Explanation:
Political dynasties have the advantage of continuity. The more control the family has over the government unit, the more members of the family can occupy positions of power. The literature on political dynasties in democracies usually considers dynasties as a
homogenous group and points out their negative effects. By contrast, we argue that
political dynasties may differ according to their origin and that democratic dynasties -dynasties whose founder was a defender of democratic ideals - show a stronger support for democracy than other dynasties.
Dynastic politicians, defined specifically as politicians who are related by blood to other
individuals formerly holding political office
have long been suspected to undermine the representative nature of democracies . As a group, they are on average less educated
conduct poorer public policies, put lower effort in politics and rely on clientelism.
Those results are
obtained by pooling all dynastic politicians together. But should one really consider political
dynasties as a monolithic group? or could extreme circumstances lead members of different political dynasties to vote in opposite fashion? In other words: is there ground to expect that political dynasties may be heterogeneous, prompting their members to act in different ways?
We argue that politicians belonging to a democratic dynasty are more likely than their
non-dynastic peers to stand-up for democracy, should the necessity arise. A politician is
considered as belonging to a democratic dynasty if he.she fulfills two criteria. First, the
politician must belong to a dynasty. He.she should therefore be related by blood to other
individuals formerly holding political office. Second, his.her dynasty has to qualify as
democratic. We consider that a dynasty is democratic if its founder showed explicit support
for democracy by either (1) supporting democratic reforms under autocracy or (2) by
belonging to a party supporting democracy as political system in a democracy. More
specifically, the founders of democratic dynasties must have opposed former autocratic
regimes, supported the democratic regime in which they started their political career, or both.
Conversely, the following dynastic politicians are considered as non-democratic: descendants
of supporters of former autocratic regimes; descendants of politicians opposing the
democracy they started their political career in; descendants of politicians showing no explicit
support to democratic norms.
The conjecture, that politicians belonging to a democratic dynasty are more likely than
their non-dynastic peers to stand-up for democracy, rests on a series of non-mutually
exclusive reasons. Firstly, democratic political dynasties have a vested interest in democracy,
because they survive thanks to the transmission of an electoral advantage.
HOPE IT HELPS IT'S JUST MY OPINION
