The Dictator's Handbook

by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

  8

  The People in Revolt

  ASUCCESSFUL LEADER ALWAYS PUTS THE WANTS OF his essential supporters before the needs of the people.1 Without the support of his coalition a leader is nothing and is quickly swept away by a rival. But keeping the coalition content comes at a price when the leader’s control depends only on a few. More often than not, the coalition’s members get paid at the cost of the rest of society. Sure, a few autocrats become hall of famers who make their citizens better off. Most don’t. And those who don’t will spend their time in office running down their nation’s economy for their own and their coalition’s benefit. Eventually things get bad enough that some of the people tire of their burden. Then they too can threaten the survival of their leader.

  Although not as omnipresent as the threat posed by the risk of coalition defection, if the people take to the streets en masse then they may succeed in overwhelming the power of the state. How to prevent and deal with such revolutionary threats is therefore a crucial lesson for dictators and for would-be revolutionaries that we must now confront.

  To Protest or Not To Protest

  In autocracies the people get a raw deal. Their labor provides tax revenues that leaders lavish on essential core supporters. Leaders provide them little beyond the essential minimal health care, primary education, and food to allow them to work. And if a small-coalition leader is fortunate enough to have another source of revenue, such as natural resources or a benevolent foreign donor, then he may even be able to do away with these minimal provisions. Autocrats certainly don’t provide political freedoms. Life for people in most small-coalition regimes is nasty, solitary, poor, brutish, and short. The people, seeing the hopeless path they are on, invariably want change. They want a government that provides for them and under which they can live secure, happy, and productive lives.

  Why, having suffered long and hard, might they suddenly and often in multitudes rise up against their government? The answer resides in finding a crucial moment, a tipping point, at which life in the future under the existing government is expected to be sufficiently bad that it is worth their while to risk the undoubted costs of rebellion. They must believe that some few who have come forward first in rebellion have a decent chance of success and a decent chance of making the lives of ordinary people better.

  There is a delicate balance here. If a regime excels at convincing people that stepping out of line means incredible misery and even death, it is unlikely to experience rebellion. Yes, life under such a government is horrendous, but the risk of failure in a revolt and the costs of that failure are way too high for people to rise up. They might be killed or imprisoned, and they might lose their job or home, even their children. That is why the Hitlers, Stalins, and Kim Jong Ils of the world manage to avoid revolt. If rule is really harsh, people are effectively deterred from rising up.

  At first, a few especially bold individuals may rise up in revolt. They proclaim their intention to make their country a democracy. Every revolution and every mass movement begins with a promise of democratic reform, of a new government that will lift up the downtrodden and alleviate their suffering. That is an essential ingredient in getting the masses to take to the streets. Of course, it doesn’t always work.

  The Chinese communists, for instance, declared the formation of a Chinese Soviet Republic on November 7, 1931. They said of their newly declared state,It is the state of the suppressed workers, farmers, soldiers, and working mass. Its flag calls for the downfall of imperialism, the liquidation of landlords, the overthrow of the warlord government of the Nationalists. We shall establish a soviet government over the whole of China; we shall struggle for the interests of thousands of deprived workers, farmers, and soldiers and other suppressed masses; and to endeavor for peaceful unification of the whole of China.2

  Jomo Kenyatta, the leader of Kenya’s independence movement and its first head of state, likewise declared during a meeting of the Kenya African Union (KAU) on July 26, 1952:If we unite now, each and every one of us, and each tribe to another, we will cause the implementation in this country of that which the European calls democracy. True democracy has no colour distinction. It does not choose between black and white. We are here in this tremendous gathering under the K.A.U. flag to find which road leads us from darkness into democracy. In order to find it we Africans must first achieve the right to elect our own representatives. That is surely the first principle of democracy. We are the only race in Kenya which does not elect its own representatives in the Legislature and we are going to set about to rectify this situation.... It has never been known in history that a country prospers without equality. We despise bribery and corruption, those two words that the European repeatedly refers to. Bribery and corruption is prevalent in this country, but I am not surprised. As long as a people are held down, corruption is sure to rise and the only answer to this is a policy of equality.3

  Noble words from both Mao Zedong and Jomo Kenyatta. Neither fulfilled his promises of equality, democracy, and liberty for the average Chinese or the average Kenyan. Nor did either leader eliminate corruption and special opportunities for their party faithful. Once most revolutionaries come to power, their inclination—if they can get away with it—is to be petty dictators. After all, the democratic institutions that engender the policies the people want also make it hard for leaders to survive in office. Leaders won’t acquiesce to the people’s wants unless the people can compel them. And when can the people compel an old dictator, seemingly set in his ways, or a recently victorious revolutionary, newly ensconced in power, to look out for them instead of for himself? The answer to that question is the answer to when regimes choose the road to democracy rather than to sustained autocracy.

