The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics is a 2011 book by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith that outlines selectorate theory, borrowing various examples from history, political science and economics.
Summary
Chapter 1 - The Rules of Politics
Politics is filled with some pretty big mysteries, like:
- Why are people dying of starvation in Africa, 3,500 after the Egyptian pharoahs worked out how to store grain
- Why are natural disasters worse in places like Haiti than the USA?
- Why do democratic leaders support dictatorships whilst claiming to support freedom for all people?
- Why are failing CEOs paid so handsomely while the economy crashes?
Ultimately, these seem to come down to leaders not living up to espoused ideals. Often, these are explained by simply declaring leaders as stupid or evil, but this obscures the truth. Politics actually engineers these systems, as certain rules are necessary to gain and keep power. If you want power, you need the observe three main groups, these are:
- The nominal selectorate, also referred to as the interchangeables, includes every person who has some say in choosing the leader (for example, in an American presidential election, all registered voters).
- The real selectorate, also referred to as the influentials, are those who really choose the leaders (for example, in an American presidential election, those people who cast a vote).
- The winning coalition, also referred to as the essentials, are those whose support translates into victory (for example, in an American presidential election, those voters that get a candidate to 270 Electoral College votes). In a dictatorship, this would be the army, tax collectors and business oligarchs.
In order to gain power, you need to follow five rules:
- Keep the winning coalition as small as possible.
- Keep the real selectorate as large as possible to discipline the winning coalition.
- Keep control over as much wealth as possible.
- Keep the winning coalition as dependent on you as possible.
- Keep money in the hands of the winning coalition, and not in the hands of other groups.
In the suburb of Bell, Los Angeles, it was exposed in 2010 that there had been huge amounts of corruption in the local city government. Although the budget had been balanced and crime had been reduced. It was exposed that local council members had been claiming almost $800,000 in yearly salaries for sitting in non-existent town meetings. This was done by maintaining a property tax rate twice as high as other suburbs, and ensuring local elections only had about 400 voters out of a suburb of 36,000 people. Anyone who knew of the corruption was quickly bribed and given a huge salary.