Why do some autocracies democratize? A country’s violent past has received little attention. We argue that genocide and politicide undermine democratization by binding the elites’ supporters more tightly to the governing power, while cementing in-group/out-group animosities, and helping preserve the elites’ status quo position within the state. We test this argument on a new dataset of government atrocity and democratization since 1900. These novel data allow us to capture many important instances of atrocity missed by others, and thus take a longer look at democratization and violence throughout history. We find that episodes of genocide and politicide are associated with a lower likelihood of democratization in both the short and long run. These effects are larger and more consistent than other common explanations for democratization. They also differ from the effects of non-genocidal civil war violence.

为什么某些专制国家会民主化？一个国家的暴力过去很少受到关注。我们认为，种族灭绝和政治杀戮通过将精英的支持者更紧密地束缚于统治力量，破坏了民主化，同时巩固了集团内/集团外的敌意，并帮助维护了精英在国家内部的现状。自1900年以来，我们就在政府暴行和民主化的新数据集上测试了这一论点。这些新颖的数据使我们能够捕获许多其他人错过的暴行的重要实例，从而对历史上的民主化和暴力进行了更长远的考察。我们发现，在短期和长期内，种族灭绝和政治杀人事件与民主化的可能性较低相关。这些效果比民主化的其他常见解释更大，更一致。