The Dictator's Handbook

by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

  2 Quoted in Meredith Martin, Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe (New York: PublicAffairs, 2002), 17.

  3 Robert H. Bates, Prosperity and Violence: the Political Economy of Development (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2001), 74.

  4 Gerard Padró i Miquel, “The Control of Politicians in Divided Societies: The Politics of Fear,” Review of Economic Studies 74 (2007): 1259–1274.

  5 The figure is constructed using the kg variable from the Penn World Tables, version 6.3. See http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/.

  6 These tax estimates are based, in the case of China, on the tax brackets for that country identified at www.worldwide-tax.com/china/china_tax.asp and for the United States by filling out US tax form 1040 using H&R Block’s 2010 Tax Cut program, with only the itemized deduction for our hypothetical American family of three.

  7 Implicit taxation is the value associated with an activity that is lost to its producer as a result of government policy. High inflation, for instance, implicitly taxes wealth by diminishing its value.

  8 Michael Wines, “Chinese Business Mogul Sentenced to Prison,” New York Times, Asia Pacific Section, May 18, 2010. Available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/world/asia/19china.html.

  9 William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. Folger Shakespeare Library (New York: Washington Square Press, 2009), Act 4, scene 1, 157.

  10 Anita L. Allen and Michael R. Seidl, “Cross-Cultural Commerce in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice,” American University Journal of International Law and Politics 10 (1995): 843.

  11 Calculations based upon SOI Tax Stats-Internal Revenue Service Collections, Costs, Personnel, and US Population, by Fiscal Year-IRS Data Book Table 29 for 2009.

  12 Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, “Inefficient Redistribution,” American Political Science Review 95, no. 3 (September 2001): 649–661.

  13 Quote attributed to Elizabeth Ohene, “Words, Deeds and Cocoa,” West Africa 31 (August 1982), 2104, cited in Jeffrey Herbst, The Politics of Reform in Ghana, 1982–1991 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 111.

  14 S. E. Finer, The History of Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 663–727.

  15 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “Political Survival and Endogenous Institutional Change,” Comparative Political Studies 42, no. 2 (2009): 167–197. A. H. Gelb, Windfall Gains: Blessing or Curse? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Michael Ross, “Political Economy of Resource Curse,” World Politics 51 (1999): 297–322; Jeffrey D. Sachs and Andrew M. Warner, “Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth,” Working Paper 5398, 1995.

  16 Xavier Sala-i-Martin Arvind Subramanian, “Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria,” Working Paper 9804, NBER Working Paper series (Cambridge MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2003). Available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w9804.

  17 Data taken from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators 2010. Accessed at http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators. Amounts reported in constant 2000 US dollars.

  Chapter 5: Getting and Spending

  1 See Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George W. Downs, “The Rise of Sustainable Autocracy,” Foreign Affairs 84, no. 5 (September/October 2005): 77–86. For contrary views, see Robert J. Barro, Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), and Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvares, José Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi, Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Material Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

  2 See the UN literacy data by country, at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=656.

  3 See the US News and World Reports rankings, at http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/worlds-best-universities/2010/09/21/worlds-best-universities-top-400-.html.

  4 See Kiron Skinner, Serhiy Kudelia, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, and Condoleezza Rice, The Strategy of Campaigning (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007).

  5 For a comparison of leadership by one person in both a small- and large-coalition setting see Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, “Leopold II and the Selectorate: An Account in Contrast to a Racial Explanation,” Historical Social Research [Historische Sozialforschung] 32, no. 4 (2007): 203–221.

  6 See Jorge Dominguez, Cuba: Order and Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978); Jorge Dominguez, “The Batista Regime in Cuba,” in Sultanistic Regimes, eds. H. E. Chehabi and Juan J. Linz (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 113–131.

  7 See http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html.

  8 See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html, for comparisons of per capita income based on purchasing power parity in 2009, the latest year for which the data are available.

  9 Quoted in James A. Robinson, “When Is a State Predatory?” Working Paper, University of California, Berkeley, 1999.

  10 We have measured these distances wherever we could. If you want to estimate these distances yourself just use Google maps and associated tools for measuring shortest distance.

  11 See Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow, The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

  12 A recent study that examines the protection of property rights finds that larger coalition governments are significantly more attentive to protecting property rights than are governments that rely on smaller coalitions. See Mogens K. Justesen, “Making and Breaking Property Rights: Coalitions, Veto Players, and the Institutional Foundation of Markets,” Journal of Politics, forthcoming.

  13 See David S. Brown and Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, “The Transforming Power of Democracy: Regime Type and the Distribution of Electricity,” American Political Science Review 103 (2009): 193–213; and Brian Min, “Who Gets Public Goods? Efficiency, Equity, and the Politics of Electrification,” paper presented at the 2008 Meeting of the Working Group on Wealth and Power in the Post-Industrial Age, UCLA, February 8–9, 2008.

  14 See Earthquake Management in Iran, Iranian Studies Group at MIT, January 6, 2004, available at http://www.vojoudi.com/earthquake/management/management_eq_mit_eng.htm.

