Sir, Yes, Sir! Hierarchy, Coups and the Political Preferences of Army Officers

I show that coups that break the chain of command polarise the military along hierarchical lines. I study an instance of Venezuelan history in which the political preferences of individual members of the army towards former coup leader Hugo Chávez became observable. Outranking Chávez at the time of the insubordination increases the probability of later opposing his presidency. Causal estimates rely on a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, where minimum time requirements for promotion in the army provide exogenous variation in the ranking of officers at the time of the coup. I discuss implications for the literature on civil–military relations.