This paper explores the drivers of sovereign defaults in 100 countries over the period 1996-2012. We build a new data set of sovereign defaults and find that default events on local and foreign currency bonds are equally likely. However, governments default under different economic and financial conditions depending on the bond's currency denomination. Various economic and financial characteristics explain 55% of the variation in default probability, while the explanatory power drops to 35% when ignoring differences in currency denomination. We also provide evidence that global factors and market sentiment, which are known to drive sovereign spreads, do not help explain the probability of sovereign default. Hence, these factors appear to affect the price of sovereign credit risk, but not the risk itself.