Leader Survival, Revolutions, and the Nature of Government Finance

Abstract

Leaders face multiple threats to their political survival. In addition to surviving the threats to tenure from within the existing political systems, which is modeled using Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues ' (2003) selectorate theory, leaders risk being deposed through revolutions and coups. To ameliorate the threat of revolution, leaders can either increase public goods provisions to buy off potential revolutionaries or contract the provision of those public goods, such as freedom of assembly, transparency, and free press, which enable revolutionaries to coordinate. Which response a leader chooses depends upon existing institutions and the structure of government finances. These factors also affect the likelihood and direction of institutional change. Tests of leader survival indicate that revolutionary threats increase the likelihood of deposition for nondemocratic leaders. Leaders with access to resources such as foreign aid or natural resource rents are best equipped to survive these threats and avoid the occurrence of these threats in the first place.

Political leader survival: does competence matter?

“…We find empirical support for our hypothesis when we add proxies for economic and military competence to the empirical models as used by Bueno de Mesquita and Smith (2010). That is, we estimate a parametric Weibull duration model on a sample of more than a 1000 political leaders for the period 1875-2004.…”

“…6 See Bueno de Mesquita and Smith (2010) and Bueno de Mesquita et al (2003) for more detailed explanations of these concepts and more examples. 7 The underlying reason is that in Bueno de Mesquita et al (2003) model, the output is divided into public goods, private rents and payoffs to the incumbent.…”

“…While de jure political power corresponds to the political rights granted by law, de facto political power originates from resources. We argue that the To clarify the concepts of w and s, Bueno de Mesquita and Smith (2010) show that in a directly elected presidential system, S amounts to all adults (i.e. s ¼ 1) and that support from half of the selectorate in such a system ensures political survival (w ¼ s 2 ).…”

“…As to the empirical model, the selectorate theory predicts a decline over time in the hazard rate of political leaders and this decline is greater for leaders in small-coalition systems (Bueno de Mesquita and Smith 2010 …”

“…For example, if the candidate has spent a long time serving in the military, then he would not have had time to go to university. 10 Bueno de Mesquita and Smith (2010) assume that the leader can retain the difference between government revenue and the sum of public goods and private rents. They use this difference to measure leader survival.…”