Revolving Doors Under Democracy and Autocracy 

Who uses revolving doors under democracy and autocracy? Existing research often focuses on one-way, single-time transitions — either from business to politics or vice versa — in either democracy or autocracy, overlooking the revolving door as a dynamic, multi-state process unfolding across regime types over the course of individuals' careers. We propose a typology that distinguishes direct and indirect transitions, and specialized roles from concurrent roles. Using a novel dataset tracking the trajectories of nearly 100,000 public officials and entrepreneurs in Spain between 1920 and 2023, we test whether economic power translates into formal political power, and vice versa, across regimes. We find that regime type shapes transitions from politics to business, but less so from business to politics. Highly connected businesspeople enter politics regardless of regime type. In contrast, although politically influential individuals move to business under both regime types, they may be more likely to do so under autocracy.