Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy

This book argues that - in terms of institutional design, the allocation of power and privilege, and the lived experiences of citizens - democracy often does not restart the political game after displacing authoritarianism. Democratic institutions are frequently designed by the outgoing authoritarian regime to shield incumbent elites from the rule of law and give them an unfair advantage over politics and the economy after democratization. Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy systematically documents and analyzes the constitutional tools that outgoing authoritarian elites use to accomplish these ends, such as electoral system design, legislative appointments, federalism, legal immunities, constitutional tribunal design, and supermajority thresholds for change. The study provides wide-ranging evidence for these claims using data that spans the globe and dates from 1800 to the present. Albertus and Menaldo also conduct detailed case studies of Chile and Sweden. In doing so, they explain why some democracies successfully overhaul their elite-biased constitutions for more egalitarian social contracts.

1. Elites and the causes and consequences of democracy; 2. Constitutions as elite deal-making: content and trends; 3. Evidence on the causes and consequences of democracy; 4. Unravelling the deal: constitutional annulments and amendments under elite biased democracy; 5. Sweden: from Agrarian oligarchy to progressive democracy; 6. Chile: from authoritarian legacies to a new dawn? 7. Colonial and occupier legacies in new democracies.

Michael Albertus is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His research interests include redistribution, political regime transitions and regime stability, politics under dictatorship, clientelism, and conflict. Albertus's first book, Autocracy and Redistribution: The Politics of Land Reform (Cambridge, 2015), won the Gregory Luebbert Award for best book in comparative politics and the LASA Bryce Wood Award for best book on Latin America in the social sciences and humanities. He has also recently published in journals such as American Journal of Political Science, World Politics, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, British Journal of Political Science, and Comparative Political Studies.
Victor Menaldo is an Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Washington and an affiliated faculty member of the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences, Near and Middle Eastern Studies, and the Center for Environmental Politics. He specializes in comparative politics and political economy. He has published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Annual Review of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, World Politics, Comparative Politics, International Studies Quarterly, Economics & Politics, Political Science Quarterly, and Policy Sciences. His first book is entitled The Institutions Curse: Natural Resources, Politics, and Development (Cambridge, 2016).