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The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita,

Alastair Smith

4.28 · Rating details · 5,836 ratings · 749 reviews

For eighteen years, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith have been part of a team revolutionizing the study of politics by turning conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don’t care about the “national interest”—or even their subjects—unless they have to. This clever and accessible book shows ...more

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Hardcover, 352 pages

Published September 27th 2011 by PublicAffairs

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Oct 20, 2016 Maru Kun rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy, current-affairs

Politicians care only about their own power; politicians care about their electorate only to the extent that the electorate keeps them in power. The underlying thesis of this book - let’s call it ‘Political Truth’ – is a statement of such obviousness that one would think it could be said in a sentence or two rather than needing to be padded out over three hundred odd pages:

Is this a new idea? Of course not. But where this book succeeds is in giving Political Truth the support of a cr ...more

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Feb 19, 2017 Andrej Karpathy rated it liked it

This book examines positions of power (e.g. country leadership, mayors, CEOs, deans, etc.) by assuming entirely self-interested actors who seek to gain and retain power, and argues through examples that this relatively simple model gives the first order explanation of many world events. If you really grasp the message you'll adopt a much more cynical world view, but you'll also stop torturing yourself over stupid questions like what a country "ought" to do, what is "right", or why the people in This book examines positions of power (e.g. country leadership, mayors, CEOs, deans, etc.) by assuming entirely self-interested actors who seek to gain and retain power, and argues through examples that this relatively simple model gives the first order explanation of many world events. If you really grasp the message you'll adopt a much more cynical world view, but you'll also stop torturing yourself over stupid questions like what a country "ought" to do, what is "right", or why the people in power just can't see it. At the same time, spending some time in reality will reveal ways of remedying various suboptimal situations (e.g. the inefficacy of foreign aid) with solutions that recognize the root cause and manipulate incentive structures of those in power.

The book supplements its thesis with various examples. For instance, resource-rich autocracies with small winning coalitions tend to oppress the population, which is irrelevant to the revenue needed to retain power. Conversely, there exists a curious tension in countries that cannot extract riches from the ground and instead rely on a productive population to generate wealth. This leads to the development of technologies that empower people, such as better communication networks, transportation infrastructure, education, etc., but these in turn pose a threat to those in power. There is also an element of "survival of the fittest" to systems with small winning coalitions, where even if a benevolent leader rises to power who wants to raise the standard of living for the masses, they are likely to become replaced by those who promise to redirect that wealth to the key supporters (e.g. those in charge of the police, military, treasury, etc.). A coup is significantly easier if these institutions turn a blind eye. The outlooks are somewhat better for an average person living in a democracy, because the incentives of the ruler are aligned with making the average person better off to win a re-election.

In short, to understand the dynamics of a system of power the first order features to consider are 1) the nominal electorate (people who theoretically have influence), or the "interchangeables", 2) the real selectorate (the people who actually have the influence), or the "influentials" and 3) the winning coalition (the number of people required to keep power), or the "essentials". You can then solve for the dynamics.

My main critique of the book is that it is simply too damn long, too repetitive, and badly in need of an experienced editor. You'll hear the same statements re-iterated ad nauseam, and in many cases you'll wish the author was more concrete instead of arguing in generalities, at a level where the abstraction washes out the complexity and makes the conclusions self-evident under the simple model. Therefore, I'd recommend that the reader selectively skips through the book, or watch CGPGrey's summary video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7...), or the EconTalk podcasts featuring the author (e.g. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/_fea...).
...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Paul rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, nonfiction, politics

This was a very enjoyable book, full of what essentially amount to worked examples in the logic of political survival - going into detail about what behaviors occur under what political conditions, often furnishing multiple examples for each concept.

I will say that you can easily understand Bueno De Mesquita's basic thesis just by listening to the EconTalk podcasts on which he was a guest, particularly his 2006 and 2007 appearances, and in fact you may want to consider listening to these before re ...more

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Feb 10, 2017 Andy rated it it was ok

Basically, this author tells us over and over that powerful people abuse their power if no one checks them. This is not news. Also, there's a certain incoherence to the thesis even in the examples he uses: Bell, California was inevitably corrupt, but he can tell the story because everyone involved went to jail; foreign aid never works but the Marshall Plan was very successful, etc. Something is missing from the model. He needs to explain how the checks on corruption change in strength over time ...more

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Jan 19, 2012 Crystal rated it liked it

This is one of those books whose main thesis could be explained and extrapolated upon in about 10 pages, which means the rest of the book is pretty repetitive. Includes an interesting examination of political systems (autocracy vs democracy) and why politicians ultimately all work on the same incentives. Read the first few chapters and skim the rest.

