Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War
with Ben Olken
Abstract: Assassinations are a persistent feature of the political landscape. Using a new data set of
assassination attempts on all world leaders from 1875 to 2004, we exploit inherent
randomness in the success or failure of assassination attempts to identify assassination’s
effects. We find that, on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained
moves toward democracy. We also find that assassinations affect the intensity of smallscale
conflicts. The results document a contemporary source of institutional change, inform theories of conflict, and show that small sources of randomness can have a
pronounced effect on history.
