Autocratic Legacies and Mainstream Party Success: A Material Benefits Approach

• In Event: Economic Considerations and the Vote

Abstract

Can material benefits distributed during an autocratic regime explain the post-transitional success of parties with links to the former regime?

Very little is known about the impact different characteristics of previous undemocratic regimes have on post-transitional democracies. Few recent studies on autocratic legacies have been making a timid attempt at understanding the impact of past undemocratic legacies on people’s political attitudes (Darden and Grzymala-Busse 2006; Neundorf 2010). However, most studies have highlighted the role of ideology in shaping these post-transitional political attitudes by investigating how the ideological identity of autocratic regimes — either classified as left or right-wing — can affect the ideological positioning of voters in the left-right continuum (Neundorf 2009; Pop-Eleches and Tucker 2020; Dinas and Northmore-Ball 2020). Therefore, if autocratic legacies have been extensively studied from an ideological standpoint (e.g. how ideology shapes attitudes towards policy and voting preferences), in this article, I provide an innovative political economy approach to legacies of autocratic regimes.

Using archival evidence collected at the province level for Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, the autocratic regime that ruled the country between 1939-1975, I show that the “self-interested” relationship between the general population and autocratic incumbents, operating through a top-down logic of reception of material benefits provided by autocratic policies, is crucial in shaping post-transitional attitudes towards the regime, policies and voting preferences. This article empirically demonstrates that when an autocracy produces policy outputs resulting in welfare improvements that are large and widespread among the general population, after transitions to democracy — which constitutes a situation of high uncertainty —, rational voters are motivated to vote for parties that, by aligning themselves with the past regimes in order to exploit its competence, would offer to maintain the benefits delivered during the regime.

I provide robust quantitative evidence that the high levels of economic growth brought about by the modernization process that took place in Spain during the second half of the regime (“the Spanish Economic Miracle”) explains the electoral success of right-wing parties associated with the former regime, after transitions to democracy. Because the great majority of the population increased their welfare level due to the autocratic policies, the associated parties were able to become mainstream in the new democratic context, while integrating the welfare-increasing policies into their political agenda. Areas that experienced higher increases in their quality of life, measured by GDP per capita, tended to vote more for these associated parties. Furthermore, I also empirically demonstrate that the experience of repression had a negative effect on the vote for the associated parties.

This article attempts to contribute to the existing democratization studies in two different ways. First, it aims to expand the legacies of autocratic regimes’ literature by including an innovative rational-choice theoretical approach, particularly when looking at demand-side explanations. Instead of relying on ideology to explain autocratic legacies, this article uses an innovative framework highlighting the self-interested distribution of material benefits by an autocrat to the general population. Second, this article explains why is it that after transitions to democracy, some countries that had brutal dictatorships — such as the Spanish case — can have, after transitions to democracy, extremely successful parties that capitalized on their association with the former regime to gain electoral advantages and become mainstream.

Author

• Catarina Leão, Sciences Po