Transitions to Democracy: Unpredictable Elite Negotiation or Predictable Failure to Achieve Class Compromise?

Can democratic transitions be predicted? The elite-negotiation literature claims that the process is so complicated and contingent that the timing and process is unpredictable. The class-compromise framework, however, identifies structural conditions that make stabilization unlikely, specifying who will oppose the authoritarian regime and why. A “triggering” event—a collapse in export demand—also is identified that intensifies and extends opposition, making a transition likely within 1–3 years. To demonstrate the usefulness of the class-compromise framework, two very different authoritarian regimes are compared. In the Brazilian regime (1964–1985), the military ruled as an institution and pursued state-led development; the Chilean regime (1973–1989) was dominated by one general and was radically neo-liberal. Despite these differences, structural conditions pushed both regimes toward export-led growth and wage constraint, hurting workers and capitalists producing for the local market. When exports collapsed in the early 1980s, opposition spread and forced democratic transitions.