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Feb 01, 2019 Becky rated it really liked it

Shelves: bad-shit-and-atrocities, non-fiction, reviewed, audiobook, politicalish, dystopias, highly-recommended, 2019

This was a really interesting read. On the one hand, it's incredibly fascinating, but on the other, it's kind of so obvious that I feel like we should all be out here like "DUH. Dude, everyone knows that." But, clearly, no, not everyone does. Including myself. It's obvious to me after finishing this book, just how painstaking the research into this topic was - they had to go through so much history and political policy, for so many countries and political factions, and then analyze so much data. ...more

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Aug 14, 2019 Bon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: educational, nonfiction, audio-at-least-partly, politics

Even in print form, so much to take in. A denser text than I expected - talking narrow margins and small font - and so my politics nerd half hopes to buy a copy for myself and better absorb the material. Lots of insightful commentary and things that just make sense in here.

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Jan 29, 2014 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: political-science, non-fiction

Everybody understands that leaders reward the coalition that brought them to power, but I didn't understand all the implications of this.

Here's a bald summary, but you should read the book. I can't do it justice in a few sentences:

Whether leaders act in enlightened or brutal ways depends entirely on the size of their winning coalition. In all cases, the members of the winning coalition must be paid for continued support. Failure to do so ends the leader's career and, in small-coalition environ Everybody understands that leaders reward the coalition that brought them to power, but I didn't understand all the implications of this.

Here's a bald summary, but you should read the book. I can't do it justice in a few sentences:

Whether leaders act in enlightened or brutal ways depends entirely on the size of their winning coalition. In all cases, the members of the winning coalition must be paid for continued support. Failure to do so ends the leader's career and, in small-coalition environments, often his life. With a small coalition, it's easier to buy off individuals (e.g. by giving them an opportunity to extort money from the people, so corruption is a good thing for an autocrat. He can use it to let his supporters enrich themselves, but if a supporter becomes disloyal, then anti-corruption laws can be invoked to bring the disloyal supporter down). If the winning coalition is large relative to the size of the population, then the leader can't buy them off with direct payments. Instead the rewards have to come through public goods. Moreover, if a country's wealth comes from domestic labor instead of natural resources, then the leader needs an educated, relatively free work force that can efficiently produce wealth. If there are natural resources, then it's easier to keep the people poor and uneducated and accept money from foreign companies in exchange for letting them exploit the resources. CEOs are typically small coalition leaders (board members and executives are their cronies).

Foreign aid, as currently given, often serves to keep autocrats in power. The democracies giving the aid actually end up preferring this because it's less expensive to get policy concessions from an autocrat than a democrat. While democratic leaders give lip service to spreading democracy, the way we actually act often ends up propping up autocrats. But don't be too hard on the democratic leaders since they're just doing the will of the people who elected them (i.e. we want cheap oil and everything else follows from that).

I listened to the audiobook. It's a little chewy for audio format, but it ends up working ok. There's a pdf with charts that comes with the audiobook. ...more

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Jun 01, 2017 Charlene rated it it was amazing

Shelves: decision-making, economics, politics, history, non-fiction-inequality

No matter whether the governing body is an autocracy, consisting of a domineering ruler who will strip every penny he can from his citizens or the most benevolent leader of a democracy, who seems from all outward appearances to care for his or her citizens, all rulers without exception follow the same basic rules of governing other human beings. Prior to reading this book, I would not have identified the patterns of a ruler's behavior and been able to boil them down to simple and predictable beh No matter whether the governing body is an autocracy, consisting of a domineering ruler who will strip every penny he can from his citizens or the most benevolent leader of a democracy, who seems from all outward appearances to care for his or her citizens, all rulers without exception follow the same basic rules of governing other human beings. Prior to reading this book, I would not have identified the patterns of a ruler's behavior and been able to boil them down to simple and predictable behaviors, which are tweaked based almost entirely on who has the power to keep the ruler in power. Any ruler who is able to stay in power does so because they do their level best to take from the people who do not support them and reallocate those funds to the people who do.

