The coup risk measure is significant at the .01 level with the expected positive
sign for all four specifications, indicating that the impact of coup risk on interstate
conflict is consistently additive across conflict levels. Further, a likelihood ratio test
reveals that each specification represents a significant improvement to the fit of the
model when compared to a naı¨ve model that omits the coup risk measure. Moving
from the 20th to 80th percentile of coup risk increases MID likelihood by 72 percent,
the likelihood of a war-level MID by 150 percent, the likelihood of international
crisis initiation by 106 percent, and the likelihood of a VIC by 252 percent. In
addition to providing strong support for the diversionary theory, the findings suggest
that the diversionary incentive is not constrained by the level of force and is actually
substantively stronger at higher conflict levels. The suggestion of Morgan and
Bickers (1992) that unpopular leaders should avoid higher levels of conflict is not
born out, as diversion is seen across multiple levels of conflict and multiple
data sources.