Thank you, Jacob! You played a big part in helping me get this to the finish line. I really appreciate it!

The paper is open access courtesy of @dculibrary.bsky.social @dublincityuni.bsky.social

Selecting on the dependent variable here, but I want to give a shoutout to the four reviewers that provided really good comments that made the paper so much better. Whoever you are, I appreciate your insights and comments! Also, the editorial staff @poppublicsphere.bsky.social was fantastic.

This paper benefitted of generous feedback from some great scholars such @mikealbertus.bsky.social @jacobnyrup.bsky.social @chknutsen.bsky.social @monikanalepa.bsky.social @ehernandez.bsky.social @austinsmatthews.bsky.social. Thank you!

of autocratic revolving doors. The paper also has additional analyses showing some of these relationships are conditional, but that's for the reader to discover. And yes, I run numerous robustness tests to rule out observed and unobserved confounders.

core autocratic elites and those that held more prestigious portfolios are more likely to return to democratic cabinet. A longer time spent in an autocratic cabinet is not particularly useful for elites attempting a comeback under democracy. I also use two short case studies to illustrate the logic

The theoretical expectations are tested using a novel measure of autocratic revolving doors at the elite-level comprising 12,949 former autocratic cabinet members from 68 new democracies across 91 different democratic spells between 1966 and 2020. The results indicate that...

Thus, I propose that the variation in political experience that elites gained under autocracy and the characteristics of the cabinet positions they held under autocracy allows us to explain the demand and supply logic that drives autocratic revolving doors in new democracies.

On the supply side, cabinet leaders can/need to select from a pool of former autocratic elites that have the policy and political experience to run state institutions, and that can signal to autocratic elites networks that their interests will be protected under democracy.

Autocratic revolving doors is explained by a demand and supply logic of (political) cabinet formation. On the demand side, they need to provide public goods, reward political allies and appease surviving networks of autocratic elites since these (autocratic) networks can derail democracy.

Autocratic revolving doors is the norm in new democracies as former autocratic elites return to cabinet in 68 (out of 72) new democracies between 1966 and 2020. They occupy these positions for an average of (almost) 4 years.

Thanks! Just sent you a DM about this

The paper is open access courtesy of @dculibrary.bsky.social @dublincityuni.bsky.social.
Check it out for more details and share it with your network.

The results show that returning autocratic elite reduce human rights treaty commitment by new democracies, particularly when the Ministry of Justice portfolio is held by a former autocrat.

Moreover, I illustrate the logic of the theoretical argument with two short, stylised case studies (of Brazil and Argentina) and an instrumental variable approach to reduce potential endogeneity due to reverse causality.

Building on this, I develop novel theoretical expectations of the effect of returning autocratic elites on human rights commitment. These are tested in timeseries cross-sectional research design using novel measures of autocratic influence in democratic cabinets between 1966 and 2010.

More often than not, politics in new democracies is a continuation of autocratic politics by new (democratic) rules of power-sharing in which former autocratic elites aim to maintain political influence and protect their interests.

Specifically, the literature assumes that new democracies are a blank slate in which all societal actors are committed to democracy and want to lock-in democracy. This contradicts the findings of the comparative democratization literature which shows that this is not the case.