Living by the Sword and Dying by the Sword? Leadership Transitions in and out of Dictatorships

Abstract

What explains the post-tenure fate of dictators? How does it affect their propensity to democratize? We tackle these questions in a model, with one leader and N − 1 factions. First, the leader decides whether to democratize. Second, players decide whether to oust the leader and eliminate each other. Third, surviving players divide the spoils of office. We conclude that a leader may be eliminated because he cannot commit to refrain from using violence in the future. The greater is a leader's capacity for violence, the more likely he is to be eliminated upon his ouster. Since dictators can remain in office unless they are threatened with violence, leaders with greater capacity for violence are more likely be ousted. Expecting a shorter tenure, leading to harsher treatment, leaders with greater capacity for violence are more likely to democratize. We provide support for our theory in the post-World War II period. generous public sector wages (Gandhi and Przeworski, 2006) and affect the level or composition and public spending (Escriba-Folch, N.d.).2 This argument has a long history, see for example Finer (

Incumbency Advantage in Non-Democracies

“…(See Acemoglu, Golosov, and Tsyvinski, 2008, for a general theory of political incentives; Padró i Miquel and Yared, 2012, analyze politics of indirect control under the threat of using violence.) In Egorov and Sonin (2005) and Debs (2010), the winner of a power contest decides the fate of the loser and may execute the latter in order to prevent him from challenging his position again. In Acemoglu, Egorov, and Sonin (2008) powerful coalitions are able to eliminate political opponents until a stable coalition is formed.…”

Which Democracies Will Last? Coups, Incumbent Takeovers, and the Dynamic of Democratic Consolidation

“…The bottom and top rugs plot the distribution of GDP per capita and breakdowns, respectively.34 Cheibub 2007;Debs 2009; Lehoucq and Pe´rez-Lin˜a´n forthcoming. 35 SeeGelman and Hill (2006) andJackman (2009, chap.…”

The Fate of Former Authoritarian Elites Under Democracy

“…Other authoritarian elites such as dictators, junta members, and military heads are less likely to have portable expertise that can be repurposed under democracy or to be otherwise well positioned to return to political office, especially in the electoral arena. Military elites in particular tend to be specialists in violence by training, with connections concentrated in the military chain of command (e.g., Debs 2016). This yields the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: Former authoritarian political party heads, heads of government, designated political successors, and cabinet ministers are more likely to return to political or economic power under democracy than other former authoritarian elites. …”