In this paper we develop a model of patronage where the king's subjects exert a decentralized social sanction on the dissidents. We are able to show that depending on the succession rule in case of a revolution, the optimal co-optation strategy of the king differs. When the succeeding king is the strongest revolutionary the actual king adopts the weakest among the potential opponents. When any member of the clientele has a claim on the throne, however, the actual king has two distinct co-optation strategies. He either approaches his most powerful subjects, in which the size of the clientele is relatively modest, but the clients' individual price is relatively high or else he randomly co-opts subjects to contain the bargaining power of his clients. The ambiguity as to the optimal strategy rests in that in this latter scenario the size of the clientele is larger.
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Paper provided by Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University in its series CEDI Discussion Paper Series with number
08-18.
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