The Logic of Political Survival

“Such a bargain is based on the delivery of different types of goods to elites and citizens depending on how great the need for loyalty is (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003), as well as on the granting of policy concessions (Gibson and Hoffman, 2002). The size of the support coalition is said to depend on the availabilit…”

“…countries should experience less environmental migration as democratic leaders have the incentive to provide economic support, infrastructure, and social services to their citizenry for alleviating environmental hardship as a means to survive in office (e.g., Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003).”

“Democracies—free countries—have an incentive to provide public goods that buffer against pandemics and other natural disasters, given that leaders whose policies fail their constituents during times of crisis face almost certain removal come re-election time [34, 35].”

“In Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003), for instance, it is not the level of democracy per se that determines the level of spending allocated to public goods but the size of the coalition on which rulers depend for remaining in power.”

“The data on sanctions come from Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot (1990); we generated the control variables using EUGene (Bennett and Stam 2000); and the leadership data come from Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003).'0 We discuss the sanctions data below in more detail.”

“Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) perhaps speak most directly to the issue at hand: They address the challenge that leaders face in buying loyalty when their potential supporters fear that they may not be in future winning coalitions.”

“This emphasis echoes Bueno de Mesquita and Root (2000), Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003), Haber (2006), Besley and Kudamatsu (2007), and Padró i Miquel (2007), who analyze the choices of an autocrat potentially constrained by a ‘‘selectorate’’ whose capacity for collective action is assumed.”

“The fundamental reasoning is that democratic governments need to provide more benefits via public goods, including environmental ones, to a relatively large (compared to nondemocracies) part of the electorate in order to survive politically (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003; Downs, 1957).”

“Note that this argument reverses the causal connection between democracy and conflict identified by several authors (Mitchell and Prins 1999; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003). Rather than joint democracy leading to peaceful resolution of disputes, we argue that the processes generating democracy also remove the hardest…”

“Indeed, nondemocratic elites benefit greatly from the private goods networks enforced by the leader (see e.g., Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003), and outside threats to these private goods networks are likely to be resisted at all costs.”

“First, consider the process of democratization as an expansion of the selectorate, or the portion of the population that participates in choosing the political leadership (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003).”

“A growing size of these groups increases economic efficiency and also renders governments more timid towards the usage of political violence (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003). Golder (2005) additionally reports that some autocracies have become more stable following non-competitive elections.”

“Selectorate theory, developed by Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003), lends some rigor to the idea that rates of corruption differ systematically across types of authoritarian regimes.”

“39 Barry, Clay and Flynn 2013; Blanton and Blanton 2007a. 40 Blanton and Blanton 2007b. 41 Blanton and Blanton 2007b. 42 Davenport 1995; Gurr 1986; Poe, Tate and Keith 1999; see also Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003.”

“In addition, extant literature offers many explanations for why dictators tolerate corruption (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003; Shirk, 1993) but provides limited insights into the conditions under which autocrats choose to prosecute those involved.”

“In Model 2, we use the winning coalition size variable from Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) in place of our group size variable to check the 16 If more than one rebel group is listed during the civil war, we include data on the strongest of the groups.”

“…from other work that has argued that democracies tend to be more selective in their choice of conflicts and tend to fight harder in the ones they do enter, because they are more easily sanctioned for losing (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 1999, 2003; Chiozza & Goemans, 2003; Reiter & Stam, 2003, 1998).”

“This argument was fleshed out by Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2005) and Haber (2006), who identify the so-called selectorate or launching organisations as the key to a dictator’s survival.”

“These two cases are not exceptional (see, for example, Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003; Meredith, 2005).”

“Political system: polity Many authors (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; Lake and Baum 2001; McGuire and Olson 1996; Niskanen 1997) have argued that nondemocratic regimes are likely to underprovide public goods, including environmental quality. The logic is as follows. Nondemocratic regimes typically are ruled by small e…”

“…public sector, since ruling regimes typically rely on a small coalition of loyal supporters—not a plurality of voters—for political survival (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003), and public sector jobs are a particularly effective means to such purchase support (Lust-Okar 2006; Greene 2007; Magaloni…”

“7Selectorate theory does not account for political parties in autocracies (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003, 34).”

“Second, the constituency size argument, developed by Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003), argues that the size of the winning coalition relative to the size of the selectorate is a relevant variable for understanding government policy.”

“The analysis of famines by Plümper and Neumayer (2009) is closely related to the theory of political survival developed by Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) who ponder why politicians responsible for ‘‘bad’’ policies survive in office.”

“Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003.”

“Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; Haber 2007; Gandhi 2008; Wintrobe 1998.”

“Let us define political power quite simply as the capacity to influence the actions of others; that is, the capacity to produce behaviors in others that would not otherwise have been 13 Azam 1995; 2001; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; Buhaug 2006; Gandhi and Przeworski 2006.”

“If it is weak, the incumbent’s tenure is short.8 The theory also claims that the weaker is the ‘loyalty norm’ for an incumbent, the lower is the likelihood that he is eliminated upon ouster (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003, 343).”

“Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) demonstrate that the size of the winning coalition relative to the selectorate must be sufficiently large for the leader to choose to distribute goods publicly rather than privately.”

“Bueno de Mesquita, B., Smith, A., Siverson, R. M., & Morrow, J. D. (2003).”

“…UNIV LIBRARY on February 6, 2015jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from conception of democratic accountability than one based solely on voters’ use of elections to reward incumbents for triumphant wars and punish them for unsuccessful military adventures (e.g., Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; Gaubatz 1999).”

“Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; Downs 1957.”

“When the costs of voting are high, the median voter may have preferences that differ substantially from the median resident (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003). As explained above, in low-turnout environments, those who stand to benefit the most from election outcomes are likely to make up a larger share of the electorate…”

“Following many other studies ðe.g., Easterly and Levine 1997; Dollar and Svensson 2000; Broz 2002; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003Þ, we include the number of government crises as a measure of instability.”

“Instead, they can buy allegiance from the military or some other privileged group to maintain power.8 Institutions that affect the size of this winning coalition determine economic growth, war and many other important political outcomes (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003).”

“Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003.”

“Pointing to lower values of a property rights index in countries that have multiple parties in the legislature, they show that autocratic legislatures are associated with 8 Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003.”

“Under the authoritarian basis for order, the state has limited support from society and draws on a much smaller winning coalition (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003). Because of their limited constituency, they cannot credibly restrict themselves from violating the rights of a large segment of society. Lijphart (1999) off…”

“…regimes, which excluded the possibility that the leadership may take popular opinion seriously (Arendt 1951; Friedrich & Brzezinski 1965; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003), our essay joins a growing group of scholars who have provided detailed evidence that communist leaders catered to the…”

“In general, the idea that rulers who are accountable to broad constituencies in the polity have stronger incentives to perform well is appealing, and the application of this logic to democratic peace theory (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999) has been valuable.”

“See Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003, chap.”

“37 Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003. systems have access to substantial private resources, they are discouraged from using those resources to challenge the incumbent because the likelihood of successfully challenging the leader and being included in a subsequent small coalition system is small.”