The Fate of Former Authoritarian Elites Under Democracy

Why do some former authoritarian elites face punishment after democratization whereas others remain untouched or return to prominence through re-election or re-appointment to political office, or by assuming board positions in state-owned or major private enterprises? This paper investigates this question for the first time by drawing from an original dataset on constitutional origins and the fate of the upper echelon of outgoing authoritarian elites across Latin America from 1900-2015. I find that authoritarian elites from outgoing regimes that impose a holdover constitution that sticks through democratization and beyond are less likely to face severe or nominal punishment after stepping down, and are more likely to regain political or economic power – especially through national positions where the stakes are highest and potential payoffs largest. These results hold after accounting for alternative explanations of authoritarian elites’ fate and using instrumental variables to address potential endogeneity.

This is the first event of a series of talks on Current Politics in Latin America hosted by the Comparative Politics Workshop and its co-sponsors, the UCLA Latin American Institute.