  15 Edward Luce, In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India (New York: Anchor Books, 2006), 139–140.

  Chapter 6: If Corruption Empowers, Then Absolute Corruption Empowers Absolutely

  1 Henry (1387–1422) is much admired for his victory at Agincourt during the Hundred Years War. Unlike Genghis Khan, however, Henry V died young. He was only forty-five, but then he did not fall at the hand of some political foe; he died of dysentery while fighting in France.

  2 William Shakespeare, Folger Shakespeare Library: Henry V, ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine (New York: Washington Square Press, 1995), Act 3, scene 3, 97.

  3 Having lost his fortune, he hankered to return to Haiti, thinking he might once again assume power and extract wealth. He finally bit the bullet and went back to Haiti in January 2011, where he was immediately charged with corruption and other crimes. The urge for power is great—maybe even so great as to induce Baby Doc to undertake a most imprudent decision. Time will tell.

  4 See World Bank data, at http://data.worldbank.org/country for Iran and Turkey.

  5 For tax rates by income level, see http://www.taxrates.cc/html/turkey-tax-rates.html.

  6 See David Leonhardt, “Yes, 47% of Households Owe No Taxes. Look Closer,” New York Times, Business Section, April 13, 2010, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html.

  7 We amassed World Bank data on vouchers and district-by-district levels of economic productivity and poverty to see whether vouchers are given to help the needy maize growers or are given as political rewards to the smallest coalition electoral districts. In keeping with Tanzanian practices, we assessed productivity as the amount of maize produce
d on average across the long and short rainy seasons. The extent of district poverty was evaluated as the percentage of the population in each district identified by the World Bank as below the poverty line. Tanzania says the voucher program is to alleviate poverty; our rules to rule by say the voucher program is a private reward to loyal supporters in small coalition settings.

  8 All quotations about the Dymovsky affair are from Clifford J. Levy, “Videos Rouse Russian Anger Toward Police,” New York Times, July 28, 2010, p. A1.

  9 See Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa (New York: PublicAffairs Press, 2005), 556.

  10 See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/olympics-crackdown-on-sponsorship-parasites-1612771.html.

  11 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/panorama/transcripts/buyingthegames.txt.

  12 “The Greatest Sideshow on Earth,” The Economist, July 22, 2010.

  13 For background on Castellano see Selwyn Raab, Five Families (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2005); Peter Maas, Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano’s Story of Life in the Mafia (New York: Harper Torch, 1997).

  14 M. Cary and H. H. Scallard, A History of Rome: Down to the Reign of Constantine , 3rd edn. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 1976), chapters 20 and 27.

  15 See Beatriz Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 47.

  16 See Michela Wrong: In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo (London: Fourth Estate, 2000), 4.

  17 See S. E. Finer, The History of Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 724.

  18 See http://www.economist.com/node/9465434.

  19 See William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (New York : W. W. Norton & Co., 2003), 519–523.

  20 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “The Political Economy of Corporate Fraud: A Theory and Empirical Tests,” Paper presented at NYU’s Stern Business School, September 2004.

  Chapter 7: Foreign Aid

  1 Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Emperor (Boston: Harcourt, 1983), 118 and 111.

  2 See Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa (New York: PublicAffairs, 2005), chapter 19.

  3 David Rieff, “Cruel to Be Kind?” The Guardian, Friday, June 24, 2005.

  4 “Billions in US Aid Never Reached Pakistan Army,” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,559962,00.html, Sunday, October 4, 2009.

  5 See also Ebbs, “Battle to Halt Graft Scourge in Africa” New York Times, October 15, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/world/africa/10zambia.htm.

  6 “Dirt Out, Cash In: Kenya’s Anti-corruption Campaign Is Wooing Back Donors,” Economist, November 27, 2003.

  7 Jomo Kenyatta, Suffering without Bitterness: The Founding of the Kenya Nation (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1968), 215.

  8 Statement attributed to a senior US policy maker. Meredith, The Fate of Africa, 555.

  9 Ibid., 555–556.

  10 “Turkey Holds Out for Extra US Aid over Iraq,” http://articles.cnn.com/2003-02-18/world/sprj.irq.erdogan_1_turkish-bases-bases-and-ports-turkey?_s=PM:WORLD, February 18, 2003. It is worth noting that Turkey has shown robust growth over the last few years, as seen by comparing these figures with the more contemporaneous ones used in chapter 6.

  11 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “A Political Economy of Aid,” International Organization 63 (Spring 2009): 309–40; and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “Foreign Aid and Policy Concessions,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 51, no. 2 (2007): 251–284.

  12 See http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/mar07/BBC_Views-Countries_Mar07_pr.pdf.

  13 See Peter J. Schraeder, Steven W. Hook, and Bruce Taylor, “Clarifying the Foreign Aid Puzzle: A Comparison of American, Japanese, French, and Swedish Aid Flows,” World Politics 50, no. 2 (1998): 294–323.

  14 Data from USAID’s Greenbook. Reported in constant 2008 US dollars.

  15 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “The Pernicious Consequences of UN Security Council Membership,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 5 (2010): 667–686.

