Autocratic Ancestry, Democratic Dilemmas: Tracing Successor Party Trajectories

• In Event: Political Parties in Transitional Democracies and Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

Authoritarian successor parties (ASPs)—parties with roots in past authoritarian regimes—have inspired a relatively new but rich literature that explores their emergence, survival, performance, and more. More generally, an open debate in this literature centers around whether these parties hurt or help democratic quality. Despite the centrality of this debate, systematic and generalizable work on precisely when, how, and why these parties might be expected to shape prospects for democracy in post-authoritarian contexts remains rare. In this paper, I argue that a necessary first step to gaining purchase on these debates is to theorize and explore the behavior of ASPs vis-à-vis democratic norms and institutions. I first present a conceptual typology of behaviors of authoritarian entrenchment and democratic moderation by ASPs in arenas of policy-making, institutional reform or erosion, and party branding. Second, to show the portability of this conceptual typology, I use it to map ASP behavior around the globe by first, developing quantitative measures corresponding to my typology of behaviors and using these to explore ASP behavior across countries and across time; and second, through a qualitative illustration of ASP behavior in the third wave of democratization in Latin America. Finally, I conduct quantitative analyses on a global sample of ASPs to show how using these concepts as a dependent variable can allow scholars to understand and explain key variation in ASPs' post-transition trajectories; and how using these concepts as an independent variable can yield crucial insight on whether and when ASPs have the potential to shape countries' democratic trajectories for the worse or for the better. 

Author

• Viivi Jarvi, Princeton University