We usually consider it progress when a country begins to shift from an autocratic to a democratic form of government. However, the introduction of elections and other early trappings of democracy often has the perverse effect of exacerbating political instability. It also increases the...

Do established parties change political institutions to disadvantage smaller, non-mainstream parties if the latters' electoral prospects improve? We study this question with a natural experiment from the German federal state of Hesse. The experiment is the abolishment of an explicit electoral...