Conventional wisdom holds that high levels of system support serve as an attitudinal barrier to democratic breakdown. In unconsolidated democracies, however, where democratic norms are regularly violated, the authors hypothesize that a healthy dose of political skepticism toward the political system, neither extreme rejection nor uncritical support of the system, would be associated with greater attitudinal resistance to breakdown in the form of a military coup. Using survey data from Peru, the authors confirm this expectation, showing that the relationship between system support and approval of military coups follows a V-curve pattern. This research fails to find support for the contention that a greater involvement in associational life or a greater degree of interpersonal trust predispose people to reject coups. The authors found other factors, such as rejection of the use of direct tactics for political purposes, support for the incumbent, and age, that are better predictors of coup support and rejection. S urvival of democracies over the long term has long been linked to their legitimacy. The prevailing scholarly view is that satisfaction with the performance of the political system and its institutions creates, over time, a reservoir of good will-a high level of diffuse support-that enables democratic regimes to survive when times are bad (Easton, 1965(Easton, , 1975Inglehart, 1988;Lipset, 1959;Norris, 1999). Studies have shown that in long-standing democratic systems, system support can be deep enough to allow these systems to weather even severe crises (Finkel, Muller, & Seligson, 1989;

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This chapter considers how populism in power leads to regime change in some cases, but not in others and shows how the difference is explained by the ability of populist leaders to navigate a key moment of confrontation with the opposition and the courts. This ability is determined by the strength of permissive conditions (public opinion support for institutional change). The necessary productive conditions are given by their decision to use the state’s repressive apparatus to prevail against the opposition. In some cases, another productive condition is present: the mobilization of civil society. Once the opposition is severely weakened, populist leaders find it much easier to accumulate greater power and to create an uneven playing field that reproduces their hold on power. By contrast, if the courts and other institutional actors defeat populist leaders in a key moment of confrontation, they will also constrain populist rule and avoid regime change.

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Why did whites in South Africa come to support the dismantling of the apartheid system that gave them a monopoly of political power? We use a reformulated version of symbolic politics to address this puzzle, showing that white attitudes toward political change were primarily driven by symbolic predispositions regarding race, ideology, party, and specific leaders, as well as various sorts of threat perceptions. Strong attachments to the National Party and de Klerk, low perceptions of threat, more tolerant racial attitudes, and more socially and politically liberal values increased the likelihood of whites supporting policies consistent with the ending of apartheid. We also find that assessments of the economy, both personal and national, have no influence on this attitude. We use South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council data collected during the crucial 1991–1992 period.