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COOPERATION, COOPTATION, AND REBELLION UNDER DICTATORSHIPS
Author(s) -
GANDHI JENNIFER,
PRZEWORSKI ADAM
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
economics and politics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-0343
pISSN - 0954-1985
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0343.2006.00160.x
Subject(s) - dictatorship , economic rent , autocracy , legislature , democracy , face (sociological concept) , political economy , economics , political science , economic system , market economy , politics , law , sociology , social science
Dictatorships are not all the same: some are purely autocratic but many exhibit a full panoply of seemingly democratic institutions. To explain these differences, we develop a model in which dictators may need cooperation to generate rents and may face a threat of rebellion. Dictators have two instruments: they can make policy concessions or share rents. We conclude that when they need more cooperation dictators make more extensive policy concessions and share fewer rents. In turn, when the threat of rebellion is greater, they make larger concessions but also distribute more spoils. Assuming that policy concessions require an institutional setting of legislatures and parties, we test this prediction statistically for all dictatorships that existed between 1946 and 1996.