Reacting to Democratization: How Authoritarian Legacies Shape Democratic Party Development
2025-06-04
Authoritarian legacies affect democratic party development through two channels: authoritarian successor parties and the degree of party institutionalization of both ruling and opposition parties from the autocratic era. We argue that when highly institutionalized ruling parties survive democratization they then use their organizational advantage to stymie the development of other parties. Alternatively, when authoritarian elites form well-organized parties in proximity to democratization, democratic-era party institutionalization of all parties increases. Second, post-transition party institutionalization is positively related to the degree of institutionalization of parties under autocracy. Using a unique dataset of party institutionalization, we find support for our arguments, concluding that democratic party institutionalization increases where the party institutionalization under autocracy was high and where reactive authoritarian successor parties survive democratization. We also find evidence for our mechanisms in an analysis of the quality of post-transition elections – ruling parties which survive democratization use their power to undermine clean elections.