DRI Working Paper No. 73
By Shanker Satyanath and Gokce Goktepe

Democratic Transitions and Implicit Power: An Econometric Approach
Recent works of political economy have emphasized the importance of distinguishing between transfers of explicit and implicit power over economic decision making in democratic transitions. Scholars have so far provided interesting anecdotal evidence supporting their claims of potential divergence between transfers of explicit and implicit power. In this paper we apply econometric techniques to examine if a transfer of explicit power has not also been accompanied by a transfer of implicit power. We do so in the context of a major country where considerable uncertainty remains over the military’s implicit role in economic decision making long after an explicit transfer of power to elected leaders, namely Turkey. Our findings indicate a significant gap between the explicit and implicit aspects of Turkey’s democratic transition, adding support to scholars’ claims about the importance of distinguishing between these aspects of transitions.