Inclusive, Dispersive, and Constraining Powersharing

Following on prior work by Strøm et al. (Reference Strøm, Gates, Graham and Strand2017), we identify three distinct forms of powersharing. To understand the differences between them, consider how we think about sharing in ordinary life. In some contexts, sharing means enjoying or consuming something jointly, as when families share special occasions. In contrast, when family members share an inheritance, sharing means a dispersion of goods to be consumed separately by their respective recipients. Finally, those that ask elites to “share the wealth” or motorists to “share the road” typically wish to prevent a powerful group from excluding others from some good or privilege. Sharing can thus refer to joint and inclusive consumption, dispersion, or constraints on a dominant actor's control of something valuable.

Political powersharing similarly takes a variety of forms, which we divide into (1) inclusive arrangements that mandate the participation of several parties or groups in particular offices or decision-making processes, (2) dispersive arrangements that divide authority among actors in a well-defined pattern (e.g., territorial decentralization), and (3) constraining arrangements that limit the power of any actor and thus protect ordinary citizens and vulnerable groups against encroachment and abuse.

Inclusive powersharing places power broadly and jointly in the hands of multiple recognized groups. This includes grand (cabinet) coalitions representing all significant parties; constitutional or statutory provisions that reserve specific political offices for particular parties or social groups; rules that mandate inclusiveness in the armed forces, civil service, or other government appointments; and rules that grant minority groups veto power over sensitive policy areas, such as language policy. Inclusive powersharing thus aligns closely with several features of Lijphart's consociationalism and with Norris's “positive action strategies” (Reference Norris2008, 107). Its purpose is to guarantee each group a share of political power and a floor level of political expectations, thus reducing the threat that they might be shut out of the political process.

Dispersive powersharing limits the power of one faction over others through partitioning or devolution of political authority. Dispersive powersharing is often territorial and includes federalism and other measures that increase the autonomy of subnational governments and render them accountable to local constituents rather than to the central government.Footnote ⁷ Since Rousseau, Montesquieu, and the American Federalists, territorial power dispersion has been touted as a promising way to promote democracy.Footnote ⁸ Such dispersion protects geographically concentrated minorities and ideally maximizes the efficiency of local popular representation (Tiebout Reference Tiebout1956; Oates Reference Oates1972; Norris Reference Norris2008).

Finally, constraining powersharing limits the scope of political authority to maximize citizens’ autonomy and protect them from encroachments by the powerful. As Norris (Reference Norris2012, 29) notes, “Power-sharing democracies are characterized by multiple democratic checks and balances designed to ensure that power is widely dispersed vertically and horizontally.” The struggle to impose constraints on rulers was critical in Western political development, as liberals fought for checks on executive power, parliamentary autonomy, individual rights, and the rule of law. The Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 famously erected substantial constraints against the Crown, providing a foundation for England's subsequent democratic evolution and economic ascendancy (North and Weingast Reference North and Weingast1989; Acemoglu and Robinson Reference Acemoglu and Robinson2012). Some modern thinkers see such constraints as the most fundamental guarantors of freedom, which ideally should be secured prior to competitive elections (Zakaria Reference Zakaria2003; Mansfield and Snyder Reference Mansfield and Snyder2007).

We focus our analysis on constraints that protect individuals, minority groups, and election losers from abuse by those in power.Footnote ⁹ Constraining powersharing institutions include independent and non-partisan judicial institutions, electoral commissions and other regulatory agencies; rules subjecting the armed forces to civilian control; and protections of religious freedom and separation of church and state. Through non-partisan institutions and civil society protections, constraining powersharing removes issues from the electoral arena. The political effects of such institutions have been empirically under-investigated, although Gibler and Randazzo (Reference Gibler and Randazzo2011) and Reenock, Staton, and Radean (Reference Reenock, Staton and Radean2013) find that independent judiciaries promote democratic survival.Footnote ¹⁰

Some scholars may view these constraints as distinct from powersharing, or even as integral to democracy. However, democracy as a concept is compatible with a high concentration of governmental power, as long as that power is delegated through free and fair elections. Indeed, numerous democracies feature weak constraints on political power.Footnote ¹¹ Of course, the fragility and perils of such unfettered majority rule have long been recognized (Lijphart Reference Lijphart1977; O'Donnell Reference O'Donnell1994). Like all forms of powersharing, constraining institutions are designed to guard against abuses of power. However, they do this not by allocating governmental power, but by restricting it, and thus leaving decision-making in the hands of citizens and civil society. We see this as a critical strategy for preventing majoritarian abuse to be considered alongside inclusive and dispersive powersharing.