  Before deciding to gamble on the promises of revolutionaries, each prospective demonstrator must judge the costs and the risks of rebellion to be tolerable relative to the conditions expected without rebellion and relative to the gains expected with a successful uprising. Thus it is that middle-of-the-road dictators, like Cuba’s Fulgencio Batista, Tunisia’s Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, the Soviet Union’s Gorbachev (but not Stalin) are more likely to experience a mass uprising than their worst fellow autocrats. That is not to say that when the people rise up they are right in thinking life will be better. They are taking a calculated risk. They surely understand that revolutionary success holds the prospect of betterment, but not all revolutionary movements end in democracy and not all result in an outpouring of public goods for the people.

  Many revolutions end up simply replacing one autocracy with another. On some occasions the successor regime can actually be worse than its predecessor. This might well have been the case with Sergeant Doe’s deposition of Liberia’s True Whig government or Mao’s success against Chiang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang government in China. But the hope of the people when they participate is that they will improve their lot, either by enlarging the winning coalition through democratization or at least by becoming part of the new coalition.

  Nipping Mass Movements in the Bud

  There are two diametrically opposed ways in which a leader can respond to the threat of a revolution. He can increase democracy, making the people so much better off that they no longer want to revolt. He can also increase dictatorship, making the people even more miserable than they were before while also depriving them of a credible chance of success in rising up against their government.

  The extent of expected loyalty from the military is one critical factor that shapes the direction an incumbent takes in responding to a nascent threat. Leaders know that as isolated individuals the people are no threat to their government. That is precisely why government leaders are reluctant to let people freely assemble and organize against them. If the people find a way to take to the streets en masse, the incumbent will certainly need very loyal supporters willing to undertake the decidedly dirty work of suppressing the masses if he is to survive.

  We have met many leaders whose backers have deserted them
at just such key times. When insurgents challenged Sergeant Doe in 1990, his soldiers terrorized and stole from the people of Liberia rather than combat the threat. In 1979, the shah of Iran was deposed when his soldiers joined the supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini. Similarly, President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines lost power in 1986 because his security forces defected. Russia’s Czar Nicholas was deposed when the people stormed his Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in 1917. The army, poorly paid and facing deployment to the front in World War I, declined to stop them. Many other crucial events in modern political history, from the French Revolution to the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states, also owe their occurrence to the failure of core supporters to suppress the people at critical moments. The recent so-called colored revolutions (Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004–2005, and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan in 2005), the Jasmine revolution in Tunisia, as well as the uprisings in Egypt are also manifestations of the same phenomenon.

  In each case, coalition support evaporated at the key moment because the leader could no longer promise his or her supporters an adequate flow of rewards to justify their undertaking the dirty work required to keep the regime in place. The Russian czar, France’s Louis XVI, and the Soviet Union were all short of money with which to reward supporters. The Philippines’ Marcos and Iran’s shah were both known to be terminally ill. New leaders typically reshuffle their coalition, so key backers of the regime were uncertain whether they would be retained by the successor. Lacking assurance that they would continue to be rewarded they stood aside and allowed the people to rebel.

  Revolutionary movements may seem spontaneous but we really need to understand that they arise when enough citizens believe they have a realistic chance of success. That is why successful autocrats make rebellion truly unattractive. They step in quickly to punish harshly those who first take to the streets. This is what we saw in Iran following the June 2009 presidential election. The regime quickly stepped in, beating, arresting, and killing protesters, until the people feared continuing to take to the streets.

  A prudent dictator nips rebellion in the bud. That is why we have reiterated the claim that only people willing to engage in really nasty behavior should contemplate becoming dictators. The softhearted will find themselves ousted in the blink of an eye.

  Protest in Democracy and Autocracy

  Dissatisfaction with what a government is doing is an entirely different matter in democracies than it is in autocracies. In a democracy, protest is relatively cheap and easy. People have the freedom and, indeed, the right to assemble. They also have easy means through which to coordinate and organize. We know from earlier chapters that governments ruled by a large coalition produce lots of public goods, including a special set of such goods that fall under the general heading of freedoms. These include a free press, free speech, and freedom of assembly. These freedom goods make it much easier for large numbers of people to exchange information about how they feel about their government and to express objections to any policies they don’t like.

  These freedoms also make protest easy. But since people like these freedoms, granting them can also dissipate their desire to bring down the government. Protests are common in democracies but revolts intending to overthrow the institutions of government are not. Democrats provide the policies people want because otherwise the people will protest, and when people can freely assemble there is little a leader can do to stop them except give them what they want. Sometimes, of course, democratic leaders fail to give the people what they want. Then people are likely to take to the streets to indicate their dislike of a particular policy. That’s what generally happens when a democracy goes to war, for example. Some people favor the decision and others oppose it. Those who oppose it frequently make their displeasure known by taking to the streets, and, if there are enough of them and if they protest for a sufficiently sustained time, they can provoke a policy change. Lyndon Johnson, for instance, chose not to seek reelection in the face of deep dissatisfaction with his Vietnam War policies.

