This paper is a comparative study of political amnesties and pardons in Morocco and Turkey. It addresses two main questions: 1) What explains a state’s willingness to pardon political prisoners?; and, 2) Why do some states pardon political prisoners frequently while others do not? Although the Turkish state has in general been quite tolerant of pardoning criminal prisoners (and the parliament has in fact approved more than 50 general amnesties since 1923), it has been resistant to apply these amnesties to political prisoners, and a law of repentance approved six times since 1985 for members of the terrorist organizations has been limited to those willing to serve as state informants. In Morocco, however, pardoning of political prisoners has been commonplace, and Moroccan monarchs have periodically pardoned some of the country’s most high-profile political prisoners. At the beginning of 2012, for instance, the King pardoned several leading members of the Salafist Jihadist movement, who were serving 20 to 30 year sentences. I suggest that states with lower coercive power use more cooptation strategies to deal with political opposition. Royal pardons in Morocco have been an effective tool for coopting the political opposition, integrating them into the political system, and consolidating the position of the royal authority as the center of rewards. States with high coercive capabilities, however, tend to pardon their political prisoners less. In the Turkish case, the security establishment, particularly the military, have vetoed different projects of political amnesties. My research is based on analysis of laws, interviews with lawyers and members of human rights organizations, parliamentary debates, and media sources.