Aidt, T., Lacroix, J., Meon, P-G.
The Origins of Elite Persistence: Evidence from Political Purges in post-World War II France
CWPE2232
Abstract: This paper studies a new mechanism that allows political elites from a non-democratic regime to survive a democratic transition: connections. We document this mechanism in the transition from the Vichy regime to democracy in post-World War II France. The parliamentarians who had supported the Vichy regime were purged in a two-stage process where each case was judged twice by two different courts. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we show that Law graduates, a powerful social group in French politics with strong connections to one of the two courts, had a clearance rate that was 10 percentage points higher than others. This facilitated the persistence of that elite group. A systematic analysis of 17,589 documents from the defendants' dossiers is consistent with the hypothesis that the connections of Law graduates to one of the two courts were a major driver of their ability to avoid the purge. We consider and rule out alternative mechanisms.
Keywords: Purges, Political transitions, Elite persistence, Connections
JEL Codes: D73 K40 N44 P48
Author links: Toke Aidt
PDF: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe2232.pdf 
Open Access Link: https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.99010