Measures

We next identify these forms of powersharing empirically in the world's states. We draw on data covering 19 different political powersharing institutions from 1975 to 2010 in all 180 countries with a population of at least 250,000 (Strøm et al. Reference Strøm, Gates, Graham and Strand2017). Compared to other available powersharing measures, this data covers more political systems and includes more indicators. It encompasses both democracies and autocracies, and states with and without recent civil conflict. Previously available data have been limited to post-conflict cases (e.g., Walter Reference Walter2002; Hartzell and Hoddie Reference Hartzell and Hoddie2003; Reference Hartzell and Hoddie2007; Reference Hartzell and Hoddie2015; Ottman and Vüllers Reference Ottmann and Vüllers2015) or focused on a narrower range of institutions (e.g., Rothchild and Roeder Reference Rothchild, Roeder, Roeder and Rothchild2005; Norris Reference Norris2008). A larger number of indicators facilitates more precise empirical estimates, and by including different forms of powersharing in the same analysis, we can distinguish their effects and account for the degree to which they co-vary.

While powersharing includes both de jure rules and de facto practices, this dataset focuses heavily on de jure rules and on constitutional rules in particular.Footnote ¹² To the extent that powersharing rules on the books are not thoroughly enforced, this approach reduces the probability that we will observe strong effects. If anything, the results should therefore be biased against our expectations. At the same time, this measurement approach has pragmatic value in that de jure rules are more amenable to objective coding and can more easily be manipulated politically. If we want to change the world, formal rules are the easiest levers to pull. We want to know whether these levers are likely to work.

Empirically, we treat each form of powersharing as a latent variable that cannot be directly observed. Therefore, to create our measures, we identify a range of observable institutions that we a priori associate with each type of powersharing. We expect that institutions with similar purposes will be correlated and load on a common latent factor. For example, states with high levels of constraining powersharing should have a range of institutions restricting rulers from oppressing the weak.

To test these expectations, we factor-analyze the 19 powersharing indicators presented in Table 1, which reveals that they indeed cluster around three latent variables that correspond to our three conceptual types. Further, the patterns of correlation between indicators match our theoretical expectations. We use the resulting factor loadings to construct index measures of each type of powersharing, which we use in our analysis below. Table 1 reports the relevant indicators along with examples of countries with high values on each powersharing dimension. The online appendix has further detail.

TABLE 1.

Indicators of Powersharing

Compliance Among Winners

A fundamental compliance problem is that strong players can renege on their democratic commitments to a “level playing field” by using their power to undermine competition. This can result in the steady erosion of civil liberties and electoral standards witnessed in Putin's Russia and Chavez's Venezuela, where strong executives gradually magnified their power, persecuted opposition politicians, and harassed the media and civil society. Limiting such power consolidation is necessary to reassure other elites and maintain an effective electoral opposition. In particular, electoral losers must expect a fair chance of securing power in the future (Przeworski Reference Przeworski1991).

Political institutions can help limit opportunities for leaders to abuse their power. Inclusive powersharing does so by increasing the number of democratic “stakeholders” and giving the leaders of all relevant groups a share in decision-making. This raises their incentives to support the regime as well as their ability to prevent competitors from abusing political power. The more effectively the “losers” are represented politically and can monitor central government behavior, the more difficult it is for the “winners” to use these same offices for sectarian purposes or to undermine the political compact. Similarly, much of the democratization literature claims that elite pacts stabilize democracy (Przeworski Reference Przeworski1991; Bunce Reference Bunce2000).

Dispersive powersharing instead gives multiple groups a stake in power at the sub-national level and thus a measure of localized security and autonomy, which can protect them against an abusive central government. Thus, dispersing power regionally can help prevent a tyranny of the majority, a virtue much emphasized by James Madison. Minority elites with a regional base can also expect their constituents to support their opposition to winners bent on abuse of power. What they may less reliably possess, however, is good information about politics in central institutions.

