Kevin Koehler
Biographic Data
| ID | 4014854 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kevin Koehler |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kevin |
| FAMILY NAME | Koehler |
| SIGNATURE | KOEHLER K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Leiden University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5965-0444 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 235 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1972 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Costly Commitments in Authoritarian Regime Formation: Evidence From Tunisia
This article theorizes costly commitments in autocracies. Populist leaders who ascend to power through anti-establishment appeals confront a strategic dilemma between consolidating winning coalitions and maintaining the loyalty of their selectorate. Rooted in rhetoric that delegitimizes political parties, such leaders face constraints to regime institutionalization as their popular base remains resistant to formal party structures. Costly commitm…
Social polarization and electoral incentives for Islamist de-moderation: Evidence from Turkish parliamentary debates
The prospect of religious parties capturing power raises fundamental questions about the fate of secular state institutions. A prominent argument holds that participation in competitive elections incentivizes religious parties to moderate and set aside anti-systemic goals in order to maximize votes. We argue that deep-seated social polarization along the religious-secular cleavage fundamentally alters electoral incentives: when polarization is hi…
Breakdown by disengagement: Tunisia’s transition from representative democracy
Tunisian president Kais Saied suspended parliament, lifted the immunity of its members, and dismissed the prime minister and the government. Tunisia's post-revolutionary democracy had thus succumbed to a populist president within two years from his electoral victory in the context of widespread popular disillusionment with the entire political class. This article draws on the work of Peter Mair, in particular his analysis in Ruling the Void (2013…
Role Model or Role Expansion? Popular Perceptions of the Military in Tunisia
This article introduces a theory on military role expansion in emerging democracies and poses a broad question: who wants the military to adopt which role in society and politics? Drawing on an original, nationally representative survey conducted in Tunisia, the article explores people’s preferences for the military to remain a security provider or serve in government and contribute to policing protests. Findings reveal that public support for mi…
Who fakes support for the military? Experimental evidence from Tunisia
Surveys around the world report exceptionally high levels of support for the military. This is particularly relevant for countries in transition from authoritarian rule to democracy, where militaries can play a vital role for democratic consolidation or autocratic backsliding. Given the sensitive nature of the issue, we suspect that figures indicating strong support for the military are at least partly driven by sensitivity bias. We explore this …
Popular support for military intervention and anti-establishment alternatives in Tunisia: Appraising outsider eclecticism
Popular attitudes in support of authoritarian alternatives and weak party systems constitute important threats to democratic consolidation and the stability of new democracies. This article explores popular alienation from established political actors in Tunisia. Under what conditions do citizens support alternatives to the elites in power and the institutional infrastructure of a new democracy? Drawing on an original, nationally representative s…
Coup Agency and Prospects for Democracy
This research note introduces new global data on military coups. Conventional aggregate data so far have conflated two distinct types of coups. Military interventions by leading officers are coups “from above,” characterized by political power struggles within authoritarian elite coalitions where officers move against civilian elites, executive incumbents, and their loyal security personnel. By contrast, power grabs by officers from the lower and…
Governing the covid-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa: Containment Measures as a Public Good
What determined how governments in the Middle East and North Africa reacted to the global covid -19 pandemic? We develop a theoretical argument based on the political costs of different policy options and assess its empirical relevance. Distinguishing between the immediate costs associated with decisive action and the potential costs of uncontrolled spread that are likely to accrue over the long term, we argue that leaders who have fewer incentiv…
Revolutions and the Military: Endgame Coups, Instability, and Prospects for Democracy
This article presents a systematic analysis of military coups following popular mass uprisings in nondemocratic regimes, conceptualized as endgame coups. Drawing on our original, medium- n data set of revolutionary situations, we find that such endgame coups form a distinct type of military intervention in politics. Compared to regular coups, episodes of popular mass contestation prompt conservative interventions in politics of the military's lea…
Safer Field Research in the Social Sciences: A Guide to Human and Digital Security in Hostile Environments