In an autocracy, there is a very small coalition of people who hold real power. Elections are bought. People's votes are for show. The leader has already been chosen prior to the outcome of the election. Thus, the people do not receive any aid from their leader. However, the leader must always show support for those whose votes count. Even in North Korea's Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un must keep their very small coalition of supporters happy. For even they rely on others to gain and maintain power. A president in the United States will also reallocate funds away from non-supporter and toward supporters. In the U.S., most people understand that their votes largely count (even if we do have an electoral college that gives the presidency to the candidate who did not receive the popular vote). The coalitions are larger for rulers in a true democracy. Thus, liberals will likely reallocate funds to their supporters (even select rich) and toward programs for their poor voters, whereas conservatives likely reallocate those funds back to their rich supporters at the expense of the poor. Each does so because it must provide funds to its coalition and to the masses whose votes count enough to win them elections.

These authors include a captivating and comprehensive survey of how money, power, and status is distributed across the globe. They provide possibly the clearest, most succinct, and compelling argument for a simple pattern of leadership behavior in politics, applied across the board, that I have ever come across. Usually the use of many individual examples puts books at risk of providing nothing more than anecdotal meanderings. However, this comprehensive discussion of political behavior from the various rulers who live all over our globe (at different points in history) ended up producing an argument that I think would difficult to refute. The books description calls it "clever," and indeed it is.

A central theme for these authors, that permeated every chapter and every discussion about leader behavior was the distribution of aid. At first I felt slightly defensive. They basically informed their reader that if they gave with their hearts (and sometimes even a well educated mind, having vetted where your money actually goes), that you probably wasted your money and helped a hellish dictator treat their citizens even worse than before they received aid. Their discussion started out sounding fairly conservative and made me wonder if they had a political agenda. Their argument sounded, to me, to go something like this: Do not give aid, no matter how desperately a country needs it because they need to prove they can do (insert what they promised to do) in order to get the aid.

That argument, at first, did not sit well with me because I, naively, believed that in order to the thing they promised to do, they would need the money to do it. However, these authors really helped me understand that even when it seems aid will help, it often ends up doing more harm. They call for strict and clear guideline for providing foreign aid. I still feel as if someone could come up with better guidelines, but after I read their points about aid distribution, I am convinced we need a change. One rather compelling example of the misuse of aid involve babies and Saddam Hussein. Babies were starving. They needed formula. Americans and other countries bought formula and sent it to the starving babies. Pretty good use of aid money, right? Wrong. Saddam had his guys stop the trucks, steal the formula, and sell it to make more money for Saddam to pay his coalition. The aid was never going to make it to the babies because we don't yet have good way to ensure the aid we give actually makes it the people. Instead, the way we provide aid often, far too often, ends up enriching the dictator at the expense of his people. The way we give aid does the opposite of what we want it to do.

Having studied corruption around the world, thanks to lectures from fraud investigators at the World Bank, I knew a fair amount about corruption and how dictators and many citizens around the world excel in scamming and stealing power and wealth from those less powerful, but this book really helped me understand it on a much deeper and much, much broader level. I actually felt as if I were reading a book on animal behavior, but with the rare species of Country Leader.

As an aside, but related to animal behavior, these authors went so far as to define the correct coalition size for various types of leadership, just as birds have specific sizes of clutches for optimal survival rates for the current and future breeding season.

There were so many interesting and informative aspects of this book, many that made me think of our leader here in America. There was one especially great discussion that caught my attention and made the what-if part of my brain become active. The authors, with tongue in cheek, advised dictators to choose loyalty over experience. Often throughout history, dictators have chosen family members who lack political experience, given them a high powered government positions, and allowed them to help rule. The examples of the *extreme* corruption that arose from choosing family members who are loyal but lack experience were astounding. It made my imagination go wild with what could have happened when Trump allowed Kushner to be his right hand man.

Even though this was published in 2011, it is still extremely relevant and I highly recommend it. ...more

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Jan 30, 2012 Nitin rated it it was ok

While this book is easy to read and never gets boring, its authors oversimplify a number of issues and don't seem to realize when they have contradicted themselves. More often than not, I could come up with a counterexample to whatever idea they were pushing. Save your time and pick a better book.

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Jun 08, 2017 Brian rated it it was amazing

Mesmerizing and essential. A simple (yet well researched and presented) far reaching work that clearly explains why despots continue to thrive, how and why democracies flourish and why foreign aid and debt forgiveness can be a bad thing.

