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The Origins of Elite Persistence: Evidence from Political Purges in post-World War II France
| datacite.ispreviousversionof.doi | 10.17863/CAM.99010 | |
| dc.contributor.author | Aidt, T. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Lacroix, J. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Meonx, P-E. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-07-05T16:43:13Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-07-05T16:43:13Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022-05-18 | |
| dc.description.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. | |
| dc.identifier.doi | 10.17863/CAM.86217 | |
| dc.identifier.other | CWPE2232 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/338810 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | |
| dc.publisher | Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | Cambridge Working Papers in Economics | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved | |
| dc.rights.uri | https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/ | |
| dc.subject | Purges | |
| dc.subject | Political transitions | |
| dc.subject | Elite persistence | |
| dc.subject | Connections | |
| dc.title | The Origins of Elite Persistence: Evidence from Political Purges in post-World War II France | |
| dc.type | Working Paper | |
| rioxxterms.version | AO |
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