Abstract
The thesis sheds light on how different types of democratic transitions affect the probability of democratic consolidation. The main explanatory variable is a democratic transition resulting to installation of first democratically elected government after authoritarian rule. The mode of transition is categorized after a threefold typology of transaction, extrication, and defeat indicating differential positions of power in the interactions between the authoritarian regime and the opposition. The continued transition process after the installation of democratic government is studied by using both linear and logistic regression analyses of cross-sectional country data.
I find that extrications, where the balance between the authoritarian regime and the opposition is relatively equal, are related to the highest probability of democratic consolidation. I also find that the effects of both defeats and transactions are contingent on the level of democracy obtained right after the installation of democratic government. The results from the analyses indicate that transactions leading to semi-democracy and defeats leading to coherent democracy are more supportive of consolidation than transactions leading to coherent democracy and defeats leading to semi-democracy.