Highly recommended.

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Nov 30, 2011 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, political-science, psychology, sociology

A competent primer on realpolitik, but most of the ideas in the book seem rather obvious to anyone that has read much history or studied politics for any amount of time...and isn't a Progressive.

Still, as suggested in the beginning, this is an adequate primer for realpolitik and for that reason it is valuable.

Please note, this is an abridged/popularized edition of 'The Logic of Political Survival'(also available as a Kindle). I've not read the original version and was more than a little upset ...more

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Feb 21, 2017 Carolyn rated it liked it

Read the first few chapters through and then skimmed the rest. The basic premise is that, regardless of whether a leader is democratically elected or assumes power through violent overthrow of the previous regime, the leader's raison d'être is to stay in power -- whatever it takes. The author proceeds through many chapters to give excellent examples of historical and more recent dictators and other world leaders and how they accomplished their main goals. Interesting but skimmable.

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May 31, 2015 한 카트 rated it really liked it

By all means, this book just made me more cynical and hopeless about politics. Great read and all their arguments are pretty solid. Autocracies vs Democracies. Small coalitions vs big coalitions. How each handle their people, do they stay educated and healthy but unthreatening to power or the opposite.
The only thing that bothered me is the lenght of the book, I found it too long and very repetitive since the author had made most of his points in the first 100 pages, there was no need to keep go ...more

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Jan 27, 2019 Mehrsa rated it it was amazing

This is a super interesting book about the political economy of power. It's sort of like the smarter version of Robert Green's books. It dissects the incentives of those in power who want to keep control of their coalition. The most striking and interesting aspect of the book is that they apply these concepts to democracy as well. Because of course democracy is about power--it's just a larger coalition of voters. There are some good insights at the end as well about how to spread power out thoug ...more

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Feb 06, 2017 Sean rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: politics, non-fiction

If at times a bit too reductionist, this is a generally coherent breakdown of political behavior into its most basic components. The authors posit that all politicians, whether authoritarian or democratic, are motivated by the desire to stay in power. While successful politicians will behave very differently in different contexts, this desire holds true no matter the time or place. Seems pretty straightforward, no? To stay on top, politicians must juggle the needs of three groups of people: the If at times a bit too reductionist, this is a generally coherent breakdown of political behavior into its most basic components. The authors posit that all politicians, whether authoritarian or democratic, are motivated by the desire to stay in power. While successful politicians will behave very differently in different contexts, this desire holds true no matter the time or place. Seems pretty straightforward, no? To stay on top, politicians must juggle the needs of three groups of people: the interchangeables, the influentials, and the essentials. The essentials are the must-have backers of the person in power. The influentials are vying for a spot in the essential crowd and they have some degree of influence over the selection of the leader. The interchangeables may or may not have any nominal say in the selection of the leader, but realistically have very little say over who leads their polity -- most of the time.

The authors go on to argue that the size of the winning coalition -- that is, the number of essentials -- has a decisive impact on the kinds of behavior leaders need to follow in order to stay in power. A good rule of thumb is that large winning coalition tend toward democratic forms of governance, whereas smaller winning coalitions tend toward oppressive forms of governance. Why? Because with fewer people who need to be rewarded for their support, you can choose to follow unpopular policies. In fact, you can choose to act against the interest of millions if that feeds your pocketbook.

There's more to it than that, but the book is brain candy and since I highly recommend it, I'll leave it to you to suss out the specifics. Here are some fun tidbits to tide you over:

* The resource curse. If politicians have access to natural resource wealth, look out. They're not beholden to the masses, and they'll act like it. Oil, minerals, gems... it doesn't lead to a happy ending.

* Debt forgiveness. The motivation for debt forgiveness may be good, but the results are usually bad. Why? Autocrats need funds to pay off their essential supporters. Nothing else matters. If they can't pay off their supporters, they generally need to liberalize their state in order to stimulate growth. Or they hold on for dear life and the state collapses. In either event, that lack of cash works out better for the masses than a dictator with access to international debt relief. Counterintuitive perhaps, but the world can be ugly.

* Democracies work by forcing politicians to answer to larger groups of key supporters. The larger the group of key supporters, the less well that direct payments work, and the more the politicians are forced to reward their supporters with public goods, like infrastructure, free speech, education, etc.

