Short, but Significant: Mapping the Heterogeneity of Interim Regimes

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics II

Abstract

Interim regimes, or transitional governments as they are also called, often play an important role in the outcome of democratization processes. When established after, e.g., the overthrow of a long-ruling autocrat, they can play pivotal roles in a polity’s political development, often working as a critical juncture that determines whether a country again consolidates autocratic rule under a different ruling coalition, or takes substantial steps towards democracy. Despite their importance, research on interim regimes is fragmented, and in quantitative research almost absent. One reason for this is the lack of useful data on interim regimes. Most often, these regimes are added to the heterogeneous group of autocracies (making it even more heterogeneous), or they are either absent or treated as a residual category meant to be excluded from analyses. In this paper, we take steps to remedy this by classifying and mapping all interim regimes since 1789 and their key characteristics. Based on the fine-grained Historical Regimes Dataset (HRD), as well as a range of widely used regime type datasets, we are able to identify over 300 interim regimes across modern political history. Importantly, our data reveals that interim regimes are followed by a democratic regime in only half of the cases. And, in almost 25 % of the cases, an interim regime is established after a coup that deposes a democratic regime with an aim to install a new democratic regime. Combining our data with important government indicators from the V-Dem project, we also analyze associations between the nature of the interim regimes and their heir takers. By regressing subsequent levels of democratic quality on key interim regime characteristics in a series of Fixed Effect-models, we find, e.g., robust evidence that military dominance increases risk of autocratic consolidation whilst mixed civilian and military regimes are equally likely to lead to democratic succession as purely civilian interim regimes.

Authors

• Matilde Thorsen, Aarhus University

• Vilde Lunnan Djuve, University of Oslo