Revolutionary mass uprisings in authoritarian regimes
This article explores the conditions under which revolutionary mass uprisings are likely to occur. We offer a probabilistic explanation of the social and political conditions that make people rise against autocrats. The article presents a medium-n dataset of 79 revolutionary mass uprisings in 165 autocracies since 1945. Since revolutions are rare events, a combination of factors must come together to trigger them. Drawing on the extant literature…
Myths of military defection in Egypt and Tunisia
In this article, we challenge existing analyses of military behaviour during the Arab uprisings. Egypt and Tunisia are often presented as cases where the military formed an explicit or implicit alliance with the opposition and thereby ‘defected‘ from the regime. In contrast to this interpretation, we show that in Tunisia, insubordination took the form of a police mutiny rather than military defection, while in Egypt the military did not defect fr…
State and regime capacity in authoritarian elections: Egypt before the Arab spring
Scholarship on electoral authoritarianism has increasingly recognized state capacity as an element enhancing electoral control. Building on such arguments, I examine the interaction between state capacity and regime strength in authoritarian elections. Drawing on empirical evidence from Egyptian elections under Mubarak, I show that the degree to which official regime candidates were able to profit from state penetration depended on the strength o…
Going on the Run: What Drives Military Desertion in Civil War
Under which circumstances do soldiers and officers desert in a violent domestic conflict? This article studies individual military insubordination in the Syrian civil war, drawing on interviews with deserters from the Syrian army now based in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. A plausibility probe of existing explanations reveals that desertion opportunities originating in conflict events and the presence of safe-havens fail to explain individual deser…
Political militaries in popular uprisings: A comparative perspective on the Arab Spring
What determines whether militaries will defect from authoritarian incumbents during regime crises? Variance in military behavior in the Arab Spring has given rise to a debate around this issue. This article highlights weaknesses of the dominant explanation and develops an alternative account of military behavior in ‘endgame scenarios’. If militaries are politicized institutions that play a major role in regulating access to power under authoritar…
Ties to the Rest: Autocratic Linkages and Regime Survival
The relationship between international linkages and the nature and survival of political regimes has gained increasing attention in recent years, but remains one that is poorly understood. In this article, we make three central contributions to our understanding of international linkage politics and autocratic regime survival. First, we introduce and develop the concept of “autocratic linkage,” and highlight its importance for understanding the i…
From Disaffection to Desertion: How Networks Facilitate Military Insubordination in Civil Conflict
Scholarship on intrastate conflict and civil-military relations has largely ignored individual desertions during civil war. We show that high-risk behavior, such as desertion, is best thought of as coordinated action between individual decision-makers and their strong network ties. Soldiers hold preexisting opinions on whether high-risk action is worthwhile, but it is their networks that persuade them to act. Specifically, it is the content of st…
Authoritarian Elections in Egypt: Formal Institutions and Informal Mechanisms of Rule
In recent years, electoral processes in non-democratic settings have been analysed either within the framework of transitology or disregarded entirely by scholars of comparative politics. Analysing the Egyptian case, this article proposes a different conceptual framework. The interaction between electoral institutions and authoritarian dynamics is conceptualized in terms of the relationship between formal and informal institutions. In the Egyptia…
Wood Processing in East Kalimantan: A Case Study of Industrialisation and Foreign Investment in Indonesia
Ties to the Rest: Autocratic Linkages and Regime Survival
The relationship between international linkages and the nature and survival of political regimes has gained increasing attention in recent years, but remains one that is poorly understood. In this article, we make three central contributions to our understanding of international linkage politics and autocratic regime survival. First, we introduce and develop the concept of “autocratic linkage,” and highlight its importance for understanding the i…
From Disaffection to Desertion: How Networks Facilitate Military Insubordination in Civil Conflict
Scholarship on intrastate conflict and civil-military relations has largely ignored individual desertions during civil war. We show that high-risk behavior, such as desertion, is best thought of as coordinated action between individual decision-makers and their strong network ties. Soldiers hold preexisting opinions on whether high-risk action is worthwhile, but it is their networks that persuade them to act. Specifically, it is the content of st…
Coup Agency and Prospects for Democracy
