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Making Autocracy Work

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Author Info
Timothy Besley
Masayuki Kudamatsu

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Abstract

One of the key goals of political economy is to understand how institutional arrangementsshape policy outcomes. This paper studies a comparatively neglected aspect of this - theforces that shape heterogeneous performance of autocracies. The paper develops a simpletheoretical model of accountability in the absence of regularized elections. Leadershipturnover is managed by a selectorate - a group of individuals on whom the leader depends tohold onto power. Good policy is institutionalized when the selectorate removes poorlyperforming leaders from office. This requires that the selectorate's hold on power is not toodependent on a specific leader being in office. The paper looks empirically at spells ofautocracy to establish cases where it has been successful according to various objectivecriteria. We use these case studies to identify the selectorate in specific instances of successfulautocracy. We also show that, consistent with the theory, leadership turnover in successfulautocracies is higher than in unsuccessful autocracies. Finally, we show by exploitingleadership deaths from natural causes that successful autocracies appear to have found waysfor selectorates to nominate successors without losing power - a feature which is alsoconsistent with the theoretical approach.

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Paper provided by Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE in its series STICERD - Development Economics Papers with number 48.

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Date of creation: May 2007
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Handle: RePEc:cep:stidep:48

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Related research
Keywords: Keywords: dictatorship; democracy;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
P16 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - Political Economy of Capitalism
P26 - Economic Systems - - Socialist Systems and Transition Economies - - - Political Economy

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2007. "The Growth Effect of Democracy: Is It Heterogeneous and How Can It Be Estimated?," CEPR Discussion Papers 6339, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Gustav Ranis, 2009. "Diversity of Communities and Economic Development: An Overview," Working Papers 977, Economic Growth Center, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
  3. Gabriel Leon, 2009. "Soldiers or Bureaucrats? Conflict and the Military’s Role in Policy-Making," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 012, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  4. Giuriato, Luisa, 2008. "Combining autocracy and majority voting: the canonical succession rules of the Latin Church," MPRA Paper 15164, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  5. Amegashie, J. Atsu, 2008. "Autocratic rule in ethnically-diverse societies," MPRA Paper 8933, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  6. Alberto Chong & Mark Gradstein, 2008. "¿A quién le hacen falta líderes autoritarios?," RES Working Papers 4564, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  7. Alberto Chong & Mark Gradstein, 2008. "Who Needs Strong Leaders?," RES Working Papers 4563, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  8. Sumon Majumdar & Sharun Mukand, 2007. "The Leader as Catalyst: On Leadership and the Mechanics of Institutional Change," Working Papers 1128, Queen's University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Daron Acemoglu & Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2009. "Political Selection and Persistence of Bad Governments," NBER Working Papers 15230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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