Description

Conventional wisdom suggests that great power patrons prop up client dictatorships. However, this is generally assumed rather than systematically analyzed. In this paper, I offer the first comprehensive analysis of the relationship between foreign sponsorship and authoritarian regime survival with the use of an original dataset of all autocratic client regimes in the postwar period. These results demonstrate that patronage from Western powers – the United States, France, and the United Kingdom – is not associated with client regime survival. Instead, only Soviet sponsorship reduces the risk of regime collapse. I explain this variation by considering the effects of foreign sponsorship on the likelihood of military coups d’etat. I argue that the Soviet Union directly aided its clients in imposing a series of highly effective coup prevention strategies. In contrast, the United States and its allies did not directly aid their clients in coup prevention which left regimes vulnerable to military overthrow.