* Infrastructure. Autocracies don't like road, rail, air, and telecommunications networks because they allow the masses to move about and talk with one another. A good rule of thumb is that dictators build the smallest, least efficient transportation and communication networks necessary to move their goods to market. This isn't because they're dumb or incapable; it's actually a clever survival strategy.

* Corruption. In many corrupt countries, this isn't a bug, it's a feature. For example, a corrupt police force. Why are many police officials in oppressive countries corrupt? They're not paid well. That saves the government money, money that's spent rewarding essential backers. The police, left to shift for themselves, turn to the masses to make their salary. They're often given signals, some subtle and some overt, that they're permitted to take the remainder of their pay in the form of bribes. It's a terrible system from the point of view of the average citizen, but since the leader isn't beholden to the average citizen, it doesn't matter.

* Krushchev accidentally triggered a culling of Soviet cattle herds by committing to best the West in meat and milk production. Not understanding what he'd asked of his agricultural sector, he inadvertently put tremendous pressure on them to meet quotas. As a result, myriad animals were slaughtered before their time to meet expectations, and some meat was even purchased from stores, repackaged, and presented as fresh from the farm. Supplies eventually collapsed and prices went up. This led in no small part to his eventual ouster in the form of a soft coup. What does this have to do with the thesis of the book? I can't remember, but I thought it was funny.

Highly recommended. Knocked off a point for repetitiveness, but don't let that put you off. ...more

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Jan 12, 2017 Keith Swenson rated it really liked it

Very interesting, well written book, that puts forth a clear thesis that makes a lot of sense.

I really liked the way that this book considers "the complete system" around governing. Too often leaders are either vilified or celebrated when the credit clearly lies partially with the system they find themselves in. The entire system is quite a bit more complex, and the qualities of the leader play off the qualities of the rest of the system. Nobody works in isolation, we should not analyze in isol Very interesting, well written book, that puts forth a clear thesis that makes a lot of sense.

I really liked the way that this book considers "the complete system" around governing. Too often leaders are either vilified or celebrated when the credit clearly lies partially with the system they find themselves in. The entire system is quite a bit more complex, and the qualities of the leader play off the qualities of the rest of the system. Nobody works in isolation, we should not analyze in isolation.

The theme is that size of the group that selects the leader determines how corrupt that leader could potentially be. There are three degrees to consider (interchangeables, influentials, and essentials). Interchangeables are the people who nominally choose a leader, and in a democracy this would be all the eligible voters. Influentials are then the ones that actively participate in the choosing, either for or against the leader. And the essentials for the winning coalition who actually caused the leader to be chosen. A despotic ruler wants all of these to be as small as possible. The essentials must be paid off for their support. The disenfranchised public at large, those outside of the essentials, gain little or nothing from this leader, and can do nothing about it.

Using this lens many different cases of state corruption are analyzed, and it is fascinating. Identifying these three factions will tell you what a leader can get away with. More than that: It tells you how the leader must operate to remain in power. The most successful strategy in a regime where the essentials -- the winning coalition -- is small is one where lots of money is siphoned off and redistributed to the coalition. A leader who fails to do this probably does not remain long in power.

The surprising overall conclusion of the book is that in order to eliminate corruption, you just need to shift the system to one where these factions are as large as possible. A democracy does this, and that explains why open democracies are relatively free of corruption. Of course, a crafty leader will do everything possible to work against this, and limit the size of the winning coalition that is needed. There are plenty of examples of despots who achieved this end.

One thing that left me a tad uncomfortable is that while there are plenty of examples that fit the pattern, they seem a bit to anecdotal. I am not an expert in the field, so I have no idea, but the book did not give me the impression that a large, impartial research was done across all factors. The theory has been worked on for 20 years, so clearly a lot has been studied and the theory stood the test of time. But the examples seem to always fit too well, as if cherry picked. What I mean to say is that while it is clear that a despotic dictator has a smaller coalition to satisfy, it is not clear how easy it would be to determine precisely who is in or out of the winning coalition, without first judging whether they are corrupt or not. If corrupt, it makes sense that their coalition must be small, but how would you really know?

It is not clear to me how the role of the media -- particularly fake news -- plays into this idea. If you have a large group of selectors, but they are misinformed by a smaller propaganda group, how big is the selectorate in reality?

It is also not clear how the counterfactual speculations would work out. If Iran was a real democracy, would it be less corrupt? Is it possible that some regions are not democracies because there is some other systemic problem requiring corruption, and making democracy impossible? Or, if Singapore was a democracy would it be better or worse?

