive authoritarian regimes. Under conditions of censorship, media–state interactions serve as a barometer of the government's disposition toward and capacity to impede public displays of dissent. Observing trends in coverage and the government's reaction to this coverage helps activist leaders assess when it should be safest to plan anti-government mass actions, such as demonstrations, marches, or strikes. Using original data derived from coding content from the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo over the period of 1974–1982, I test whether opposition mass actions followed trends in taboo content and government treatment of the press during the period of political liberalization of Brazil's military regime.