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

by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

But what if their choice is to trade the power of office in exchange for the right to the money? The English monarchy once had both power and money but it faced severe pressure that could have ended, as in so many other places, with the erstwhile royal family having neither power nor money. That is what happened to the Russian and French royal families, and for that matter the Stewart branch of the English royal family, in the wake of revolution. Imagine, instead, that they had the option of keeping the crown but turning power over to a properly elected government of the people, as William and Mary and the subsequent Hanoverian dynasty did in England. As compensation for doing so, they could have been granted the right to keep the family’s wealth and even the assurance of further income from the state for a long, specified period of time (say 100 years). The transition to being fabulously wealthy figureheads of constitutional monarchies is an option the Saudi Arabian royal family, the Jordanian royal family, and the royal families of the Emirates might well contemplate as a better option than trying to crush rebellion.