IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v54y2010i4p936-950.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leader Survival, Revolutions, and the Nature of Government Finance

Author

Listed:
  • Bruce Bueno De Mesquita
  • Alastair Smith

Abstract

Leaders face multiple threats to their political survival. In addition to surviving the threats to tenure from within the existing political systems, which is modeled using Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues' (2003) selectorate theory, leaders risk being deposed through revolutions and coups. To ameliorate the threat of revolution, leaders can either increase public goods provisions to buy off potential revolutionaries or contract the provision of those public goods, such as freedom of assembly, transparency, and free press, which enable revolutionaries to coordinate. Which response a leader chooses depends upon existing institutions and the structure of government finances. These factors also affect the likelihood and direction of institutional change. Tests of leader survival indicate that revolutionary threats increase the likelihood of deposition for nondemocratic leaders. Leaders with access to resources such as foreign aid or natural resource rents are best equipped to survive these threats and avoid the occurrence of these threats in the first place.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruce Bueno De Mesquita & Alastair Smith, 2010. "Leader Survival, Revolutions, and the Nature of Government Finance," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(4), pages 936-950, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:54:y:2010:i:4:p:936-950
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00463.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00463.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00463.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:54:y:2010:i:4:p:936-950. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.