PATHS TO SUCCESS, PATHS TO FAILURE: HISTORICAL TRAJECTORIES TO DEMOCRATIC STABILITY By ADAM BILINSKI A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2015 1 © 2015 Adam Bilinski 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Throughout the work on this project, I received enormous help from a number of people. The indispensable assistance was provided by my advisor Michael Bernhard, who encouraged me to work on the project since I arrived at the University of Florida. He gave me valuable and timely feedback, and his wide knowledge of the European political history and research methods proved irreplaceable in this regard. He is otherwise a warm, humble and an understanding person, a scholar who does not mind and even appreciates when a graduate student is critical toward his own ideas, which is a feature whose value cannot be overestimated. I received also valuable assistance from members of my dissertation committee: Benjamin Smith, Leonardo A. Villalon, Beth Rosenson and Chris Gibson. In particular, Ben Smith taught me in an accessible way about the foundational works in Political Science, which served as an inspiration to write this dissertation, while Chris Gibson offered very useful feedback on quantitative research methods. In addition, I received enormous help from two scholars at the University of Chicago, where this research project passed through an adolescent stage. Dan Slater, my advisor, and Alberto Simpser helped me transform my incoherent hypotheses developed in Poland into a readable master’s thesis, which I completed in 2007. They also taught me modern research methods and introduced me into the scientific world of American Political Science. Without their assistance, I probably would never have been admitted to a doctoral program. I am also grateful to members of my thesis committee at Chicago: Chad Cyrenne and Joshua Arthurs, and participants of seminars at the Universities of Illinois and Florida, who offered helpful criticism and feedback. Finally, I am also extremely grateful to my family members, in particular my father Czesław and sister Ola, who have always believed in me and my ultimate success, and supported me in all ways they could. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................3 LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................................8 LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................10 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................11 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................13 Project Summary ....................................................................................................................13 Stability of Democratic Regimes: Theoretical Approaches ...................................................18 Two Paths to Self-Sustaining Democracy ..............................................................................27 Structure of the Dissertation ...................................................................................................38 2 BASIC DIMENSIONS OF DEMOCRACY: A NEW APPROACH TO REGIME TYPE MEASUREMENT ..................................................................................................................57 Ordinal Measures of Regime Type .........................................................................................58 Categorical Measures of Regime Type ...................................................................................63 Some Common Deficiencies of the Existing Regime Type Measures ...................................74 Characteristics of the Basic Dimensions of Democracy Regime Type Measure ...................76 3 THE EFFECT OF LEGACY OF OPEN-OUTCOME ELECTIONS ON DEMOCRATIC SURVIVAL: QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS ............................................89 Regime Legacies Favoring Democratic Survival ...................................................................90 The Statistical Model ..............................................................................................................95 Explanatory Variables ............................................................................................................98 Democratic Survival Dataset ................................................................................................106 Results of Regression Models ..............................................................................................109 The Effect of Colonial Autonomy on Democratic Survival: Comparison to the Effect of Other Colonial Legacies ....................................................................................................121 Final Remarks .......................................................................................................................124 4 DEMOCRATIZATION FROM PA MONARCHY VIA COMPETITIVE OLIGARCHY IN FRANCE, BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS ............................138 Legacy of Ancien Régimes ...................................................................................................140 Periods of PA Monarchy ......................................................................................................147 Bourbon Restoration in France ......................................................................................147 United Kingdom of the Netherlands and its Demise .....................................................158 4 Periods of Competitive Oligarchy ........................................................................................166 Transition to Competitive Oligarchy during July Monarchy ........................................166 Transition to Competitive Oligarchy in Belgium ..........................................................173 Transition to Competitive Oligarchy in the Netherlands ..............................................176 Politics in Belgium and the Netherlands under Competitive Oligarchy .......................181 Transitions to Democracy and Periods of Democratic Politics ............................................184 Failure of Democratic Transitions in France: Second Republic and the Liberal Empire ........................................................................................................................184 Continuity Transitions to Democracy in Belgium and the Netherlands ........................201 Democratic Survival in the French Third Republic, Belgium and the Netherlands ......212 Final Remarks and Alternative Explanations .......................................................................221 5 DEMOCRATIZATION FROM PA MONARCHY IN GERMANY, DENMARK AND SWEDEN ..............................................................................................................................227 Period of PA Monarchy in Denmark, Sweden and Germany ...............................................230 The Form of Democratic Transition as a Critical Juncture, and its Consequences for Democratic Stability in Denmark, Sweden and Germany ................................................244 Alternative Explanations of the Collapse of Weimar Democracy ........................................258 The Continuing Power of the Landlord Class ...............................................................258 The Effect of Class Coalitions .......................................................................................269 The Role of Anti-Democratic Civil Society ..................................................................273 The Flawed Institutional Design of the Weimar Republic ............................................276 Development toward Democracy Interrupted by the War.............................................280 Concluding Discussion .........................................................................................................283 6 THE BREAKDOWN OF EUROPEAN COMPETITIVE OLIGARCHIES NOT PRECEDED BY PA MONARCHY: ANALYSIS OF PIEDMONT, HUNGARY AND ROMANIA ...........................................................................................................................285 Preliminary Considerations on the Emergence of PA Monarchy in Europe ........................285 The Transition from Competitive to Non-Competitive Oligarchy in Piedmont...................290 The Spring of Nations in Piedmont ...............................................................................291 The Establishment of Responsible Government and Cavour’s Rise to Power .............294 The 1857 Election and Breakdown of Open Electoral Politics .....................................297 Political System of the Independent Italy as the Extension of the Piedmontese System ........................................................................................................................300 Emergence and Fall of the Competitive Oligarchy In Hungary ...........................................304 The 1848-49 Revolution and Its Suppression ...............................................................306 The Compromise of 1867 and Establishment of Competitive Oligarchy in Hungary ..311 Hungary’s Transition to a Non-Competitive