The Logic of Political Survival

“Recent work finds that the constraints facing democratic leaders depend on the size of the winning coalition (Bueno De Mesquita et al. 1999; Bueno De Mesquita et al. 2003).”

“Increasing demands for N may also cause a leader to substitute between arms and alliances (Diehl, 1994; Morrow, 1993; Most & Siverson, 1987; Most & Starr, 1989). 16 Contracts delineate the expectations of the partners (Goldberg, 1980) similar to Lake’s (1999) concepts of relational contracting and joint production eco…”

“…to the lack of electoral accountability; instead, they may pay more attention to the views of members in the selectorate—“the set of people whose endowments include the qualities or characteristics institutionally required to choose the government’s leadership” (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003: 42).”

“the military in a way that causes budget deficits and reduces future revenue (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003); and impose financial market regulations that prevent these markets from financing enterprise creation (Rajan and Zingales 2003). We address this puzzle in the context of a specific, historically prominent inst…”

“My evaluation is partly based on the strong arguments proposed by, among others, North (1990), Olson (1993) and Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) on the incentives for dictators to grab property to their own or their supporters’ advantage, and the statistical evidence pointing to a positive effect of…”

“(1993), Downs and Rocke (1994), Hess and Orphanides (1995), Smith (1996), Bueno de Mesquita et al. (1999) and Tarar (2006).”

“This logic is adapted from Bueno de Mesquita et al.’s (2003) selectorate theory.”

“Access to rents through control of economic resources induces a strong norm of loyalty to the incumbent leader because such rents can be used as private rewards for coalition members (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003, 65– 68, 182).”

“Therefore, we expect the selectorate, defined by Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) as the fraction of society that is allowed to choose its leaders, to increasingly favor policies thattackle climate change the more inclusive the composition of the selectorate is.”

“According to Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003), the values of W, S, and the “loyalty ratio” W/S tend to vary between systems: In democracies, both W and S are large; among autocracies, single-party systems have small W, but may have relatively large S; monarchies and military regimes often have small…”

“…violation with a corresponding international treaty—the CAT—prohibiting its domestic use.9 A dictator’s primary goal is to remain in power (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003).10 Threats to dictatorial rule are frequent and can come from within the ruling elite or from opposition movements within…”

“Previous selectorate models have examined normal political transitions as well as revolutionary threats (B. Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; B. Bueno de Mesquita and Smith 2010, 2009; Smith 2008).”

“Selectorate theory of political survival (Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003)) suggests that the sizes of the winning coalition (the set of essential supporters without whose support a leader would lose power) and the selectorate (the set of people from which the winning coalition is formed) determine…”

“Political institutions, in turn, condition the nature of this coalition (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003).”

“A large body of evidence establishes that leaders prioritize their tenure in office (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2005; Russett and Oneal 2001).”

“Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003.”

“Notice here that I refrain from using the size of a country’s winning coalition for the interaction term because the Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) measure is extremely noisy.”

“…context of structural constraints and the characteristics of leaders has been recognised (e.g. Giddens 1984; Dessler 1989; Carlsnaes 1992; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; Chiozza and Goemans 2011), research is still largely silent on the question of how structural constraints are shaped and…”

“They tend to initiate wars that they think their armies can win quickly with minimal casualties to avoid public backlash and ensure their political survival (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; Reiter and Stam 2002).”

“According to the gambling logic, conversely, leaders are essentially agents that must demonstrate competence to their poorly informed principals, the general public or winning coalition (Bueno de Mesquita and Siverson, 1995; Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003).”

“Others claim that intermediate regimes are more conducive to predatory government than pure autocracies (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003, p. 68; Zakaria, 2003, p. 15).”

“However, despite some initial assumptions to the contrary (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003), recent work has shown that individual elites are not interchangeable (Bokobza et al. forthcoming).”

“In Bueno de Mesquita et al.’s (2003) terminology, this set of actors is the leader’s ‘winning coalition’.”

“Putnam (1988), Fearon (1994, 1998), and Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) view world politics as a two-level game where elites sit at the insticese of foreign and domestic politics.”

“In a similar approach as ours, Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003, p. 203-04) treat pervasive corruption as indicative of a distributive regime wherein leaders buy their continuation in office through the provision of private rather than public goods.(6) These two processes of political corruption – one for enrichment, th…”

“We seek to identify the central tendency of the set of 43 Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003, 87; Olson 2000, 3-6; Olson 1982.”

“…are various constraints that increase the leader’s accountability even in the absence of elections (see e.g. Acemoglu and Robinson, 2006; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; Padro-i-Miguel, 2007; Besley and Kundamatsu, 2008).8 Thus, even in non-democracies the leader will cater for the wishes of the…”

“Milner and Kubota argue that democratization changes the composition of the ‘‘selectorate’’ (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003), i.e., the set of people empowered to choose leaders. According to them, ‘‘In many autocracies, this selectorate consists of . . . those who own the most capital’’ (116). Democratization, however…”

“The challenges of domestic government produce numerous strategic incentives for states, including, but not limited to, military conquest, population control, wealth extraction, and the provision of public goods such as political order (Tilly, 1993; Olsen, 1993; Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003).”

“A second variant comes from Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2005), who assume that policy choices under all government types aim to promote the interests of elite groups.”

“Persson and Tabellini (2000), as well as Ferraz and Finan’s (2007a) model, predict that when races are close, the higher share of pivotal voters induces politicians to reduce rent extraction to guarantee reelection for a second term (also see Mesquita et al. 2003).”

“The term selectorate, coined by Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003) could represent a variety of institutional settings.”

“Democracies have larger ‘‘selectorates’’ and ‘‘winning coalitions’’ than autocracies, which makes private good provision an inefficient means for the former to remain in political power, although it may work well r 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd for the latter (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003).”

“The second perspective is taken in Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2002, 2003) who are the rst to model accountability in a framework applicable to non-democratic government.”

“With a small winning coalition, the influence of each individual is great, so the rewards must be large enough to guarantee continued loyalty (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003).”

“10See Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2005); Chandra (2004); Cox (1999); Dixit and Londregan (1996); Horowitz (1985); Lijphart (1977); Posner (2005); and Wilkinson (2004).”

“Second, there exists an uneasy consensus in the literature that in the face of per capita income growth, institutions evolve producing democracies with better public policy (see, for example, Acemoglu et al. 2008 and Bueno de Mesquita et al.”

“…we believe our model and empirical findings converge nicely with certain scholars in the democratic peace literature who have argued that institutional accountability is a strong influence on foreign policy decisionmaking (e.g., Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003; Reiter & Stam, 2002; Lipson, 2003).”

“In this manner, multilateral action through the UN can help its members stop the spread of refugees and war (Beardsley, 2011).1 However, a state must be strategic in how it distributes goods (e.g. Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003).”

“Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003.”

“10 Bueno de mesquita et al. 2003.”

“Sanctions could be more effective against democracies, as the political leaders are accountable to a larger segment of the population (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003).”

“Low growth in an autocracy may also undermine the support that the incumbent receives from some key constituency, such as the military (Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2004).”