Professor Lauren Young featured in American Political Science Review
Existing theory has argued that elites attack democracy when it threatens their economic interests, but has largely ignored the social context that shapes how elites can actually organize anti-democratic actions like coups.
Professor Young and her coauthors use data from Haiti to show that elites who are more central in the historical marriage network are more likely to be identified as sponsors of the 1991 coup against Haiti's first democratically elected government. The authors also show that the same elites seem to benefit economically during a later period of autocracy in Haiti from 2004-2006 by differentially raising the prices of the goods that they import and sell.
Overall, the article suggests that elite social structure is an important factor that shapes the potential for democratic reversions in conjunction with economic interests.
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