Constraining powersharing institutions, such as strong, independent judiciaries, civilian control of the armed forces, and intra-governmental checks and balances, can also help restrain winners from abusing their power. Institutions that submit the armed forces to civilian control may in particular help contain military coups, the most frequent threat to democratic stability (Maeda Reference Maeda2010). Judicial constraints may similarly limit opportunities for elite power-grabs by safeguarding civil liberties and electoral laws (Moraski Reference Moraski2009; Gibler and Randazzo Reference Gibler and Randazzo2011). There is strong evidence that such institutions can be effective, especially in regimes that seek democratic legitimacy. Even when facing intense political pressure, judges have enforced constitutional term limits for a number of sub-Saharan African presidents, sharply increasing the likelihood of party turnover (Posner and Young Reference Posner and Young2007; Cheeseman Reference Cheeseman2010). Independent judiciaries also overturned fraudulent elections in Ukraine in 2004 and in the Philippines in 2007, helping to prevent autocratic consolidation.

Compliance Among Losers

Democratic stability also depends on electoral losers deciding to stick with the electoral game rather than withdrawing their support or resorting to armed violence. This decision depends in part on whether they believe that winners will comply with democratic rules. Yet even if electoral losers believe that they can compete fairly in the future, they must also be satisfied with the current distribution of power and its implications for their core rights and interests. To secure compliance with democracy, all groups must therefore have sufficient stakes in political power, ideally commensurate with their shares of coercive power. If not, the urge to resort to civil conflict or a coup may be irresistible. For instance, a major destabilizing force in Iraq since 2006 has been the marginalization of the Sunni minority, leading many Sunnis to support violent opposition. Ensuring a minimum share of power for potential spoilers gives these groups and their leaders a stake in the democratic system, which over time can improve their loyalty to the regime (Stedman Reference Stedman1997).

Most importantly, members of groups at risk must feel that their most critical rights and interests, including sensitive issues like language policy, religion, and personal autonomy, are not in jeopardy. This can be achieved either by guaranteeing groups sufficient political power to protect these rights or by removing these issues from the political arena entirely. Thus, winner-take-all elections without protection of the rights of losers may incentivize both undemocratic campaign behavior and subsequent non-compliance by the losers.

Opposition compliance can be fostered through various forms of powersharing. Inclusive arrangements, such as pacts and group quotas, are classic strategies for this purpose. Especially when they contain proportionality norms for minorities, inclusive measures can guarantee groups access to political power even if they end up electoral losers. By predetermining power relations, inclusiveness lowers the stakes of elections and thus lessens the temptation for losing parties and candidates to defect (Lijphart Reference Lijphart2002). Inclusive arrangements can also build mutual trust and respect through recognition and bargaining (Lijphart [Reference Lijphart1999] Reference Lijphart2012, Reference Lijphart2002). Ideally, as Norris (Reference Norris2008, 108) writes, “[E]ach distinct religious, linguistic, or nationalistic community will feel that their voice counts and that the rules of the game are fair and legitimate.” In this way, mutual security can be forged by a culture of political accommodation among national elites (Dahl Reference Dahl1971; Higley and Burton Reference Higley and Burton1989).

In contrast, dispersive powersharing can protect minority autonomy by decentralizing critical decisions about matters related to faith or ethnicity. Dispersive powersharing thus gives multiple groups a stake in power regionally and a concomitant measure of security. Territorial divisions also tend to be stable, so groups that feel secure within a particular sub-national area also face low uncertainty over the future. However, dispersion can also mean that ethnic appeals become increasingly likely regionally, potentially worsening ethnic tensions nationally, as occurred in Nigeria in the 1960s and Sudan in the 2000s (Downes Reference Downes2004; Hale Reference Hale2004). In direct contrast to inclusive powersharing's centripetal pressure that necessitates compromise and centralizes bargaining, dispersive powersharing enables groups to retreat to their separate corners, with secession and civil war as potential consequences. Thus, Roeder (Reference Roeder2009, 206) notes that of 11 ethnically defined federations in modern history, only 4 reached 2005 as unified countries.Footnote ¹⁵

