Book Review: The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith
A cynical but accurate view of politics.
The Dictator’s Handbook - Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics, by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. Narrated by Johnny Heller. Tantor Media, Inc., 2015. 12 hours (approx.).
The Dictator’s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith argues for a new understanding of politics, one that views leadership through the lens of selectorate theory. While the book is wordy and repetitious, they make a compelling case with an abundance of research and anecdotes.
To begin, let’s explain selectorate theory - the crux of Bueno de Mesquita and Smith’s view.
Selectorate theory breaks down a society’s population into three subsets. The names of the subsets vary even within this book, which makes understanding difficult at times. For this review we will call them the nominal selectorate, the real selectorate and the essentials (the “winning coalition” in the image below).
The nominal selectorate has some say in the selection of a leader. In America, for example, they are all eligible voters, approximately 250 million people or 77% of the total population.
The real selectorate are a subset of the nominal who actually choose the leader. Continuing with our American example, these are the eligible voters who actually register and vote: 138 million or 42% of the total population.
The essentials are a subset of the real selectorate who tip the scales in favor of one leader or the other. These are the voters whose combined ballots win the election for a candidate. In 2016, Donald Trump received 63 million votes or about 20% of the total population.
Bueno de Mesquita and Smith argue no one person can rule alone. Even an autocrat relies on the loyalty of his advisors and military generals. Therefore, to get power and retain that power a leader must appease his group of essentials. In a dictatorship, the group of essentials is small and therefore can be bought off with the corrupt exchange of private goods. In a democracy the essentials group is large and thus providing public goods is more cost efficient. In either case, the leader’s motivation is the same: keep the essentials happy; stay in power.
An autocrat buys the support of his essentials. To do that he must have money. Bueno de Mesquita and Smith explain how autocrats generate revenue through taxation, exploitation of natural resources and funneling foreign aid into their own pockets all at the expense of their own people. Autocratic countries are often poor because all these funds go to the few essentials.
Democratic countries have their own problems. The authors give many examples but we will only use one here. Ostensibly, the United States gives aid to poor countries to lift their peoples out of poverty. In reality, the US effectively props up dictatorships while receiving benefits such as permissions to install military bases in foreign lands. This is why, write the authors, so many people despise the US even though we give their country millions in aid.
The Dictator’s Handbook is cynical. But the authors are optimistic. They write, “We have learned that just about all political life revolves around the size of the [nominal] selectorate, the [real selectorate], and the winning coalition. Expand them all and the [nominal] no more quickly than the winning coalition, and everything changes for the better for the vast majority of people.”
The authors are well informed. Their book is well researched. Perhaps too well researched. It easily could have been an essay, its point made in half the time or less. Even so, their case is solid. I suspect anyone who reads The Dictator’s Handbook will never see politics the same.
[Thanks to Adam Friended who’s Think Club video introduced me to this book. Find it here.]