Defusing democracy

"Many of today's new democracies are constrained by institutional forms designed by previous authoritarian rulers. In this timely and provocative study, Delia M. Boylan traces the emergence of these vestigial governance structures to strategic behavior by outgoing elites seeking to protect their interests from the vicissitudes of democratic rule.

Defusing Democracy combines a substantive focus on transitions to democracy with an analytical approach rooted in the political economy of institutions."--BOOK JACKET.