Constraining powersharing aids loser compliance by removing sensitive issues from the political arena entirely and by inserting third-party barriers to government manipulation. If these checks work effectively, they increase mutual security among elites (Dahl Reference Dahl1971). While constraints do not allocate fixed shares of power to specific groups, they do reassure minority groups that their interests will be protected when rivals take power. For instance, South Africa's 1996 constitution introduced strong property rights and a Supreme Court with the power of judicial review, which Sisk and Stefes (Reference Sisk, Stefes, Roeder and Rothchild2005) argue were critical for stabilizing the divided country. The constitution reassured business interests and the white minority that they would be protected under ANC rule. Constraints such as a strong judiciary also help to stabilize democracies by sharply reducing the stakes of elections. By ensuring that electoral losers will have later opportunities to gain power, electoral losses become less threatening and less likely to encourage coups.

Nigeria's rocky road to democracy illustrates the importance of gaining compliance among electoral losers. During the country's first decade of independence, civilian rule was brought down by a coup among Ibo officers reacting to blatant ethnic discrimination, and the country slid into a devastating civil war. Mutual distrust among the various ethnic groups remained deep long thereafter. After the return to civilian rule in 1999, however, trust among politicians has increased (although civil violence persists) to the point that in 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan peacefully conceded defeat and resigned after a closely contested, high-stakes presidential election. Informed observers characterized this as a watershed in Nigeria's political history (e.g., The Economist, April 4, 2015). A key component of this decision was the mutual expectation that Jonathan's People's Democratic Party could freely contest future elections.

This trust was undergirded by a complex set of formal and informal rules designed to promote mutual security. Nigeria has adopted explicit inclusive rules and expectations about “zoning” or division of the spoils and rotation of political offices (including the presidency) between regions. Federalism and revenue-sharing among the 36 states allow many ethnic minorities a “homeland” and promote dispersion of power. Further, executive power has been reined in by the 1999 Constitution's elaborate judicial system, including a Supreme Court with powers of judicial review. For instance, the courts have increasingly constrained the abuse of power by election winners by ruling against the government in several election-related disputes (Campbell Reference Campbell2013, 36).

Compliance Among Third Parties

Most analyses of compliance problems in emerging democracies focus on the government and other elites, such as the leaders of former insurgent groups. Yet democracy depends on the compliance of “third parties” as well, including the military, civil society organizations, and groups not granted formal political representation. Because many mechanisms of powersharing mainly benefit opposition elites, they may not credibly constrain politicians from repressing or exploiting the broader public.

Ordinary citizens play an important role in sustaining democracy. When insurgents initiate armed conflict against the government, they depend critically on masses for recruits (Gates Reference Gates2002) and for moral and material support (Mukherjee Reference Mukherjee2006). A rich research tradition has therefore explored mass participation in civil conflicts (e.g., Kalyvas and Kocher Reference Kalyvas and Adam Kocher2007). If the supporters that opposition elites seek to recruit view armed violence as too risky or illegitimate, they may withhold their support, in turn making insurgency too costly (Mattes and Savun Reference Mattes and Savun2009, 739). Therefore, if the government can credibly commit to providing for ordinary citizens, opposition elites may find it unprofitable to renege on their democratic commitments.

Democratic stability is thus enhanced when government is seen as well-functioning and accountable to popular demands, especially through the provision of economic opportunities and public goods (Przeworski Reference Przeworski1991; Acemoglu and Robinson Reference Acemoglu and Robinson2012). The democratic breakdown in Ecuador in 2000, for instance, was partly triggered by a large-scale protest by indigenous groups who felt politically and economically excluded. Effective governance is most critical in weak democracies, as the inability to resolve policy crises is one of the most common causes of military intervention (Maeda Reference Maeda2010). Coups are also more likely if citizens are polarized and only weakly support democracy (Linz and Stepan Reference Linz and Stepan1996). Thus, democratic stability rises when ordinary citizens view their government as capable and conducive to economic inclusiveness and growth.Footnote ¹⁶ Especially important to popular legitimacy is the protection of political and economic liberties, which in turn safeguard civil society and generate economic prosperity (Acemoglu and Robinson Reference Acemoglu and Robinson2012).

