L4. Selectorate Theory Flashcards
Four categories of problem in International Politics
- Coordination: how to achieve mutually beneficial cooperation
- Distribution: how to allocate scarce resources
- Monitoring: how to make sure agreements are upheld
- Sanctioning: how to discourage deviations to noncompliant behaviour
Principal-agent relationship
Domestic politics
add complexity
- Leaders want to stay in office
- They choose policies that allow them to do so
Principal-agent relationship
Components
- Agent: leader
- Principal: audience who supports the leader
- Crucial point: accountability relationship between the principal
- Understanding what bargains can be accepted at the international level: need to understand what bargains can be accepted by the principal
King vs. Elected President
Institutional framework shapes leaders’ actions
King
- No elections
- Relies on few people to stay in power
- No major concern on peace and prosperity
- Moral Hazard Problem: Leader doesn’t pay consequences of his corruption/ cronyism
Elected president:
- Elections
- Major concern on peace and prosperity
- Adverse selection problem: principal might select incapable agents
Risk of ouster
Except for the first few months, lower risk for dictators than in democracies, considering time in office.
Selectorate Theory
Characterizing governments, considering their location in a two-dimensional institutional space.
Selectorate Theory
Components
- Leader motivated by desire to gain and maintain office
- Selectorate (S): Subset of population (N) that plays a role in selecting the leader
- Disfranchised (N-S): Subset of population that does not participate in selecting the leader.
- Winning Coalition (W): Subset of selectorate whose support is necessary and sufficient for leader to stay in power
W
Selectorate Theory
Qualitative explanation
- L must keep W satisfied to stay in power.
- L distributes private goods to W, public goods to everyone, or both.
- Leader chooses tax rate, to generate revenue R, and affects incentives to produce.
- Challenger C offers alternative mix of goods and tax rate.
- L loses power to C if and only if:
• C is supported by a group of size W
• L loses the support of at least one member of W
Selectorate Theory
Assumptions
- L is committed to all members of W. If L retains office, any member of winning coalition who supported her remains in W.
- C is not committed as L. It is not until C takes office that the members of S learn who will work with C.
- Thus, each member of the selectorate is equally likely to end up in the challenger’s winning coalition, should the challenger take power.
• Probability of being part of next winning coalition is p(i ∈ W ) = W /S
Public & Private goods
Basics
- Leader provides x public (invests p in public goods distribution) and g private goods (invests z in private goods distribution).
R ≥ pg + Wz
Assuming the entire R is spent, z = (R − pg)/W
Public & Private goods
Timing
- Each period, the incumbent and challenger pick coalitions and offer private& public goods.
- Selectors choose Incumbent or challenger.
- If incumbent is ousted, challenger chooses its coalition members
The Loyalty Norm
Leader must “pay” coalition enough so members remain loyal instead of defecting to a challenger. She “pays” coalition members enough to beat the expected value offered by the challenger (taking into account the risk potential defectors face of being cut off from future private goods).
Challengers make the best offer they can but they cannot commit to keeping all transition supporters in their winning coalition if they come to power.
As S grows larger, or as W gets smaller, the probability of being in the next winning coalition decreases; coalition members become less willing to defect.
5 basic rules to survive and maximize Leader’s budgetary discretion
- Rule 1: Keep your coalition of essential supporters, W, as small as possible
- Rule 2: Keep the coalition’s replacement pool, S, as large as possible
- Rule 3: Control the flow of revenue: Tax as much as you can
- Rule 4: Pay W just enough to keep them loyal
- Rule 5: Don’t take W’s money to make the people’s lives better
Leader’s Survival: Small W
Incumbent has huge incumbency advantage in provision of private goods, especially if S is large:
- High risk for coalition members that they will not be part of future winning coalition
- Challenger can only offer access to future private goods probabilistically, with p=W /S
- Only way for challenger to attract support is to offer improvements in public good provision
- Leaders producing corruption survive best, as it keeps the cost of defection high
Leader’s Survival: Large W
Incumbent has very small incumbency advantage in provision of private goods:
- Low risk for coalition members that they will not be part of future winning coalition
- If incumbent were to distribute private goods, each member would get very small amount
- Providing public goods is the only way to maintain loyalty of coalition members for L
- Corruption would harm L’s tenure
Welfare: Large vs Small W
Society with large W:
- Wealthier (higher per capita income)
- Healthier (longer life, lower infant mortality)
- Freer (more press freedom, freedom of assembly, free speech, freedom of movement)
- More transparent (government reports more independently assessed information)
- Better places to live (Higher immigration, lower emigration)
Unlike leaders in large W/S systems who have to perform well to maintain the loyalty of their winning coalitions, leaders in small W/S systems have incentives to produce poor public policy.
Large vs small coalition - Implications
on failures
- Regimes with large W focus of effective policies, including foreign policies.
Policy failures often lead to ousting - Regimes with small W tolerate failed domestic and foreign policies better
Loyalty to leader depends then on private goods provision - As W /S increases (so as the polity becomes more democratic), leaders must spend more R to maintain loyalty among W (so fewer discretionary resources, and less Kleptocracy)
Large vs small coalition - Implications
Foreign policies:
- Small W: incentive to enrich via territorial conquest
- Large W: incentive to enforce policy compliance by foreign governments
Changing political arrangements
- If Leaders can change political arrangements, they want to increase S and decrease W
• to increase the loyalty norm
• cheaper to buy support from members of W
• more discretionary resources - If coalition members can change political arrangements, they want to increase W /S
• to decrease the loyalty norm
• more resources to buy support from members of W - If non-coalition members can change political arrangements, they want to increase W and W /S
• this increases chances to be part of the winning coalition