This research note introduces new global data on military coups. Conventional aggregate data so far have conflated two distinct types of coups. Military interventions by leading officers are coups “from above,” characterized by political power struggles within authoritarian elite coalitions where officers move against civilian elites, executive incumbents, and their loyal security personnel. By contrast, power grabs by officers from the lower and…
Revolutions and the Military: Endgame Coups, Instability, and Prospects for Democracy
This article presents a systematic analysis of military coups following popular mass uprisings in nondemocratic regimes, conceptualized as endgame coups. Drawing on our original, medium- n data set of revolutionary situations, we find that such endgame coups form a distinct type of military intervention in politics. Compared to regular coups, episodes of popular mass contestation prompt conservative interventions in politics of the military's lea…
Political militaries in popular uprisings: A comparative perspective on the Arab Spring
What determines whether militaries will defect from authoritarian incumbents during regime crises? Variance in military behavior in the Arab Spring has given rise to a debate around this issue. This article highlights weaknesses of the dominant explanation and develops an alternative account of military behavior in ‘endgame scenarios’. If militaries are politicized institutions that play a major role in regulating access to power under authoritar…
Authoritarian Elections in Egypt: Formal Institutions and Informal Mechanisms of Rule
In recent years, electoral processes in non-democratic settings have been analysed either within the framework of transitology or disregarded entirely by scholars of comparative politics. Analysing the Egyptian case, this article proposes a different conceptual framework. The interaction between electoral institutions and authoritarian dynamics is conceptualized in terms of the relationship between formal and informal institutions. In the Egyptia…
Myths of military defection in Egypt and Tunisia
In this article, we challenge existing analyses of military behaviour during the Arab uprisings. Egypt and Tunisia are often presented as cases where the military formed an explicit or implicit alliance with the opposition and thereby ‘defected‘ from the regime. In contrast to this interpretation, we show that in Tunisia, insubordination took the form of a police mutiny rather than military defection, while in Egypt the military did not defect fr…
Popular support for military intervention and anti-establishment alternatives in Tunisia: Appraising outsider eclecticism
Popular attitudes in support of authoritarian alternatives and weak party systems constitute important threats to democratic consolidation and the stability of new democracies. This article explores popular alienation from established political actors in Tunisia. Under what conditions do citizens support alternatives to the elites in power and the institutional infrastructure of a new democracy? Drawing on an original, nationally representative s…
Role Model or Role Expansion? Popular Perceptions of the Military in Tunisia
This article introduces a theory on military role expansion in emerging democracies and poses a broad question: who wants the military to adopt which role in society and politics? Drawing on an original, nationally representative survey conducted in Tunisia, the article explores people’s preferences for the military to remain a security provider or serve in government and contribute to policing protests. Findings reveal that public support for mi…
Who fakes support for the military? Experimental evidence from Tunisia
Surveys around the world report exceptionally high levels of support for the military. This is particularly relevant for countries in transition from authoritarian rule to democracy, where militaries can play a vital role for democratic consolidation or autocratic backsliding. Given the sensitive nature of the issue, we suspect that figures indicating strong support for the military are at least partly driven by sensitivity bias. We explore this …
Revolutionary mass uprisings in authoritarian regimes
This article explores the conditions under which revolutionary mass uprisings are likely to occur. We offer a probabilistic explanation of the social and political conditions that make people rise against autocrats. The article presents a medium-n dataset of 79 revolutionary mass uprisings in 165 autocracies since 1945. Since revolutions are rare events, a combination of factors must come together to trigger them. Drawing on the extant literature…
Going on the Run: What Drives Military Desertion in Civil War
Under which circumstances do soldiers and officers desert in a violent domestic conflict? This article studies individual military insubordination in the Syrian civil war, drawing on interviews with deserters from the Syrian army now based in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. A plausibility probe of existing explanations reveals that desertion opportunities originating in conflict events and the presence of safe-havens fail to explain individual deser…
Governing the covid-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa: Containment Measures as a Public Good
