The Fate of Post-Authoritarian Security Forces and Democratic Consolidation

• In Event: Political Attitudes of Bureaucrats and Regime Transitions

Abstract

This paper proposes a model predicting the behavior of security apparatus agents following a regime transition under three different behavioral assumptions of preferences of security officers: Former officers can be ideologically motivated, opportunistically motivated or motivated by rents. It then examines the potential effects of three kinds of institutional solutions to the dilemma of how to deal with former agents of the security apparatus—leadership, thorough purges, or reinvention—for the long term effectiveness of the security apparatus. Predictions from the model are then tested with data of police and security apparatus reforms and crime in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic between 1990 and 2020. Security forces in these countries underwent purges of different degrees and at different times, with Poland embarking on far reaching purges and reform early on, Czechia conducting mild purges and relatively late, and Slovakia refraining from purges and reforms altogether.

Author

• Monika Nalepa, University of Chicago