The Origins of Elite Persistence: Evidence from Political Purges in post-World War II France

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datacite.ispreviousversionof.doi10.17863/CAM.99010
dc.contributor.authorAidt, T.
dc.contributor.authorLacroix, J.
dc.contributor.authorMeonx, P-E.
dc.date.accessioned2022-07-05T16:43:13Z
dc.date.available2022-07-05T16:43:13Z
dc.date.issued2022-05-18
dc.description.abstractThis 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.
dc.identifier.doi10.17863/CAM.86217
dc.identifier.otherCWPE2232
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/338810
dc.publisherFaculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
dc.relation.ispartofseriesCambridge Working Papers in Economics
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserved
dc.rights.urihttps://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
dc.subjectPurges
dc.subjectPolitical transitions
dc.subjectElite persistence
dc.subjectConnections
dc.titleThe Origins of Elite Persistence: Evidence from Political Purges in post-World War II France
dc.typeWorking Paper
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