Born with a silver spoon? Modes of transitions and democratic survival

ABSTRACT

This study examines why regime survival rates vary across young democracies. The literature offers competing claims regarding the effect of the mode of transition on the duration of post-transitional democracy. This study reconciles these claims by proposing three modes of democratic transitions – military dominance (MD), popular sanction (PS), and consensual power transfer (CPT) – arguing that CPT leads the subsequent democracies to last longer than MD and PS. MD fails to incorporate the military into democratic systems, making it more likely for the ensuing democracies to suffer a coup, whereas PS enables regime insiders to change democratic rules without hindrance or outsiders to gain power through an organized armed conflict. CPT shapes a strong electoral performance by authoritarian successor parties, which provide checks and balances in post-authoritarian politics, thus decreasing the likelihood of collapse. This study verifies these hypotheses using data on nascent democracies between 1945 and 2022.

KEYWORDS:

• authoritarian successor parties
• democratic survival
• democratic transitions
• military
• power transfer

Acknowledgements

I am grateful all the comments I have received on previous versions of this article. Particular thanks go to Dr. Sebastian Ziaja (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences), Dr. Alexander Baturo (School of Law and Government, Dublin City University), Prof. Carl Henrik Knutsen (Department of Political Science, University of Oslo), and to all the participants at the 9th European Political Science Association (EPSA) Annual General Conference.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the author on reasonable request.

Notes

1 O’Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, 6.

2 Albertus and Menaldo, Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins; Haggard and Kaufman, Dictators and Democrats; Karl and Schmitter, “Modes of Transition”; McFaul, “The Fourth Wave”; Mainwaring, Transitions to Democracy; Munck and Leff, “Modes of Transition”; Stepan, “Paths Toward Redemocratization”; Stradiotto and Guo, “Transitional Modes of Democratization.”

3 Albertus and Menaldo, Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins; Haggard and Kaufman, Dictators and Democrats; Karl and Schmitter, “Modes of Transition”; McFaul, “The Fourth Wave”; Mainwaring, Transitions to Democracy; Munck and Leff, “Modes of Transition”; Stepan, “Paths Toward Redemocratization”; Stradiotto and Guo, “Transitional Modes of Democratization.”

4 Marinov and Goemans, “Coups and Democracy”; Thyne and Powell, “Coup D'état.”

5 Derpanopoulos et al., “Are Coups Good for Democracy?”

6 Maeda, “Two Modes of Democratic Breakdown”; Tomini and Wagemann, “Varieties of Contemporary Democratic Breakdown.”

7 Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past; Grzymala-Busse, “Authoritarian Determinants”; Ishiyama and Quinn, “African Phoenix”; Langston, Democratization and Authoritarian Party Survival; Loxton and Mainwaring, Life After Dictatorship; Tzelgov, “Communist Successor Parties.”

8 Miller, “Don’t Call It a Comeback”; Yan, “The Road to Durable Democracy.”

9 Mainwaring, Transitions to Democracy; Stepan, “Paths Toward Redemocratization.”

10 Stepan, “Paths Toward Redemocratization.”

11 Mainwaring, Transitions to Democracy, 26.

12 Markovitz, “Constitutions, the Federalist Papers,” 45.

13 Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, 4.

14 Karl and Schmitter, “Modes of Transition,” 275.

15 Munck and Leff, “Modes of Transition.”

16 Stradiotto and Guo, “Transitional Modes of Democratization,” 13.

17 Stradiotto and Guo, “Transitional Modes of Democratization.”

18 McFaul, “The Fourth Wave.”

19 Stradiotto and Guo, “Transitional Modes of Democratization,” 14.

20 Munck and Leff, “Modes of Transition,” 358.

21 Albertus and Menaldo, Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins, 124.

22 Haggard and Kaufman, Dictators and Democrats, 181–8.

23 See note 2 above.

24 McFaul, “The Fourth Wave,” 223; Munck and Leff, “Modes of Transition,” 359; Stradiotto and Guo, “Transitional Modes of Democratization,” 14.

25 Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 7.