  In democracy, protest is about alerting leaders to the fact that the people are unhappy, and that, if changes in policy are not made, they’ll throw the rascals out. Yet in autocracy, protest has a deeper purpose: to bring down the very institutions of government and change the way the people are governed.

  Autocrats dislike freedoms because they make it easy for people to learn of their shared misery and to collaborate with each other to rise up against the government. Given their druthers, autocrats eliminate freedom of assembly, a free press, and free speech whenever they can, thereby insulating themselves from the threat of the people. Unfortunately for autocrats, without the public goods benefits from these freedoms, people can find it hard to work effectively because they cannot easily exchange ideas even about how to improve the workplace. And if the people don’t work effectively, then the leader cannot collect tax revenues.

  Autocrats must find the right balance. Without enough freedom the people are less productive and do little work, but give them too many freedoms and they pose a threat to the leader. The degree to which autocrats rely on taxation to fund the government limits the extent to which they can oppress the people.

  Nations awash with natural resource wealth or lavished with foreign aid rarely democratize. They are the world’s most oppressive places. Their leaders have resources to reward their essential supporters without having to empower the people. In such societies, though the people really desire change, they cannot act upon these wants. Without the ability to assemble, coordinating against the government is difficult. What is more, the people know the leader can afford to pay the coalition to oppress them. With little chance of success, the people keep their heads down. Protest is rare and answered with even greater repression.

  But what happens if the money dries up?

  Take a look back at Figure 7.1, where we graphed Egypt’s foreign aid receipts through 2010. US aid to Egypt has been dropping as Egypt’s peace with Israel has aged and matured. The drop in aid has been substantial and that means Egypt’s former president, Hosni Mubarak, found himself in a weaker and weaker position when it came to buying the loyal support of the military. The global economic slowdown had compounded the importance of aid for the Egyptian regime. With money drying up, a chance was created for a rebellion against his government. And, indeed, in early 2011, Mubarak, facing a poor economy and decreased aid receipts, also faced a mass rebellion.

  When autocrats lack abundant resources they have a more difficult time managing the people. First and foremost, leaders must pay their essential backers or they will be gone. Leaders without adequate revenues from aid, natural resources, or borrowing must obtain them by encouraging the people to work and by taxing them. Unfortunately for leaders, many of the public goods that increase productivity also improve the people’s ability to coordinate and, therefore, protest. Further, because the leader needs the tax revenues the workers provide, such protests are more likely to be met with concessions than in a resource-rich nation or one with huge cash reserves.

  The factors that lead to rebellion are relatively uncomplicated. How much a leader does to enhance the welfare of the people by providing public goods determines the desire of the people to rebel. The level of freedom determines the ease with which they can act upon these desires by taking to the streets.

  Yet, though high levels of either factor are in evidence in a host of countries around the world, protests remain rare. They require a spark.

  Shocks Raise Revolts

  Shocks that trigger protest come in many forms. On rare occasions protests happen spontaneously. But more often it requires an event to shake up the system and trigger protest. At the collapse of the Soviet Union and other communist states in Eastern Europe in 1989, contagion played a major role. Once one state fell, the people in the surrounding states realized that their state was perhaps no longer invulnerable. Free elections in Communist Poland triggered prot
ests in East Germany. When it became clear that security forces would not obey East German leader Erich Honecker’s order to break up demonstrations, the protests grew. Successful protest in Germany spawned demonstrations in Czechoslovakia, and so on. As each state fell, it provided a yet stronger signal to the peoples of the remaining communist states. The states fell like dominos. And each was suffering from a poorly performing economy, so that the East European dictators could no longer assure private advantages to their supporters. Quite the contrary, they had been reduced to a state in which many of their henchmen understood it was better to abandon the dictator than go down in a blaze of glory with their failed regimes. Much the same story repeated itself in the Middle East in 2011. As Tunisia fell, the people of Egypt realized that their leader might also be vulnerable. So contagious was the belief that rebellion could succeed that the once rock-steady Middle East quickly became fertile ground for mass movements. People in Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere tried their luck.

  A massive natural disaster, an unanticipated succession crisis, or a global economic downturn that drives the autocrat’s local economy to the brink or beyond the brink of bankruptcy can also provide a rallying cry for protesters. Other shocks can be “planned”; that is, events or occasions chosen by an autocrat who misjudges the risks involved. One common example is a rigged election.