This Note proposes a mechanism intended to protect transitioning and consolidating democracies. That mechanism is to establish a pension system that would be available to former national leaders (presidents and prime ministers) who had behaved properly in connection with elections. The pension would provide substantially more resources to former leaders than do existing national pensions, and would be conditioned on not using violent means to prevent elections or retain power. Critically, the existence and function of the system would be made clear up front before leaders have engaged in the kind of violence or obstruction that it is designed to prevent. By incentivizing salutary behaviors, such a system could hopefully avoid the tension that exists between justice and pragmatism when trying to find a way to convince a leader to step down after he has used violence to block or win elections or to maintain power after losing an election.

The rest of the Note proceeds as follows. Part I will introduce the basic parameters of the pension system. Though the Note will not address every aspect of the proposed system’s structure, it presents broad structural outlines. Part II will consider why leaders might accept monetary awards in exchange for stepping down after being constitutionally defeated. It will not only consider this issue in abstract terms, but it will also consider the hypothetical willingness to step down of actual leaders who came to power through relatively democratic means but who then used non-democratic means to stay in power at the expense of their citizens in a counterfactual world where the pension was available. These leaders are among those whose behaviors might have been different if they had enjoyed a guarantee of a comfortable retirement and resources for their families. Part III will then consider the pension system’s benefits as well as the cost to endow it using reasonable assumptions. Due to these potential costs, there will be an examination of whether there are entities that would be willing to fund the system. Next, Part IV will identify some of the challenges involved in implementing and extending the pension system, some of which are practical or political issues — such as whether subordinate officials would need to be covered in order to make the system effective — and some of which are moral objections.