Abstract
When a country moves from authoritarian rule to democracy, the formal rules of the legislature change quickly, yet the people who fill its seats often remain. This article asks how the behavior of individual legislators changes across that transition and which legislators change most. Extending a logic developed for judges to the legislative branch, we argue that the regime under which a legislator first enters office leaves a durable imprint on later conduct. Legislators socialized under authoritarian rule carry deferential and survival oriented repertoires into the democratic assembly, so autonomous and oversight oriented behavior emerges slowly, through the passage of time, the replacement of authoritarian era cohorts by democratically socialized ones, and the loss of the executive by authoritarian successor forces. We test this with data on members of the South Korean National Assembly spanning the late authoritarian and democratic periods, using panel, count, and event history models alongside case evidence. Anticipated results indicate a holdover effect on the individual legislator, a sustainment effect over time, and incremental rather than discontinuous change. The study links research on legislative institutionalization, authoritarian legislatures, and transitional justice through the conduct of legislators themselves.