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Interests, Inequality, and Illusion in the Choice for Fair Elections

Why do actors in transitional governments choose to hold fair elections when so many other options are available? The answer to this question is key to understanding an essential element of democracy’s institutional collage. This essay explores the choice of fair elections through the comparison of two episodes in Portuguese history: the elections held at the founding of the First Republic (which were unfair) and the elections held after the fall of the Salazar—Caetano dictatorship (which were fair instead). The findings challenge arguments strictly based on the socioeconomic and class-based determinants of democratization: Although collective actors pursued outcomes on the basis of the expected distributional consequences of their choices, the author shows that cross-class political actors were more important than class actors and that the distribution of institutional power was more important than the distribution of wealth. The author also shows that illusions and misperceptions were highly consequential for important institutional choices. If scholars seek to explain democratization on the basis of structural realities alone, they risk overrating the power of wealth and underrating the power of the imagined.