Authoritarian Diasporas: A Framework for Analysis

• In Event: Authoritarian Diasporas: Causes and Effects of Authoritarian Elite Dispersion

Abstract

The transition to democracy rarely means the disappearance of all features of the outgoing dictatorship. While democratization is sometimes imagined as a “big bang” moment in which one regime falls and is quickly replaced by another, the reality is that vestiges of the old regime almost always linger on in the new. Scholars have become increasingly aware of how common it is for both institutions (e.g., constitutions) and actors (e.g., authoritarian successor parties) to survive the transition to democracy. Building on this research tradition, this paper introduces a new concept: authoritarian diasporas. The term “authoritarian diaspora” refers to a pattern of dispersion among former authoritarian officials (the “authoritarian cohort”) in the lead-up to, or aftermath of, a transition to competitive elections. Rather than concentrate in a single former authoritarian ruling party, they scatter across multiple parties and/or other electoral vehicles. In addition to introducing the concept of authoritarian diasporas and discussing prominent examples from several major world regions, this paper presents two hypotheses about the causes of authoritarian elite dispersion: the “Dirty Laundry” hypothesis, in which previously submerged regime differences explode into the open in the wake of an exogenous shock, and the “Sinking Ship” hypothesis, in which ambitious political actors seek to obfuscate their authoritarian pasts in the wake of a crisis-induced transition to democracy. The paper also considers the possible impact of authoritarian diasporas on democratic regimes, arguing that these are likely to be more patently harmful than in the case of authoritarian successor parties.

Authors

• James Loxton, University of Sydney

• Timothy J. Power, University of Oxford