| Summary/Abstract |
We use a cross-country dataset on terrorism and leadership survival from 1970 through 2015 to shed light on a leader’s fate after terrorists’ strike. We provide robust evidence that incumbents in electoral authoritarian regimes face an increased hazard of exit from political power. This is contrasted with the closed authoritarian dictators that remain intact. Moreover, we fail to find a robust effect of terrorism on a leader’s survival probability in democracies. We conceive this effect to be due to the collapse of the elite coalition in autocracies after an attack, suggesting that the dictator’s ‘loyal friends’ betray him in the aftermath of terrorism.
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