Leadership succession is a perennial source of instability in autocratic regimes. Despite this, it has remained a curiously understudied phenomenon in political science. In this article, we compile a novel and comprehensive dataset on civil war in Europe and combine it with data on the fate of monarchs in 28 states over 800 years to investigate how autocratic succession affected the risk of civil war. Exploiting the natural deaths of monarchs to identify exogenous variation in successions, we find that successions substantially increased the risk of civil war. The risk of succession wars could, however, be mitigated by hereditary succession arrangements (i.e., primogeniture—the principle of letting the oldest son inherit the throne). When hereditary monarchies replaced elective monarchies in Europe, succession wars declined drastically. Our results point to the importance of the succession, and the institutions governing it, for political stability in autocratic regimes.
AbramsonS.RiveraC. V. (2016). Time is power: The noninstitutional sources of stability in autocracies. The Journal of Politics, 78, 1279-1295.
2.
AcemogluD.JohnsonS.RobinsonJ. (2005). The rise of Europe: Atlantic trade, institutional change, and economic growth. American economic review, 95(3), 546-579.
3.
AcharyaA.LeeA. (2019). Path dependence in European development: Medieval politics, conflict, and state-building. Comparative Political Studies. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414019830716
4.
AldersonA. D. (1956). The structure of the Ottoman dynasty. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
5.
BennettD. S.StamA. C. (1996). The duration of interstate wars, 1816-1985. American Political Science Review, 90(2), 239-257.
6.
BesleyT.Reynal-QuerolM. (2014). The legacy of historical conflict: Evidence from Africa. American Political Science Review, 108(2), 319-336.
BesleyT.PerssonT. (2011). The logic of political violence. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126, 1411-1445.
9.
BetzigL. (1995). Medieval monogamy. Journal of Family History, 20, 181-216.
10.
BlaineyG. (1988). Causes of war. London, England: Macmillan Publishers.
11.
BlattmanC.MiguelE. (2010). Civil war. Journal of Economic Literature, 48, 3-57.
12.
BlaydesL.ChaneyE. (2013). The feudal revolution and Europe’s rise: Political divergence of the Christian West and the Muslim world before 1500 CE. American Political Science Review, 107, 16-34.
13.
BoucoyannisD. (2015). No taxation of elites, no representation: State capacity and the origins of representation. Politics & Society, 43, 303-332.
14.
BreckeP. (1999). Violent conflicts 1400 AD to the present in different regions of the world. 1999 Meeting of the Peace Sience Society. Unpublished manuscript.
15.
BrownleeJ. (2007). Hereditary succession in modern autocracies. World Politics, 59, 595-628.
16.
Bueno de MesquitaB.SmithA.SiversonR. M.MorrowJ. D. (2005). The logic of political survival. Cambridge, UK: MIT Press.
17.
BuhaugH.GleditschK. S. (2008). Contagion or confusion? Why conflicts cluster in space. International Studies Quarterly, 52, 215-233.
18.
BunM. J. G.HarrisonT. D. (2018). OLS and IV estimation of regression models including endogenous interaction terms. Econometric Reviews. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/07474938.2018.1427486
19.
CawleyC. (2006). Medieval lands: A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families. Foundations, 2, 165-168.
20.
ChamberlainG. (1984). Panel data. Handbook of Econometrics, 2, 1247-1318.
21.
ChiozzaG.GoemansH. E. (2003). Peace through insecurity: Tenure and international conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 47, 443-467.
22.
ChiozzaG.GoemansH. E. (2004). Avoiding diversionary targets. Journal of Peace Research, 41, 423-443.
23.
ChiozzaG.GoemansH. E. (2011). Leaders and international conflict. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
24.
ClodfelterM. (2002). Warfare and armed conflicts: A statistical reference to casualty and other figures, 1500-2000. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
25.
CollierP.HoefflerA. (2004). Greed and grievance in civil war. Oxford Economic Papers, 56, 563-595.
26.
CoxG. W.WeingastB. R. (2018). Executive constraint, political stability, and economic growth. Comparative Political Studies, 51, 279-303.
27.
CrocoS. E. (2011). The decider’s dilemma: Leader culpability, war outcomes, and domestic punishment. American Political Science Review, 105, 457-477.
28.
DinceccoM.OnoratoM. G. (2016). Military conflict and the rise of urban Europe. Journal of Economic Growth, 21(3), 259-282.
29.
DowningB. M. (1992). The military revolution and political change: Origins of democracy and autocracy in early modern Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
30.
DubeO.HarishS. P. (2019). Queens. Journal of Political Economy.
31.
DupuyR. E.DupuyT. N. (1970). The encyclopedia of military history: From 3500 BC to the present. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
32.
EgorovG.SoninK. (2011). Dictators and their viziers: Endogenizing the loyalty-competence trade-off. Journal of the European Economic Association, 9, 903-930.
33.
EgorovG.SoninK. (2015). The killing game: A theory of non-democratic succession. Research in Economics, 69, 398-411.
34.
EisnerM. (2011). Killing kings: Patterns of regicide in Europe, AD 600–1800. The British Journal of Criminology, 51, 556-577.
35.
ErtmanT. (1997). Birth of the Leviathan: Building states and regimes in medieval and early modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
36.
FearonJ. D. (1995). Rationalist explanations for war. International Organization, 49, 379-414.
37.