  16 For instance, Ilyana Kuziemko and Eric Werker, “How Much Is a Seat on the Security Council Worth? Foreign Aid and Bribery at the United Nations,” Journal of Political Economy 114, no. 5 (2006): 905–930; Axel Dreher, Jan-Egbert Sturm, and James Vreeland, “Global Horse Trading: IMF Loans for Votes in the United Nations Security Council,” European Economic Review 53, no. 7 (2009): 742–757. Axel Dreher, Jan-Egbert Sturm, and James Vreeland, “Development Aid and International Politics: Does Membership on the UN Security Council Influence World Bank Decisions?” Journal of Development Economics 88 (2009):1–18.

  17 Http://us.oneworld.net/article/how-has-egypt-spent-50-billion-us-aid.

  18 William Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002); and William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (London: Penguin Press, 2006).

  19 Craig Burnside and David Dollar, “Aid, Policies, and Growth,” American Economic Review 90, no. 4 (2000): 847–868.

  20 See Michael M. Calaban, Sergio Diaz Briquets, and Jerald O’Brien, Cambodian Corruption Assessment 2004, USAID/Cambodia, p. 13. Available at www.usaid.gov/kh/democracy_and_governance/documents/Cambodian_Corruption_Assessment.pdf.

  21 “Pakistan Flood: Only the Rich Will Be Saved: Aid Agency Protests Minority Discrimination,” at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pakistans-rich-diverted-floods-to-save-their-land-2069244.html. See also http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-30232; http://tribune.com.pk/story/37842/critical-decisions-ahead-as-barrages-continue-to-resist/; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pakistans-rich-diverted-floods-to-save-their-land-2069244.html; http://tribune.com.pk/story/37842/critical-decisions-ahead-as-barrages-continue-to-resist/; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/19/pakistan-flood-ban-ki-moon.

  22 “Pakistan Flood,” http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-30232.

  23 Http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/0812/Pakistan-floods-strand-the-poor-while-rich-go-to-higher-ground.

  24 Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa (New York: PublicAffairs, 2005), 102.

  25 See Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George W. Downs, “Intervention and Democracy,” International Organization 60, no. 3 (July 2006): 627–649.

  Chapter 8: The People in Revolt

  1 Portions of this chapter are drawn from several of our academic undertakings, including Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “Political Survival and Endogenous Institutional Change,” Comparative Political Studies 42, no. 2 (February 2009): 167–197; Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Principles of International Politics, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2009); and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow, The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

  2 Translated by Yung Wei in personal correspondence, drawn from Hong-she Zhong-gui (Red China), December 1, 1931. We are most grateful to Yung Wei for bringing this quotation to our attention.

  3 Frank D. Cornfield, The Origins and Growth of Mau Mau: An Historical Survey, Sessional Paper number 5 of 1959/60 of Kenya LegCo (Nairobi: Government of Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, 1960), 301–308.

  4 Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon, Opening Mexico. The Making of a Democracy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).

  5 Emma Larkin, Everything Is Broken: A Tale of Catastrophe in Burma (New York: Penguin Press, 2010). We draw extensively on her account of Burmese politics.

  6 Ibid., 78–79.

  7 Eyes of the Storm: Turning Points in Burmese History. PBS wide-angle documentary series, WNET.org, August 19, 2009.

  8 Alejandro Quiroz Flores and Alastair Smith, “Surviving Disasters,” Working Paper, NYU, 2010.

  9 This is true despite earthquakes being more likely to strike democracies than autocracies.

  10 Economist, July 21, 2005.

  11 Julien
Levesque, “Lords of Jade: Mismanagement of Myanmar’s Natural Resources,” Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Issue Brief No. 60 (March 2008).

  12 Francis X. Clines, “Soviet Crackdown: Latvia’s Leader Tries to Placate the Kremlin,” New York Times, January 17, 1991. Accessed at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED81030F934A25752C0A967958260.

  13 Andrejs Plakans, The Latvians: A Short History (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1995).

  14 New York Times, December 1990, at http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/20/world/gorbachev-urged-to-consider-crackdown-in-republics.html.

  15 Data from World Bank’s World Development Indicators, per capita GDP reported in constant 2000 $US.

  16 Albert Adu Boahen, The Ghanaian Sphinx: Reflections on the Contemporary History of Ghana, 1972–1987, The J. B. Danquah Memorial Lectures, Series 21, February 1988, (Accra, Ghana: Ghana Academy of Arts and Science, 1989), 51.

  17 Naomi Chazan, “The Political Transformation of Ghana under the PNDC,” in Donald Rothchild (ed.), The Political Economy of Ghana (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991), 27.

  18 Interview by Alastair Smith with Nat Nuno-Amarteifio, former Mayor of Accra, May 2008.

  19 Nicolas Van de Walle, African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979–1999 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 241–242.

  Chapter 9: War, Peace, and World Order

  1 Much of this section is based on Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M., Siverson, and James D. Morrow, The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), chapter 6; and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, James D. Morrow, Randolph M. Siverson, and Alastair Smith, “Testing Novel Implications from the Selectorate Theory of War,” World Politics 56 (April 2004): 363–388. Those interested in the logical, mathematical proofs of the claims made here should refer to these and other publications cited throughout.