Cooptation or Intimidation? Purges and Authoritarian Founding Elections

• In Event: Consolidation of Power in Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

Existing theory suggests that autocrats hold elections and open legislatures to constrain themselves. We posit an alternative theory, which is that founding elections and legislatures are used to signal strength to the population. In this paper, we propose a test of this argument. If autocrats open legislatures and hold founding elections to co-opt rivals, we should see purges drop during founding elections. However, if the goal is signal strength, we should see purges increase immediately prior to founding elections. We test this theory on an original dataset of civilian and military purges. Results from our test show that purges spike immediately prior to founding elections. We also show that although purges spike ahead of subsequent elections, they do so to a lesser degree than founding elections. Finally, we show that the results are strongest in party-based regimes. Our results suggest that the logic of quasidemocratic institutional design differs from the logic scholars posit them to serve later in the regime’s life cycle.

Author

• Paul J. Schuler, University of Arizona