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What connection exists between protests and coup attempts? Although recent studies have revealed that the former incites the latter, they generally do not consider international factors. We contend that post-Cold War nonviolent protests have promoted coup attempts. With sentiment in the international community turning against coups following the end of the Cold War, coup organizers have had to portray their actions as democratic. Launching a coup attempt during ongoing nonviolent protests became a convincing method to prove democratic bona fides. This is because the international community favors nonviolence, and it signals that the emerging regime will not have extreme preferences and will keep order. Conversely, the international community does not regard violent protests as legitimate, and staging a coup attempt during violent protests will not enable a military to claim legitimacy. This argument is tested through statistical analysis and by using the 2011 Egyptian coup as a case study. As expected, the results indicate that the impact of protests on coup attempts varies depending on (1) whether those protests are violent or nonviolent, and on (2) the period. Specifically, only the nonviolent protests in the post-Cold War era prompt coup attempts meaningfully.

This study aims to understand a dictator's response to large‐scale anti‐regime protests regarding their safety. While dictators tend to order the repression of such protests, in some cases, they voluntarily cede power without such repression. Earlier studies based on the assumption that leaders always act to maintain power cannot explain this variation. This article presents a novel claim that dictators choose the way in which they lose power. It argues that since dictators who lose power by coups suffer a worse fate than those who lose power following protests, they prefer to relinquish power by the latter if they anticipate that repressing dissent will result in a coup. Thus, dictators prefer a safer way of losing power over maintaining their office at all costs. Data on the post‐tenure fate of dictators from 1946 to 2010 and the case of South Korean anti‐regime protests in 1987 support this theory. Related Articles Hellmeier, Sebastian. 2016. “The Dictator's Digital Toolkit: Explaining Variation in Internet Filtering in Authoritarian Regimes.” Politics & Policy 44(6): 1158–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12189 Hiroi, Taeko, and Sawa Omori. 2013. “Causes and Triggers of Coups d'état: An Event History Analysis.” Politics & Policy 41(1): 39–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12001 Hunter, Lance Y., Josh Rutland, and Zachary King. 2020. “Leaving the Barracks: Military Coups in Developing Democracies.” Politics & Policy 48(6): 1062–103. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12383