The Logic of Political Survival

Last updated
The Logic of Political Survival
The cover of the 2004 book The Logic of Political Survival.jpg
First edition cover
AuthorBruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, James D. Morrow
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenrePolitical Science
Published2003
PublisherMIT Press
ISBN 9780262025461

The Logic of Political Survival is a 2003 non-fiction book co-written by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow, published by MIT Press. It formally introduces and develops the selectorate theory of politics.

Contents

Paul Warwick of Simon Fraser University wrote that the book is "an extraordinary attempt to answer some very big questions" and "much more than its title suggests" due to its incorporation of other elements related to war, economics, and nation-building. [1] Harvey Starr of the University of South Carolina wrote that due to the copious amounts of material analyzed and presented regarding comparative politics and international relations, it is "Not a quick or easy read". [2] Stephen Knack of the World Bank described it as an "ambitious work", with the concepts of the selectorate and "winning coalition" being the work's "novel contribution". [3]

Background

Each author is in the political science profession, and all have collaborated on several academic papers that introduced the main findings of the book, especially in the years prior to its publication. [3] Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a political scientist at New York University who is known for his research into conflict theory, his work on political science forecasting models, his consultant work with such forecasting models, and his publications on medieval European history, especially the history of the Catholic Church and Protestant Europe's institutional impact upon the development of the nation state. Alastair Smith is a political scientist at New York University who has written about the effect of institutional incentives on leadership activity, especially in the United Kingdom, and has coauthored a number of articles since the book's publication with Bueno de Mesquita that elaborate on the selectorate theory. Randolph M. Siverson is a political scientist at U.C. Davis, who primarily researches conflict and political institutions. James D. Morrow is a political scientist at the University of Michigan, who primarily studies noncooperative game theory.

Contents

The text is known as the principal document describing the selectorate theory, the first iterations of which were introduced by the book's principal authors in a number of academic papers they collaborated on together in the years leading up to the book's publication. [4] The book proceeds in three parts. Each part is divided into a number of chapters and contains an appendix that elaborates upon the findings of the text. The book describes the means by which incumbent leaders stave off threats to their rule from potential challengers and the effects of incumbents' strategies upon domestic economies and civil liberties. Bueno de Mesquita has described the book's proofs as primarily composed of "calculus." [5]

Part One

Part one introduces the main instrumental variables of the selectorate theory. The selectorate theory posits that each society's nominal population can be decomposed into political institutions that are subpopulations, namely a winning coalition, a selectorate, and the total population, each of which is a subset of the latter. The authors introduce mechanisms by which a leader ascends to power or falls out of power as a consequence of both her performance and her constraints derived from by the institutions previously described. The chapters in this part further detail the effect of institutions on the performance of a country's macroeconomy and, subsequently, the effect of the nation's economy on the international macroeconomy. The authors also contend that the poorest autocracies and the richest democracies are the most stable forms of government. For poor autocracies, the logic is that the vanishingly small odds of being in a challenger's winning coalition encourages members of the winning coalition to remain highly loyal to incumbents. In this institutional arrangement, bribery and kleptocracy flourish while the general economy collapses. For rich democracies, members of the winning coalition have a very high chance of being in a challenger's coalition and discourage loyalty to poorly-performing incumbents. In this institutional arrangement, the health of the economy rapidly improves. Furthermore, the wealth of the economy in rich democracies is abundant in proportion to the total resources of the government, thus eliminating the incentive of either societal elites or the poor to prefer autocracy to democracy.

Part Two

Part two elaborates on the economic implications of the selectorate theory while also elaborating on the effect of domestic institutions on the likelihood of conflict. Regarding conflict, the authors introduce logic describing the attractiveness of war as derivative of the institutional constraints placed on leaders. All leaders are incentivized to reward their backers and may take whatever means needed to retain the loyalty of their necessary backers. The authors describe autocrat's tendency to begin wars that are largely driven by a desire for riches and extractable wealth, while democrats tend to fight wars for policy. The authors also reason that democracies are less likely to fight one another when the two are more equal in capabilities, but find that rich democracies are likely to fight very poor democracies and autocracies. The authors notably find evidence that contradicts the conventional belief that democratic leaders are inherently more pacifistic. The author's findings on the democratic peace are largely derived from their findings in a paper they published three years prior to the publication of their book. [6]

Part Three

Part three describes the effect of a leader's effect on the institutions in her nation. The authors introduce several hypotheses on the effect of leadership activities on population migration, disenfranchisement, purges and coup d'états, as well as detail the means by which regimes can transition from autocracy to democracy. The authors introduce through a number of examples the various ways by which leaders can be deposed. The book concludes with arguments on how peace and prosperity might best be secured given the constraints imposed in the selectorate theory.

