Explaining Types of Military Defections during Major Anti-authoritarian Protests

Abstract

Abstract Military defections during major anti-authoritarian protests have received significant attention. Yet instances of military disloyalty, commonly termed defections, often actually involve different parts of the military organization. Middle- and high-ranking officers may unite to defect, or they may fragment, with some defecting and others remaining loyal. In this article, I draw on the existing scholarship’s insights to argue that a dictator that uses control of internal security forces marginalizes all officers and increases the likelihood of united defections, whereas a dictator that uses military politicization marginalizes only some officers and increases the likelihood of fragmented defections. I assess and find support for these relationships statistically, using data on types of defections across a large N sample of all major anti-authoritarian protests from 1960 to 2011. I also illustrate the relationships using two brief comparative cases, Chile (1988) and El Salvador (1979).