The financial aspect of coup proofing considers military expenditures per soldier
as a measure for spoils. This measure has been used by a variety of conflict scholars
as a measure for ‘‘troop quality’’4 and has been found to reduce the likelihood of a
coup (Powell 2012). To be clear, the expenditures per soldier measure is not meant
to be a proxy for military professionalism in the spirit of Huntington (1957), as this is
assuredly not the case in authoritarian regimes. It can be more generally thought of
as a measure of contentment with the regime, though it is expected to be accompanied
by an increase in fighting capacity in the context of democracies. The additive
impact of coup risk on conflict initiation is expected to subside as spoils increase in
authoritarian regimes (Hypothesis 2a), while spoils are not expected to significantly
reduce diversion in democracies (Hypothesis 2b).