Inclusive powersharing fosters minority representation and may in turn protect the rights of ordinary citizens (Mukherjee Reference Mukherjee2006; Norris Reference Norris2008). Yet particularly when it is ethnically based, inclusive powersharing can also jeopardize democracy by limiting electoral responsiveness and accountability (Rothchild and Roeder Reference Rothchild, Roeder, Roeder and Rothchild2005; Lake and Rothchild Reference Lake, Rothchild, Roeder and Rothchild2005; LeVan Reference LeVan2011; Selway and Templeman Reference Selway and Templeman2012). Although it reduces threats to elites, the predetermination of power is inherently undemocratic: “Without the possibility of political turnover, leadership selection yields neither uncertainty about outcomes nor institutional credibility for the process” (LeVan Reference LeVan2011, 12). By freezing power relations in place, inclusive powersharing can also hamper the development of a vibrant opposition and civil society (Jung, Lust-Okar, and Shapiro Reference Jung, Lust-Okar and Shapiro2005; Mehler Reference Mehler2009). In particular, it often blocks new entrants from electoral competition, potentially alienating underrepresented or emerging populations (Reilly Reference Reilly2005).Footnote ¹⁷ Inclusive powersharing can also impede effective governance and distance factional leaders from their respective constituents. The inclusion of so many opposed interests in government often produces rigidity and inefficiency, as occurred in Cyprus in the early 1960s and Lebanon between 1943 and 1975. Moreover, pacts may promote mutual security for political elites at the expense of ordinary citizens. For example, the Nigerian experience highlights the blatant rent-seeking that sweetened the deals between the country's factional leaders. Such practices do little to enhance economic performance or regime legitimacy.

Dispersive powersharing is in many ways conducive to responsive and legitimate governance. Norris (Reference Norris2008) emphasizes that federalized countries provide more access points to government. The result is political decision making that is closer to the people, leading to improved policy responsiveness, greater public goods provision, more tailored policies, and potentially a more engaged and supportive civil society (Tiebout Reference Tiebout1956; Oates Reference Oates1972). But a federal structure also has liabilities, especially when it coincides with ethnic divisions (Monteux Reference Monteux2006; Roeder Reference Roeder2009). As politics becomes regionally defined, national identity suffers and nationally representative parties are less likely to develop (Linz and Stepan Reference Linz and Stepan1996; Chhibber and Kollman Reference Chhibber and Kollman2004).

Constraints, in contrast, overwhelmingly contribute positively to accountability and governance. A strong independent judiciary and limits on the armed forces help to secure civil liberties, toleration of opposition parties, a credible election process, and a robust civil society, furthering the participatory “civic culture” that supports democracy and effective governance (Almond and Verba Reference Almond and Verba1963; Muller and Seligson Reference Muller and Seligson1994). Secure civil liberties and a strong civil society can also help citizens coordinate against antidemocratic leaders. Finally, independent judicial institutions protect property rights and the rule of law, fostering economic growth.

Predicted Effects of Different Types of Powersharing

Powersharing can help sustain democracy by lessening the opportunities and incentives for winners to abuse their power, for losers to renege, and for citizens or third parties to withhold or withdraw their support. Yet such beneficial effects likely differ across forms of powersharing. After summarizing our theoretical expectations, we present predictions for the average effect of each type of powersharing across all democracies, then turn to predictions specific to postconflict societies.

Inclusive powersharing is likely to constrain winners, safeguard minority interests, and enhance mutual elite security. However, it may adversely influence popular accountability and governance. For democratic survival, inclusive powersharing thus presents a difficult tradeoff, and the net effect is unclear. However, inclusive powersharing is most likely to bolster democracy when the mutual security of elites is most urgent, such as in deeply divided or war-torn societies. We incorporate this expectation into Hypothesis 3 below.

While dispersive powersharing may protect regionally concentrated minorities and improve the responsiveness of local politicians, it typically does not foster integration or mutual security among elites nationally. Moreover, unless complemented by a strong rule of law, it does little to guarantee the rights of minorities within each region. As with inclusive institutions, dispersive powersharing thus provides countervailing incentives for the maintenance of democracy.

