Assassins!

Kevin Drum asks whether assassins really succeed in their goals, or whether they set them back. I had always assumed the latter... my historical studies have shown that violence begets violence.

But Henry Farrell chimes in with a link to a new study "Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War" (pdf here) that says "on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy". Interesting.

HF also links to another study (Zaryab Iqbal and Christopher Zorn, "The Political Consequences of Assassination,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming) whose findings

support the existence of an interactive relationship among assassination, leadership succession, and political turmoil: in particular, we find that assassinations’ effects on political instability are greatest in systems in which the process of leadership succession is informal and unregulated

Interesting pair of articles.