Exile is often considered a useful political solution that can coax violent or unpopular leaders out of power. But these “golden parachutes” may come with a price. Specifically, do exiled leaders increase instability back in their home countries? In this paper, we outline the mechanisms through which exiled rulers can destabilize their home state’s politics and ultimately increase conflict. We present two types of evidence to support the argument. The first is a cross-national analysis that uses our original Leaders in Exile dataset to examine how exiled leaders shape the likelihood of civil conflicts, coups, and protests. The second is a cross-leader analysis designed to minimize inferential concerns by comparing cases where leaders escape into exile with cases where leaders are killed. In both tests, we find that exiled leaders are linked to political instability in their home countries.

流放通常被认为是一种有用的政治解决方案，可以诱使暴力或不受欢迎的领导人下台。但这些“金色降落伞”可能是有代价的。具体来说，流亡领导人是否会增加其本国的不稳定因素？在本文中，我们概述了流亡统治者破坏本国政治并最终加剧冲突的机制。我们提出两种类型的证据来支持这一论点。第一个是跨国分析，使用我们最初的“流亡领袖”数据集来检查流亡领袖如何影响国内冲突、政变和抗议的可能性。第二个是跨领导人分析，旨在通过比较领导人逃亡流亡的案例和领导人被杀的案例来最大限度地减少推论问题。在这两个测试中，