Political Opportunity Structure Conditions the Legacy of Political Violence

Previous studies render contradictory evidence linking political repression before and political participation after democratization. This article suggests that the perceived political opportunity conditions the long-term effect of political violence: victims punish the authoritarian successor party only if their district is not dominated by it. This hypothesis is examined through the unique context of Taiwan, where the former authoritarian party KMT is still competitive after democratization. Analysis of a newly published White Terror Dataset including 13,206 victims during the martial law period (1949–1987) shows that, if districts have more White Terror victims, KMT received more votes in KMT-dominated districts and fewer votes in districts without KMT domination. The psychological mechanism is supported by a pre-registered survey experiment ( n = 910), showing that the White Terror priming increases KMT’s vote when KMT leads in the poll. The result reconciles previous findings and explains authoritarian successor parties’ resilience in new democracies.