All that aside, the thesis is interesting and it certainly gives a particular way to view ruling organizations. It gives us a clear rationale to promote democracy, as well as confidence that democracy -- as bad as it is -- might still be the best option for the entire world. ...more

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Mar 20, 2017 Peter rated it liked it

This was definitely an eye-opening book for me. I've never been a big fan of discussing politics, mostly due to the complexity of the topic and the fact that most people have strong opinions on it without having enough actual knowledge. While I still doubt I know enough about politics to make any convincing arguments, this book has made it quite clear on what the primary motivations for politicians are and how they tend to go about ruling based on those motivations. As cliched as it may sound, m This was definitely an eye-opening book for me. I've never been a big fan of discussing politics, mostly due to the complexity of the topic and the fact that most people have strong opinions on it without having enough actual knowledge. While I still doubt I know enough about politics to make any convincing arguments, this book has made it quite clear on what the primary motivations for politicians are and how they tend to go about ruling based on those motivations. As cliched as it may sound, most people, especially politicians, tend to want money and power. Once you quite safely assume that premise, you can more easily make sense of the dodgy stuff politicians get up to.

The writing was good, but having listened to it, I think it's the kind of book that's better to read, rather than listen. It often felt like a fact-dump, which for someone who didn't have much prior knowledge on a lot of the examples and ideas, made it feel a bit overwhelming at times. If I had been able to reread some parts in my own time, I think it would have probably made it more enjoyable for me.

There were a lot of examples used to explain the concepts and ideas, which I usually appreciate, but a lot of the concepts were very similar which made thing start to feel quite repetitive after a while. There also seemed to be quite a disproportionate amount of time dedicated to autocracies at the expense of democratic governments. This made the title very apt, but also made it harder to relate to since a lot of the information was very specific and unlikely that I'd ever be able to apply it outside of the context of hearing about some dictator in another country.

One of the main things I enjoyed about the book were the candidness of the authors about how the political world works and how unsavoury some of the solutions might be. I couldn't find any flaws in their logic and pretty much agreed with everything they said. That might be due to my lack of knowledge in the field, but a lot of the arguments either made logical sense or applied very well to examples that I knew of. While one can definitely apply some of the knowledge gained from this book to the business world, in general, the only thing you'll be able to do with this information is better understand the political world. If that's something you find interesting, then I'd definitely recommend this. I personally think more people would benefit from learning the lessons that are in this book, but I'd be hard pressed to recommend it to most from a purely reading-pleasure perspective. ...more

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May 19, 2018 Max Nova rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: government, politics, 2018-focus

Full review and highlights at https://books.max-nova.com/dictators-handbook

I expected "The Dictator's Handbook" to belong to the genre of "bathroom readers" along with the likes of "The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook" and "The Dangerous Book for Boys." I was expecting colorful portraits of dastardly dictators and their evil escapades (like Robert Greene's "48 Laws of Power"). Instead, I found a very serious scholarly work written by fellows of Stanford's Hoover Institution. The authors are the founders of a branch of politi ...more

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Jan 20, 2019 Ciro rated it liked it

Different take on coalition politics and how power is truly maintained. Excellent examples in world history of how coalitions are the main driving forces behind any political decision. However, the author ended up advocating for open borders and mass immigration in the final chapter thus spoiling what was prior to that, a decent read.

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Dec 31, 2016 Alper Çuğun rated it it was amazing

This is a great book with loads of insights about how the world actually works and why that is the case. Talk about good intentions and this ideology or that in international relations may look like it has influence, at the end of the day the pure lenses of self-interest and self-preservation prevail.

I found understanding those base principles and their implications for policy and change to be useful additions to a toolkit of understanding how the world works. In short the larger the ...more

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Feb 16, 2018 Addi rated it did not like it

You know that guy at a party, slightly tipsy but very self confident and affable, who's made a good turn as an entrepreneur, and has ideas about how the world works, how politics works? Who's cynical but is also kinda like, well this how the game is played, so yolo?

I think the 'voice' of this book is that guy's voice. It is all very cynical and VERY partial reading of history, often inaccurate, often missing important details about how movements, and people and events took place, to ...more

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Jul 20, 2018 Azita Rassi rated it liked it

Interesting, but perhaps more so for an American reader. I found it all too familiar and lived through.