We believe constraining institutions positively affect the compliance of winners, losers, and third parties. Constraints provide mutual security to elites and protect groups’ core interests by lowering the stakes of elections and limiting opportunities for abuse. Furthermore, unlike inclusive powersharing, we do not expect constraining powersharing to impede democratic legitimacy and accountability.

In a typical democracy, we expect our compliance conditions to carry roughly equal weight. We expect inclusive and dispersive powersharing to have mixed effects on compliance, whereas constraining powersharing strongly and positively reinforces compliance by winners, losers, and third parties alike. This leads to the following hypotheses:

Are postconflict contexts different? Societies that have recently undergone civil conflict often have special and more severe institutional needs. Intense hostility and insecurity, coupled with high uncertainty over the future, encourage the resumption of violence, and political leaders often have easy access to arms and experienced combatants. Therefore, the first two compliance conditions rise in importance compared to societies without recent political violence. In contrast, popular accountability falls in relative importance in the short term.

Because inclusive powersharing particularly favors mutual security, we expect it to have more positive effects in postconflict settings than elsewhere. This is because inclusive powersharing protects the leaders of minority groups and lessens uncertainty. Institutions such as reserved executive positions and mandated grand coalitions can offer specific guarantees to individual leaders that they will exercise power under the new order, lowering their incentives to challenge election results by force. Further, inclusive powersharing centralizes political bargaining, which produces national-level recognition and interaction among opposing groups and facilitates mutual monitoring.Footnote ¹⁸

Dispersive powersharing, in contrast, increases the power of regional leaders, shifts the focus away from national-level politics, and tends to mutually isolate contending groups. Political decentralization increases the capacity of regional leaders to challenge the existing democratic order by force, especially when regional governments gain fiscal autonomy and/or their own paramilitary forces. Mutual isolation may remove ethnic flashpoints but at the same time foster incendiary ethnical appeals. Mutual isolation also means that contending elites will have less information about one another and fewer opportunities to build mutual trust. Furthermore, dispersive powersharing fails to guarantee local-level minority rights, as it may empower hostile regional ethnic majorities prone to secession and human rights abuses (Sriram and Zahar Reference Sriram and Zahar2009). Thus, dispersive powersharing may be riskier in a postconflict context than otherwise.

Lastly, postconflict situations only magnify the critical role of constraining powersharing in limiting government abuses, improving mutual security, and protecting civil liberties. This leads us to the following hypothesis:

Descriptive Statistics

Table 2 shows the pairwise correlations between democracy and each type of powersharing. Our three powersharing indices are clearly mutually distinct, with pairwise correlations at 0.05, 0.07, and 0.40. This allows us to include all three in the same model without multicollinearity.Footnote ²⁰ While all three types of powersharing are present in both democracies and autocracies (see Figure B1 in the online appendix), democracy is modestly correlated with dispersive and constraining powersharing. In contrast, inclusive institutions are equally common in democracies and autocracies and only marginally co-vary with other types of powersharing.

TABLE 2.

Cross-Correlations

Democracy and powersharing steadily increased in prevalence between 1975 and 2010. Figure 2 shows the prevalence of each type of powersharing over time, net of the global annual average of democracy.Footnote ²¹ The full sample (left panel) exhibits a strong upward trend in constraining institutions, especially after the Cold War, with inclusive and dispersive powersharing relatively flat. In post–civil war countries (right panel), constraining institutions have steadily spread throughout the entire period, whereas inclusive and dispersive institutions trend upward since 1990. This is consistent with the adoption of a standardized postconflict approach by international actors, especially post–Cold War.

FIGURE 2.

Powersharing Over Time

The figures show the average yearly values of three types of powersharing, after controlling for the yearly average of democracy.