The authors additionally discuss Hume's Discourses from Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary and Leviathan and decide that the philosophy in Discourses results in better governance. [7]

Reception

Dale S. Mineshima of the University of Limerick concluded that the book is "well-written", [8] and "poses some interesting points to be further developed". [9] In regards to the latter, due to the potential further research questions posed, Mineshima described it as a "work still in progress". [8] He stated that the usage of mathematical models may intimidate people not with a background in that topic, [9] and that references to other chapters may reducing "clarity" while also "providing continuity"; he argued the latter was therefore "both a strength and a weakness". [10]

Starr stated that the book is "a worthwhile enterprise indeed." [11]

Warwick wrote that " scholars and leaders alike would do well to consider" the "agenda" in the book's last chapter. [12] Warwick stated that some of the experimentation in the book "seems quite perverse" although "it is only to be expected that occasionally fails to convince" due to the "massiveness" of how the book analyzes its information. [12]

Knack wrote that "Cross-country regressions can be informative when carefully designed and interpreted. Given the comparative advantages of the authors, however, this book would have benefited from more Sparta and less statistics." [13]

Choice Reviews concluded that the work is "Pathbreaking and required reading." [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Government</span> System or group of people governing an organized community, often a state

A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.

William Harrison Riker was an American political scientist who is prominent for applying game theory and mathematics to political science. He helped to establish University of Rochester as a center of behavioral revolution in political science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autocracy</span> Form of government

Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control.

Neorealism or structural realism is a theory of international relations that emphasizes the role of power politics in international relations, sees competition and conflict as enduring features and sees limited potential for cooperation. The anarchic state of the international system means that states cannot be certain of other states' intentions and their security, thus prompting them to engage in power politics.

Accountability, in terms of ethics and governance, is equated with answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the public sector, nonprofit and private (corporate) and individual contexts. In leadership roles, accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies including the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democratization</span> Trend towards democratic norms in a society

Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy, a transition from an authoritarian political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a semi-authoritarian political system to a democratic political system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democratic peace theory</span> International relations theory; posits that democracies are reluctant to go to war

The democratic peace theory posits that democracies are hesitant to engage in armed conflict with other identified democracies. Among proponents of the democratic peace theory, several factors are held as motivating peace between democratic states. Variations of the democratic peace theory emphasize that liberal and republican forms of democracies are less likely to go to war with one another. Variations of the democratic peace hold its "monadic" ; "dyadic" ; and "systemic".

An illiberal democracy describes a governing system in which, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it does not constitute an open society.

Positive political theory (PPT) or explanatory political theory is the study of politics using formal methods such as social choice theory, game theory, and statistical analysis. In particular, social choice theoretic methods are often used to describe and (axiomatically) analyze the performance of rules or institutions. The outcomes of the rules or institutions described are then analyzed by game theory, where the individuals/parties/nations involved in a given interaction are modeled as rational agents playing a game, guided by self-interest. Based on this assumption, the outcome of the interactions can be predicted as an equilibrium of the game.

Abramo Fimo Kenneth Organski was Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, the founder of Power transition theory and a co-founder of Decision Insights, Inc. His pioneering work spanned several decades, and focused on specific aspects of world politics, including: political demography; political development; and grand strategy. He was the author of World Politics, The Stages of Political Development, The War Ledger, Birth, Death and Taxes, and The $36 Billion Bargain. Other publications are available in scholarly journals.

In philosophy, political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the State that seeks to describe and explain power relationships in contemporary society. The theory posits that a small minority, consisting of members of the economic elite and policy-planning networks, holds the most power—and that this power is independent of democratic elections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Bueno de Mesquita</span>

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a political scientist, professor at New York University, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.

