Military coups d’état are often seen as detrimental to democracy, but most coups occur in nondemocratic countries. Consequently, a number of scholars have suggested that coups can play a pivotal role in democratization, but others have pointed to heterogeneous effects of coups d’état on democratization. In this thesis, I use linear-regression models with country- and year-fixed effects along with two comparative case studies to test the relationship between various conditions and post-coup democratization. I find that a country’s having recently been a democracy, the presence of protests during the coup, and a country’s having recently experienced another successful coup have positive correlations with post-coup democratization as compared with coups that occur in the absence of those conditions, although not necessarily as compared with the absence of a coup altogether. I also suggest that coups led by officers with ideological goals will be less likely to lead to democracy.

Although the legacies of Soviet rule have been examined in a large variety of post-Soviet states, the Baltics States have been understudied in this manner. In this thesis, I examine the legacies of 1941 and 1949 waves of Soviet forced deportations on the 2003 EU Referendums in Estonia and Latvia. In addition, I analyze the impact of these deportations on the 2022 Saeima Election in Latvia and 2023 Riigikogu Election Estonia on votes Nationalist, Russian-associated, and the Incumbent Parties. I find evidence in Estonia that deportations had a positive impact on votes to join the EU and vote shares for the Nationalist parties. However, in Latvia there was no evidence of any impact of forced deportations on any electoral results. These results, along with analysis of transitional justice approaches in the Baltic States after freedom from Soviet occupation, suggest that analyzing the impact of oppressive violence in a comparative context must consider the peculiarities of each state.