What determined how governments in the Middle East and North Africa reacted to the global covid -19 pandemic? We develop a theoretical argument based on the political costs of different policy options and assess its empirical relevance. Distinguishing between the immediate costs associated with decisive action and the potential costs of uncontrolled spread that are likely to accrue over the long term, we argue that leaders who have fewer incentiv…
State and regime capacity in authoritarian elections: Egypt before the Arab spring
Scholarship on electoral authoritarianism has increasingly recognized state capacity as an element enhancing electoral control. Building on such arguments, I examine the interaction between state capacity and regime strength in authoritarian elections. Drawing on empirical evidence from Egyptian elections under Mubarak, I show that the degree to which official regime candidates were able to profit from state penetration depended on the strength o…
Wood Processing in East Kalimantan: A Case Study of Industrialisation and Foreign Investment in Indonesia
Breakdown by disengagement: Tunisia’s transition from representative democracy
Tunisian president Kais Saied suspended parliament, lifted the immunity of its members, and dismissed the prime minister and the government. Tunisia's post-revolutionary democracy had thus succumbed to a populist president within two years from his electoral victory in the context of widespread popular disillusionment with the entire political class. This article draws on the work of Peter Mair, in particular his analysis in Ruling the Void (2013…
Wood Processing in East Kalimantan: A Case Study of Industrialisation and Foreign Investment in Indonesia
Authoritarian Elections in Egypt: Formal Institutions and Informal Mechanisms of Rule
In recent years, electoral processes in non-democratic settings have been analysed either within the framework of transitology or disregarded entirely by scholars of comparative politics. Analysing the Egyptian case, this article proposes a different conceptual framework. The interaction between electoral institutions and authoritarian dynamics is conceptualized in terms of the relationship between formal and informal institutions. In the Egyptia…
From Disaffection to Desertion: How Networks Facilitate Military Insubordination in Civil Conflict
Scholarship on intrastate conflict and civil-military relations has largely ignored individual desertions during civil war. We show that high-risk behavior, such as desertion, is best thought of as coordinated action between individual decision-makers and their strong network ties. Soldiers hold preexisting opinions on whether high-risk action is worthwhile, but it is their networks that persuade them to act. Specifically, it is the content of st…
Political militaries in popular uprisings: A comparative perspective on the Arab Spring
What determines whether militaries will defect from authoritarian incumbents during regime crises? Variance in military behavior in the Arab Spring has given rise to a debate around this issue. This article highlights weaknesses of the dominant explanation and develops an alternative account of military behavior in ‘endgame scenarios’. If militaries are politicized institutions that play a major role in regulating access to power under authoritar…
Ties to the Rest: Autocratic Linkages and Regime Survival
The relationship between international linkages and the nature and survival of political regimes has gained increasing attention in recent years, but remains one that is poorly understood. In this article, we make three central contributions to our understanding of international linkage politics and autocratic regime survival. First, we introduce and develop the concept of “autocratic linkage,” and highlight its importance for understanding the i…
Myths of military defection in Egypt and Tunisia
In this article, we challenge existing analyses of military behaviour during the Arab uprisings. Egypt and Tunisia are often presented as cases where the military formed an explicit or implicit alliance with the opposition and thereby ‘defected‘ from the regime. In contrast to this interpretation, we show that in Tunisia, insubordination took the form of a police mutiny rather than military defection, while in Egypt the military did not defect fr…
State and regime capacity in authoritarian elections: Egypt before the Arab spring
Scholarship on electoral authoritarianism has increasingly recognized state capacity as an element enhancing electoral control. Building on such arguments, I examine the interaction between state capacity and regime strength in authoritarian elections. Drawing on empirical evidence from Egyptian elections under Mubarak, I show that the degree to which official regime candidates were able to profit from state penetration depended on the strength o…
Going on the Run: What Drives Military Desertion in Civil War
Under which circumstances do soldiers and officers desert in a violent domestic conflict? This article studies individual military insubordination in the Syrian civil war, drawing on interviews with deserters from the Syrian army now based in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. A plausibility probe of existing explanations reveals that desertion opportunities originating in conflict events and the presence of safe-havens fail to explain individual deser…
Safer Field Research in the Social Sciences: A Guide to Human and Digital Security in Hostile Environments
Revolutionary mass uprisings in authoritarian regimes