FearonJ. D.LaitinD. D. (2003). Ethnicity, insurgency, and civil war. American Political Science Review, 97, 75-90.
38.
FrantzE.SteinE. A. (2017). Countering coups: Leadership succession rules in dictatorships. Comparative Political Studies, 50, 935-962.
39.
GaubatzK. T. (1991). Election cycles and war. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 35, 212-244.
40.
GelpiC.GriecoJ. M. (2001). Attracting trouble: Democracy, leadership tenure, and the targeting of militarized challenges, 1918-1992. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 45, 794-817.
41.
GiesF.GiesJ. (1987). Marriage and the family in the middle ages. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
42.
GoodyJ. (1983). The development of the family and marriage in Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
43.
HerlihyD. (1985). Medieval households. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
44.
HerzJ. H. (1952). The problem of successorship in dictatorial regimes: A study in comparative law and institutions. The Journal of Politics, 14, 19-40.
45.
HolstiK. J. (1991). Peace and war: Armed conflicts and international order, 16481989 (Vol. 14). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
46.
IqbalZ.ZornC. (2008). The political consequences of assassination. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 52, 385-400.
47.
IsenburgW. K.von LoringhovenF. F. (1975). Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der europäischen Staaten[European Family Trees: Family Trees for the History of European States]. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Klostermann.
48.
IyigunM. (2008). Luther and Suleyman. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123(4), 1465-1494.
49.
JonesB. F.OlkenB. A. (2005). Do leaders matter? National leadership and growth since World War II. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 120, 835-864.
50.
JonesB. F.OlkenB. A. (2009). Hit or miss? The effect of assassinations on institutions and war. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 1, 55-87.
51.
KaramanK. K.PamukŞ. (2013). Different paths to the modern state in Europe: the interaction between warfare, economic structure, and political regime. American Political Science Review, 107(3), 603-626.
52.
Kendall-TaylorA.FrantzE. (2016). When dictators die. Journal of Democracy, 27, 159-171.
53.
KernF. (1948). Kingship and law in the middle ages. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
54.
KohnG. C. (2013). Dictionary of wars. New York, NY: Routledge.
55.
KokkonenA.SundellA. (2014). Delivering stability? Primogeniture and autocratic survival in European monarchies 1000–1800. American Political Science Review, 108, 438-453.
56.
Kurrild-KlitgaardP. (2000). The constitutional economics of autocratic succession. Public Choice, 103, 63-84.
57.
LuardE. (1986). War in international society: A study in international sociology. London, England: I.B. Tauris.
58.
LukowskiJ.ZawadzkiH. (2006). A concise history of Poland. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
MitchellL. E. (2007). Family life in the middle ages. London, England: Greenwood Press.
61.
MøllerJ. (2017). The birth of representative institutions: The case of the crown of Aragon. Social Science History, 41, 175-200.
62.
MøllerJ. (2019). Bringing the church back in: Ecclesiastical influences on the rise of Europe. Politics and Religion, 12, 213-226.
63.
PaineT. (1995). Common Sense, The crisis & other writings from the American revolution. Originally published in 1776. New York, NY: Library Classics of the United States.
64.
PeirceL. P. (1993). The imperial harem: Women and sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
65.
PhillipsC.AxelrodA. (2005). Encyclopedia of wars. New York, NY: Facts on File.
66.
PinkerS. (2012). The better angels of our nature: Why violence has declined. London, England: Penguin Books.
67.
QuataertD. (2005). The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
68.
ReiterD.StamA. C. (1998). Democracy, war initiation, and victory. American Political Science Review, 92(2), 377-389.
69.
RichéP. (1993). The Carolingians: A family who forged Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
70.
SablA. (2012). Hume’s politics: Coordination and crisis in the history of England. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
71.
SchwennikeD. (1998). Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten, Neue Folge [European Family Trees: Family Trees for the History of European States, New Series] Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Vittorio Klostermann.
72.
SobekD. (2010). Masters of their domains: The role of state capacity in civil wars. Journal of Peace Research, 47, 267-271.
73.
StasavageD. (2010). When distance mattered: Geographic scale and the development of European representative assemblies. American Political Science Review, 104, 625-643.
74.
StasavageD. (2016). Representation and consent: Why they arose in Europe and not elsewhere. Annual Review of Political Science, 19, 145-162.
75.
SuttonJ. L. (1980). The king’s honor and the king’s cardinal: The war of the Polish succession. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
76.
SvolikM. W. (2012). The politics of authoritarian rule. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
77.
TillyC. (1985). War making and state making as organized crime. In Bringing the State Back. In EvansP.RueschemeyerD.SkocpolT. (Eds.) (pp. 169-191). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
78.
TillyC. (1992). Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990-1990. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
79.
TullockG. (1987). Autocracy. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.
80.
Van ZandenJ. L.BuringhE.BoskerM. (2012). The rise and decline of European parliaments, 1188–1789. The Economic History Review, 65, 835-861.
81.
ZhangD. D.BreckeP.LeeH. F.HeY. Q.ZhangJ. (2007). Global climate change, war, and population decline in recent human history. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(49), 19214-19219.
82.
ZhangD. D.LeeH. F.WangC.LiB.ZhangJ.PeiQ.ChenJ. (2011). Climate change and large-scale human population collapses in the pre-industrial era. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 20(4), 520-531.
WeberM. (1963). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (Vol. 2). Berkeley: University of California Press.
85.
WickhamC. (2016). Medieval Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