Control Variables

Our primary specifications include standard predictors of democratic development. We control for GDP/Capita (logged, in real 2000 dollars, from Haber and Menaldo Reference Haber and Menaldo2011; World Bank 2014), GDP Growth (annual % change in GDP/Capita), Population (logged, from Heston, Summers, and Aten Reference Heston, Summers and Aten2011), and Fuel Dependence (% of GDP, from Ross Reference Ross2013). We expect faster-growing and higher-income countries to be more stable. Although the literature is not unanimous, many suggest that resource wealth has negative effects on democracy. We further control for Ethno-Linguistic Fractionalization (from Roeder Reference Roeder2001), which is an important potential confounder as it often inspires powersharing arrangements (Roeder Reference Roeder, Roeder and Rothchild2005; Cederman et al. Reference Cederman, Hug, Schädel and Wucherpfennig2015). Although not displayed here, results are unchanged after additionally controlling for economic inequality, foreign aid, and state capacity (see Table A6).

Democratic trajectories may be affected by conditions in surrounding countries, so we control for the Regional Polity average (not including the country itself; see below on Polity). We also control for Past Democratic Breakdowns (total since 1800) and Regime Age. We expect newer regimes and those with past breakdowns to be more prone to transition. Lastly, to control for the time period, we include a cubic polynomial of the year.

In further models, we control for Recent Irregular Turnover and Recent Regular Turnover, which refer to executive turnovers in the previous 5 years. Regular turnovers follow constitutional procedures, whereas irregular turnovers are extra-legal and generally violent. Data are taken from the Archigos dataset (Goemans, Gleditsch, and Chiozza Reference Goemans, Gleditsch and Chiozza2016).

In the additional models, we also control for alternative freedom and democracy measures. Freedom House is the Freedom in the World civil liberties score, which captures the protection of basic speech, press, and assembly rights (Freedom House 2016), rescaled from 0 to 1 (with 1 the freest). Although constraining powersharing does not directly include these rights, we expect that it makes their legal provisions more effective. Horizontal Constraints measures legislative constraints on the executive (Henisz Reference Henisz2010) and does not overlap with our measure of constraining powersharing. Polity, which runs from –10 to 10, is a widely used democracy measure (Marshall and Jaggers Reference Marshall and Jaggers2014). When including Polity, we add the binary variable Disruption, which takes the value 1 in cases of foreign intervention or state collapse, from the same dataset.Footnote ²³

Horizontal Constraints and Freedom House are particularly useful controls because these variables capture democracy components that fall outside of our dependent variable. Controlling for these additional elements increases our confidence that it is powersharing itself, and not some other aspect of the institutional environment, that accounts for the effects we observe. Polity does overlap somewhat with our powersharing measures, which should increase standard errors and tilt our findings away from significance. Thus, its inclusion presents a very demanding test of our predictions. Nevertheless, our results are robust to the inclusion of Polity, Freedom House, and Horizontal Constraints.

Causal Claims

We must show great care in the causal interpretation of our empirical results. Powersharing institutions are not randomly assigned, making tests of their effects prone to omitted variable bias. However, several features of our analysis increase our confidence in the causal nature of our findings, especially relative to prior work. We control for several variables that should be predicted by similar omitted factors, such as Polity, Freedom House, and Horizontal Constraints, and find little variation based on their inclusion. The 5-year lag also prevents bias from characteristics of the transition process itself. A sensitivity analysis, using the technique recommended by Oster (forthcoming), also indicates that our results are unlikely to be explained by omitted variables (see fn.24).

Finally, the online appendix includes an instrumental variables analysis, which we summarize briefly here. We use legal origin, colonial history, and historical state capacity to instrument for constraining powersharing, as inheritance of an English common law system and other institutions are widely argued to increase executive constraints. For dispersive powersharing, we include geographic size, mountainous terrain, population density, and colonial history as instruments. We use the geographic variables because territorial fragmentation is often a response to geographically divided populations; our use of colonial history to predict dispersive powersharing parallels Cederman, Hug, Schädel, and Wucherpfennig's (Reference Cederman, Hug, Schädel and Wucherpfennig2015) strategy of using British colonial history to instrument for decentralization. Finally, for inclusive powersharing, we leverage the fact that states often follow their former colonizer's style of governance by instrumenting with the former colonizer's level of inclusive powersharing and use of PR. For all three types of powersharing, the instruments are strong predictors of the corresponding powersharing measures and our results on democratic survival are robust to this approach.