New regimes often face intense power consolidation challenges. This article examines how US military aid influences this dynamic, using instrumental variables for aid levels and proxies measuring regime vulnerability.
Data & Methods
An instrument for U.S. military aid is combined with measures of regime fragility to analyze effects across different political systems.
Key Findings
Military support increases anti-regime violence in unstable new democracies AND personalist autocracies, but has no impact on established non-personalist states.
Why It Matters
The findings reveal a crucial mechanism: aid creates moral hazard that encourages exclusionary power consolidation. This fundamentally reshapes our understanding of external military intervention's domestic consequences.
