Assassinations and their potential to redirect a country’s path have long sparked debates. While various political, military, and economic factors influence historical changes, new academic work sheds light on how the killing of national leaders might affect institutional development.
According to a recent paper by Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olken titled Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War (NBER Working Paper No. 13102), eliminating autocratic rulers tends to bring about more meaningful institutional transformation than when democratic leaders are killed.
A leader’s death may push a dictatorship closer to democracy (Photo: Getty Images)Their research also reveals that while such killings tend to escalate minor conflicts, they may help bring major wars to a faster conclusion. The study points to the unpredictable role that individual leaders play in shaping their country’s institutions and conflicts. Their findings also underscore how chance events, such as whether an assassination attempt hits or misses, can redirect a nation’s direction.
One discovery that may surprise many is just how frequent assassination attempts have been throughout modern history. The researchers zero in on heads of government — the top authority in a nation — and exclude cases such as military coups, which involve power being taken by a group. They also only consider serious attempts involving the discharge of a weapon.
Their data reveals 298 serious attempts on national leaders’ lives since 1875, with 59 resulting in death. Though only a fraction of these incidents succeeded, the frequency alone is telling. Interestingly, while guns are the most common and effective method, bombs tend to be less reliable despite their frequent use.
Higher Number of Attempts but Lower Individual Risk
The rate at which such killings have occurred has increased in recent generations. From 1950 onward, a head of state has been targeted with assassination in nearly two out of every three calendar years. However, this increase is largely due to the growing number of sovereign states around the globe.
On an individual level, leaders today face a lower risk of being assassinated than in the past. For instance, in the 1910s, a leader had almost a 1% yearly chance of being killed, but today, that figure has dropped to below 0.3%, according to the authors’ calculations.
To determine whether these assassinations directly bring about change or merely occur alongside it, the study adopts a novel approach. The authors contrast successful killings with failed ones, assuming that once a weapon is discharged, survival or death largely hinges on random chance.
They provide evidence that the outcome of the attempt is often not linked to broader country-specific conditions or details of the attack. This assumption allows the researchers to use unsuccessful attempts as a point of comparison and assess how outcomes differ based on whether the leader survived or died.
Changes in Democracy and Conflict Outcomes
From their investigation, a few patterns stand out. If an autocrat is successfully assassinated, the country is 13 percentage points more likely to begin transitioning toward democracy in the year following the event, compared to when an attempt fails.
Not all assassinations ignite chaos—some reset the system (Photo: Alamy)Additionally, when such a killing occurs, there is a 19 percentage point higher probability that future leadership changes will happen through lawful and procedural methods rather than violence or coercion. These trends are not fleeting either — they continue to show up even a decade or more after the incident.
There’s also an impact on warfare, although the effects vary depending on the type of conflict. The killing of a leader tends to inflame smaller conflicts but may also push larger wars toward resolution more quickly.
The authors caution, though, that since their analysis compares successful and failed attempts, it’s tough to tell whether these consequences result purely from the act of killing or the repercussions of a failed effort, or a combination of both.
To clarify which outcomes carry more weight, the authors carried out additional analysis using a statistical method known as propensity-score matching. Though the results weren’t definitive, they lean toward confirming that assassinations leading to death bring about greater changes than those that fail.
Interestingly, the evidence also suggests that failed assassination attempts can dampen progress toward democratic change. This might happen because surviving autocrats respond with harsher crackdowns on opposition forces, consolidating their control in the process.
Apart from contributing to academic discussions about democratic transitions, leadership, and conflict, this study highlights how random occurrences — no matter how small — can bring about sweeping transformations.
The authors reference a striking example: had Adolf Hitler remained 13 more minutes in a Munich beer hall in 1939, he might have perished in a timed bomb explosion. Their analysis points out that tiny details like the timing of a leader’s schedule or a bullet’s trajectory can drastically affect what comes next for a country.
As the study wraps up, it emphasizes that while these violent events may not necessarily shape global history in every case, they often leave a clear mark on the future of the individual nations affected.