Some democracies routinely experience disruptive or even destructive political actions on the part of citizens, while others rarely experience such phenomena. Existing research focuses almost exclusively on the structure of and shortcomings in political parties and elected assemblies to explain the prevalence of disruptive protest. Our hypothesis is instead that institutional arrangements at the output side of the political process have implications for democratic consolidation. We expect that a more politically controlled administration, as opposed to a more impartial and autonomous Weberian public administration, introduces instability in democracies, especially if civil society is strong. An administration controlled by politicians allows politicians to favor incumbents over electoral losers in terms of access to public services and employment. Such a system may induce electoral losers to resort to disruptive or anti-systemic actions to express demands and grievances. The empirical analyses focus on Latin America and preliminary findings are consistent with the hypotheses.
