Does Charisma Affect Survival in Office for Leaders Who Take Power via Military Coup?

Abstract

There is ample research on the incidence of coups d’etat but less on their aftermath. Why do some national leaders who seize power via military coup stay in power longer than others once they unseat their predecessors? This study tests whether facial attractiveness—which we argue is a testable proxy for personal charisma—helps explain variation in coup-installed leader survival. We draw on multiple data sources of coups worldwide from 1950 to 2010, as well as original attractiveness data coded from survey responses. We find that more attractive coup-installed leaders retain power longer than their less attractive counterparts after successfully ousting the incumbent. The attractiveness advantage is particularly strong for leaders in the first 5 years of their tenure, those who seized power from a dictatorship as opposed to a democracy, and those who rule without parties in the legislature. We argue that leaders who take power through a military coup lack both traditional and rational-legal authority; for such cases, facial attractiveness may signal charismatic authority sufficient to survive the institutional vacuum following an unconstitutional ascent to power.