This article explores the conditions under which revolutionary mass uprisings are likely to occur. We offer a probabilistic explanation of the social and political conditions that make people rise against autocrats. The article presents a medium-n dataset of 79 revolutionary mass uprisings in 165 autocracies since 1945. Since revolutions are rare events, a combination of factors must come together to trigger them. Drawing on the extant literature…
Popular support for military intervention and anti-establishment alternatives in Tunisia: Appraising outsider eclecticism
Popular attitudes in support of authoritarian alternatives and weak party systems constitute important threats to democratic consolidation and the stability of new democracies. This article explores popular alienation from established political actors in Tunisia. Under what conditions do citizens support alternatives to the elites in power and the institutional infrastructure of a new democracy? Drawing on an original, nationally representative s…
Coup Agency and Prospects for Democracy
This research note introduces new global data on military coups. Conventional aggregate data so far have conflated two distinct types of coups. Military interventions by leading officers are coups “from above,” characterized by political power struggles within authoritarian elite coalitions where officers move against civilian elites, executive incumbents, and their loyal security personnel. By contrast, power grabs by officers from the lower and…
Governing the covid-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa: Containment Measures as a Public Good
What determined how governments in the Middle East and North Africa reacted to the global covid -19 pandemic? We develop a theoretical argument based on the political costs of different policy options and assess its empirical relevance. Distinguishing between the immediate costs associated with decisive action and the potential costs of uncontrolled spread that are likely to accrue over the long term, we argue that leaders who have fewer incentiv…
Revolutions and the Military: Endgame Coups, Instability, and Prospects for Democracy
This article presents a systematic analysis of military coups following popular mass uprisings in nondemocratic regimes, conceptualized as endgame coups. Drawing on our original, medium- n data set of revolutionary situations, we find that such endgame coups form a distinct type of military intervention in politics. Compared to regular coups, episodes of popular mass contestation prompt conservative interventions in politics of the military's lea…
Role Model or Role Expansion? Popular Perceptions of the Military in Tunisia
This article introduces a theory on military role expansion in emerging democracies and poses a broad question: who wants the military to adopt which role in society and politics? Drawing on an original, nationally representative survey conducted in Tunisia, the article explores people’s preferences for the military to remain a security provider or serve in government and contribute to policing protests. Findings reveal that public support for mi…
Who fakes support for the military? Experimental evidence from Tunisia
Surveys around the world report exceptionally high levels of support for the military. This is particularly relevant for countries in transition from authoritarian rule to democracy, where militaries can play a vital role for democratic consolidation or autocratic backsliding. Given the sensitive nature of the issue, we suspect that figures indicating strong support for the military are at least partly driven by sensitivity bias. We explore this …
Breakdown by disengagement: Tunisia’s transition from representative democracy
Tunisian president Kais Saied suspended parliament, lifted the immunity of its members, and dismissed the prime minister and the government. Tunisia's post-revolutionary democracy had thus succumbed to a populist president within two years from his electoral victory in the context of widespread popular disillusionment with the entire political class. This article draws on the work of Peter Mair, in particular his analysis in Ruling the Void (2013…
Costly Commitments in Authoritarian Regime Formation: Evidence From Tunisia
This article theorizes costly commitments in autocracies. Populist leaders who ascend to power through anti-establishment appeals confront a strategic dilemma between consolidating winning coalitions and maintaining the loyalty of their selectorate. Rooted in rhetoric that delegitimizes political parties, such leaders face constraints to regime institutionalization as their popular base remains resistant to formal party structures. Costly commitm…
Social polarization and electoral incentives for Islamist de-moderation: Evidence from Turkish parliamentary debates
The prospect of religious parties capturing power raises fundamental questions about the fate of secular state institutions. A prominent argument holds that participation in competitive elections incentivizes religious parties to moderate and set aside anti-systemic goals in order to maximize votes. We argue that deep-seated social polarization along the religious-secular cleavage fundamentally alters electoral incentives: when polarization is hi…
Political science (17 works) · Law (15 works) · Politics (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Democracy (13 works) · Economics (13 works) · Political economy (13 works) · Authoritarianism (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (11 works)