<i>Coup détat</i> Deposition of a government

A coup d'état, also known as a coup or an overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, military, or a dictator. Many scholars consider a coup successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.

The selectorate theory is a theory of government that studies the interactive relationships between political survival strategies and economic realities. It is first detailed in The Logic of Political Survival, authored by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita of New York University (NYU), Alastair Smith of NYU, Randolph M. Siverson of UC Davis, and James D. Morrow of the University of Michigan. In subsequent years the authors, especially Bueno de Mesquita and Smith, have extended the selectorate theory in various other policy areas through subsequent academic publishings and books. The theory is applicable to all types of organizations with leadership, including private corporations and non-state actors.

James D. Morrow is the A.F.K. Organski Collegiate Professor of World Politics at the University of Michigan and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, best known for his pioneering work in noncooperative game theory and selectorate theory.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to politics and political science:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democratic intervention</span>

A democratic intervention is a military intervention by external forces with the aim of assisting democratization of the country where the intervention takes place. Examples include intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. Democratic intervention has occurred throughout the mid-twentieth century, as evidenced in Japan and Germany after World War II, where democracies were imposed by military intervention.

<i>The Dictators Handbook</i> 2011 non-fiction book by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith

The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics is a 2011 non-fiction book by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, published by the company PublicAffairs. It discusses how politicians gain and retain political power.

The territorial peace theory finds that the stability of a country's borders has a large influence on the political climate of the country. Peace and stable borders foster a democratic and tolerant climate, while territorial conflicts with neighbor countries have far-reaching consequences for both individual-level attitudes, government policies, conflict escalation, arms races, and war.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Warwick, p. 1035.
  2. ↑ Starr, p. 608.
  3. 1 2 Knack, p. 1068.
  4. ↑ Mesquita, Bruce Bueno De; Morrow, James D.; Siverson, Randolph M.; Smith, Alastair (2016-07-01). "Policy Failure and Political Survival: The Contribution of Political Institutions". Journal of Conflict Resolution. doi:10.1177/0022002799043002002. S2CID   150751749.
  5. ↑ De Mesquita, Bruce Bueno; Moretti, Lorenzo; Ray, Sabin (2013). "The Power of Predictive Models". The Brown Journal of World Affairs. 19 (2): 27–35. ISSN   1080-0786. JSTOR   24590817.
  6. ↑ de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno; Morrow, James D.; Siverson, Randolph M.; Smith, Alastair (1999). "An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace". The American Political Science Review. 93 (4): 791–807. doi:10.2307/2586113. ISSN   0003-0554. JSTOR   2586113. S2CID   54953575.
  7. 1 2 Choice reviews.
  8. 1 2 Mineshima, p. 1158.
  9. 1 2 Mineshima, p. 1159.
  10. ↑ Mineshima, p. 1158–1159.
  11. ↑ Starr, p. 609.
  12. 1 2 Warwick, p. 1036.
  13. ↑ Knack, p. 1070.

Sources

  1. Knack, Stephen (December 2005). "The logic of political survival". Journal of Economic Literature . Nashville, TN: American Economic Association. 43 (4): 1068–1070. JSTOR   4129387.
  2. Harvey, Starr (May 2005). "The Logic of Political Survival (Book Review)". The Journal of Politics . Southern Political Science Association. 67 (2): 607–609. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2508.2005.00331_7.x. ISSN   0022-3816. JSTOR   10.1111/j.1468-2508.2005.00331_7.x. S2CID   153331571.
  3. Mineshima, Dale (August 2005). "The Logic of Political Survival". The Journal of Development Studies . 41 (6): 1157–1159. ISSN   0022-0388.
  4. Warwick, Paul (December 2004). "The Logic of Political Survival". Canadian Journal of Political Science . 37 (4): 1035–1036. doi:10.1017/S0008423904310218. ISSN   0008-4239. JSTOR   25165749. S2CID   154746770.
  5. "The Logic of political survival". Choice Reviews Online. 42 (1): 42–0583. 1 September 2004. doi:10.5860/choice.42-0853. ISSN   0009-4978.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.