Understanding the impact of authoritarian legacies on the viability, stability and consolidation of post-authoritarian democracies constitutes a vibrant field of comparative historical analysis. The panel brings together papers that analyze the effects of different authoritarian legacies on key facets of post-authoritarian democracy. While the bulk of the literature has concentrated on post-Communist, Central and Eastern Europe, the panel broadens the discussion to Western Europe (where democracy is largely consolidated) and the post-Soviet region (where it is instead still highly contested). The discussion will seek to draw parallels between the different regions and historical periods to offer a fresh contribution to the field’s central  question “How and why do authoritarian legacies matter for post-authoritarian democracy?”