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Jan 17, 2017 Abdulla Alemadi rated it really liked it

such an eye-opener! The book completely changed my perspective on politics. besides, it's a well written and enjoyable read. Recommended for anyone who wants to know how politics really work.

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Jul 11, 2014 Juneight rated it really liked it

Shelves: ss-ps-regimes

Just finished reading the book and I found it very interesting.

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Dec 27, 2016 Son Tung rated it really liked it

A seriously interesting read. I feel like bits and pieces of common sense about political survival are now summoned into oneness. The book does not boggle down with dry, philosophical ideology but provides a nicely constructed theory with well-articulated explanation and real world examples.
I have to say that writing a review gave me micro headaches since I have to summarize my own learning from this central idea of Selectorate Theory.

The Selectorate Theory tell us that leaders can be affected ...more

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Mar 20, 2012 Augustine rated it it was amazing

Despite the name of book itself, one should not think of it as a Machiavellian manual printed in 2011 with all the latest in horrible political trickery. This book is more about the theoretical wielding of power from the point of view of the ruling elite. As it takes a very big picture and very abstracted approach to things if you wanted a contemporary “Prince”, you’re probably better off absorbing the lessons of the likes of Frank Luntz I think, or perhaps every corporate management doctrine pr
Despite the name of book itself, one should not think of it as a Machiavellian manual printed in 2011 with all the latest in horrible political trickery. This book is more about the theoretical wielding of power from the point of view of the ruling elite. As it takes a very big picture and very abstracted approach to things if you wanted a contemporary “Prince”, you’re probably better off absorbing the lessons of the likes of Frank Luntz I think, or perhaps every corporate management doctrine printed for the last 30 years.

Now there are a few bits of the book that may turn off readers right off the bat. I’ll try to go over them and state why I, personally, was able overcome some of my intellectual prejudices. Bruce is a Games Theorist. I am not sure where Mr. Smith’s methodology lies, but I know that Mr. Bueno de Mesquita is a games theorist. I truly believe his computer model for world politics is able to prognosticate the world’s events decades ahead into the future provided he has the data. This made me a little reluctant initially, in all honesty. You see, I’ve never liked games theory in dealing with ethical, political, social, etc. questions. Not because of perceived weaknesses in the approach, but rather because as a book I am reading for fun, reading a bunch of statistical data correlating with the probability of outcomes did not sound very interesting. Fortunately, the authors do a reasonably good job writing a compelling narrative and leaving most of the hard data to coalescence in the end notes. The data and charts that occasionally do make an appearance in the main body, I found to be really intriguing so I applaud their good sense, no doubt they are used to being published.

Second, the authors have a very cynical view of the world of politics. I do too, but theirs is even more cynical than my own. So, civic-minded idealists may find it difficult to swallow what they have to say. We agree, for instance, that war is not some special realm of human activity, it’s just another wing of politics. With this jaded view on things, the authors and their colleagues looked into academic issues like “What are the repercussions of losing a war for leaders?” and “Why has nobody looked at this before?” earlier on in their careers. I was blown away by the novelty of these questions personally and their suggestion that autocratic rulers don’t actually need to win wars. Losing wars, natural disasters and even popular uprisings can be seen as opportunities to maintain political longevity, albeit risky.

The crux of the book relies upon one key simplification. All forms of political control, whether a local municipal government, a continental ruling body or the board of directors within a corporation should be looked at through three simple dimensions: Interchangeables, influentials and essentials. How the three groups interact will vary somewhat based on the idiosyncracies of a political system but these three are sufficient. If you want to know what the hell these mean, and how they function, well you'd best read the book then.

If you are a politically minded person who is interested in seeing how utterly powerless we are, as individuals anyway, in this bitterly concentrated world, probably should give this book a good cold read. Here is what I pondered on shortly after finishing this book.

To my fellow Canadians. It is said that our current Prime Minister got his majority with roughly 35% of the vote, with voter turn out just over 60%, our current administration waltzed into a majority with 21% of eligible voters. From an opposition stand point, that is an unacceptable result that must be curtailed. From a ruler’s stand point, that means Mr. Harper only needs to cater to roughly on fifth of the constituency to maintain his hold on power. So when it seems that Imperator Harper is doing things which are clearly unpopular with the vast majority, know that this fact is irrelevant. For he only needs that 21%. The efficient political play is to keep at catering to that concentrated minority while slowly expanding the power of that group so next time he’ll have a greater buffer in his political majority. Happy politicking.

