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

Abstract

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.