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.

Sure, places like Singapore and parts of China prove that it is possible to have a good material life with limited freedom—yet the vast majority of the evidence suggests that these are exceptions and not the rule.

We have learned that just about all of political life revolves around the size of the selectorate, the influentials, and the winning coalition. Expand them all, and the interchangeables no more quickly than the coalition, and everything changes for the better for the vast majority of people. They are liberated to work harder on their own behalf, to become better educated, healthier, wealthier, happier, and free. Their taxes are reduced and their opportunities in life expand dramatically.

In academic circles, our work has become known as selectorate theory. Together with two other founders of this way of thinking, Randolph Siverson and James Morrow, we published a comprehensive exposition of the theory, The Logic of Political Survival, in 2003 with MIT Press.

Selectorate theory offers a powerful, yet simple to use, model of politics. It forms the basis for the models in Punishing the Prince, for instance. That book, by Fiona McGillivray and Alastair Smith, examines how leaders sanction leaders in other states.

Our fondest hope is for the well-being and success of those who imperil their lives to keep dictators in check.