My review is essentially a slightly gutted version of what I wrote here:
http://lovstructionist.wordpress.com/... ...more

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Jul 12, 2018 Mikhail Novoselov rated it liked it

I really wish I could give this book a five-star rating, but I just can't force myself to do it.

First, I should note that the theory outlined in the starting chapters of the book is exceptional. Put shortly, it defines political regimes in terms of number of their beneficiaries and the number of people the ruler is beholden to. Despite being incredibly simple, this approach explains A LOT of features and actions of authocratic regimes that otherwise seem completely illogical and/or g I really wish I could give this book a five-star rating, but I just can't force myself to do it.

First, I should note that the theory outlined in the starting chapters of the book is exceptional. Put shortly, it defines political regimes in terms of number of their beneficiaries and the number of people the ruler is beholden to. Despite being incredibly simple, this approach explains A LOT of features and actions of authocratic regimes that otherwise seem completely illogical and/or groundless. Pinpointing political survival as the main objective of any leader is also a great and incredibly revelatory aspect of Smith's and Mesquita's theory.

Yet the evidence provided by the authors in their case-studies is, to say the least, subpar.
Of course, I can not fact check it in it's entirety - I am by no means an expert in Liberian or Ghanian affairs, for instance. But as far as the aspects I'm fairly familiar with - such as Russian or Asian history and geography - are concerned, the authors' ignorance becomes obvious, and that, of course, casts a shadow of doubt on other pieces of evidence as well. A couple of examples: the authors claim that Egypt is "resource poor", despite its being well ahead of many OPEC countries in terms of oil and gas reserves (not to mention much-valued fresh water). They also claim that Vladimir Putin is "the former head of the Soviet secret police - the KGB" (while he chaired the FSB) and that Nicholas II got ousted in February 1917 as a result of an indignant crowd storming the Winter Palace, even though he was out of the capital at the time, and the storm itself occured during the October revolution, when the czar had already been long resigned. Soon after, it is claimed that during his Taiwan reign Chiang Kai-shek "woke up to a democracy one day", which is painfully nonsensical if you know a thing or two about China (just for the record, Taiwan at his time was a full-blown dictatorship with purges, secret police and hereditary rule; democracy came only after his death).
And the list of inconsistencies in the book goes on and on.

Quality of arguments is also sometimes lacking. Consider the following: chapter nine says that "of these nations [participating in WWI] only Britain in France were democratic", yet on the very next page we read about "more democratic government of Bismarck's Prussia". In the same chapter the authors venture to compare Sun Tzu's military advice with some modern American strategies, coming to some far-reaching conclusions regarding the nature of political regimes, being completely oblivious to enormous historical and cultural differences and basically comparing apples to oranges. Unfortunately, the book (especially its second half) is ridden with such fallacies and far-fetched conclusions. Any facts that don't fit the authors' agenda are mangled until they more or less comply with the theory. Cherry-picking is also not an uncommon sight in this book.

tl;dr: Nice theory stained by far-fetched arguments, fact manipulation and general ignorance of historical facts. Reading the first half of the book is strongly recommended, though. ...more

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Dec 10, 2016 Tori rated it it was amazing

Shelves: my-kids-will-read-this, thoughtful, i-own, politics, non-fiction

This book is a fascinating look at power and the ways every form of Government uses and maintains it. It's highly enlightening and thought provoking, posing a theory that dictatorships and democracies, countries and businesses really play by the same rules, and from a logical standpoint must do so to retain power. Filled with real world examples and lots of information, it manages to remain engaging and doesn't get bogged down when delivering statistics. A must read for those interested in polit ...more

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Apr 20, 2018 Abdulrahman Kauther rated it it was amazing

Before you read this great book, read Guns, Germs, and Steel. Then, read Why Nations Fail, then come back to this one. If you read all three, and understand them, I guarantee you an understanding of the fundamental principles by which the political world works, in addition to how history was shaped the way it evolved into the contemporary world.

This book has a fantastically simple, yet compelling argument, and it does a good job explaining it. It also provides substantial supporting ...more

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About Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

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Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a political scientist, professor at New York University, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He specializes in international relations, foreign policy, and nation building. He is also one of the authors of the selectorate theory.

He has founded a company, Mesquita & Roundell, that specializes in making political and foreign-policy forecasts using a comput ...more