26 Maeda, “Two Modes of Democratic Breakdown.”

27 Kailitz, “Classifying Political Regimes Revisited,” 48.

28 Thyne and Powell, “Coup D’état,” 196.

29 Marinov and Goemans, “Coups and Democracy,” 803.

30 Chambers, “Military “Shadows” in Thailand.”

31 Pongsudhirak, “Thailand Since the Coup,” 146.

32 McCargo, “Thailand in 2014,” 350.

33 Baker, “The 2014 Thai Coup,” 390.

34 Bazenguissa-Ganga, “The Spread of Political Violence,” 39–41.

35 Ward and Gleditsch, “Democratizing for Peace,” 53.

36 Wheeler, “Pakistan in 1975,” 113.

37 Branch and Cheeseman, “Democratization, Sequencing, and State Failure,” 18.

38 Puig, “The Adaptation of the FSLN,” 89–92.

39 Pop-Eleches, “A Party for All Seasons.”

40 Ferreira, “Guinea-Bissau,” 47–9.

41 Flores-Macías, “Mexico's 2012 Elections,” 135–7

42 Cheng, “Strategizing Party Adaptation,” 372.

43 Slater and Wong, “The Strength to Concede.”

44 Spirova, “The Bulgarian Socialist Party,” 485–6.

45 Geddes et al., “Autocratic Breakdown,” 317.

46 The study excluded countries that experienced autocratic rule in the interwar period or WWII, but were restored to democracy after 1945, such as Germany, Italy, and Japan.

47 Geddes et al., “Autocratic Breakdown,” 317–8.

48 The five cases of transition through assassination or foreign intervention or invasion were not included.

49 When PH assumptions are not met, this analysis should introduce time-dependent covariates. This study considers this effect by multiplying by time or some function of time, the choice of which is judged by graphical approaches, or using the stratified Cox procedure for a single predictor that does not satisfy the PH assumption.

50 The hazard of democratic collapse remains nearly constant after t = 20, despite an upward movement in the cumulative hazard function close to t = 47. See Svolik, “Authoritarian Reversals,” 158.

51 Carter et al., “Communist Legacies.”

52 It includes 15 sovereign States that emerged and re-emerged from the USSR following its breakup in 1991, and the closest allies of the Soviet Union, sometimes called the Eastern Bloc, including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Yugoslavia and Albania are not included because they ceased being allied to the Soviet Union in 1948 and 1966, respectively.

53 Gerring et al., “Democracy and Economic Growth.”

54 Gerring et al., “Democracy and Human Development.”

55 Morrison, “Oil, Nontax Revenue.”

56 Specifically, we used exponential distributions for parametric survival models from Model 1 and 2 while Weibull for Model 3 and 4. The shared frailty has no effect on the Model 2 and need not be included.

57 Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 158–9.

58 ASPs were defined as former ruling parties or parties newly created by high-level authoritarian incumbents in preceding ruling parties in response to democratic transitions. See Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 158–9.

59 The product method of mediation analysis provides a valid test of whether the mediation effect exists or not. See VanderWeele, “Causal Mediation Analysis.”

60 Baron and Kenny, “The Moderator-Mediator Variable Distinction.”

61 We used a binary logistic model with time-variant covariates.

62 Shirah, “Institutional Legacy.”

63 Bernhard and Karakoç, “Civil Society and the Legacies.”

64 Yan, “The Road to Durable Democracy.”

65 Haggard and Kaufman, Dictators and Democrats, 73–5.

66 Albertus and Menaldo, Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins, 102.

67 Grzymala-Busse, “Consequences of Authoritarian Party Exit”; Miller, “Don't Call It a Comeback”; Yan, “The Road to Durable Democracy.”

68 Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties”; Miller, “Don't Call It a Comeback”; Morse, “Rebuilding, Rebranding, and Competitive Landscapes”; Yan, “The Road to Durable Democracy.”

Additional information

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Huang-Ting Yan

Huang-Ting Yan is an Academia Sinica Postdoctoral Scholar in the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica (IPSAS). He received the PhD in Government from the University of Essex. He is a political scientist and a social epidemiologist interested in the link between political institutions, socio-economic outcomes, and public health, with a specific focus on semi-presidentialism, comparative authoritarianism, health expenditures and policy, and geriatric epidemiology.