The Foundations of Limited Authoritarian Government: Institutions and Power-Sharing in Dictatorships

Why do some dictatorships establish institutions that are typically associated with democracy, such as legislatures or political parties? We propose a new theoretical model of institutions and power-sharing in dictatorships. We argue that by facilitating power-sharing, political institutions promote the survival of dictatorships. However, authoritarian power-sharing through institutions is feasible only when it is backed by the crude but credible threat of a rebellion by the dictator's allies. Whereas the allies' political opportunities determine the credibility of the threat of a rebellion, institutions alleviate the commitment and monitoring problems that stem from the secrecy in authoritarian governance. We use both historical and large-N data to assess these new predictions about the relationship between political institutions, dictator tenure, and the concentration of power in dictatorships.

Third-Party Actors and the Success of Democracy: How Electoral Commissions, Courts, and Observers Shape Incentives for Electoral Manipulation and Post-Election Protests

When and how do third-party actors—most prominently electoral commissions, courts, and observers—contribute to the integrity of the electoral process? We approach these questions by studying how third-party actors shape politicians’ incentives to comply with the outcomes of elections. Third parties are most beneficial in close elections, when the threat of a post-election confrontation alone fails to ensure self-enforcing compliance with election outcomes. Our analysis highlights that third parties do not need to be impartial to be politically consequential, that it is third parties with a moderate pro-incumbent bias that will be acceptable to not only the opposition but also the incumbent, and that incumbents adopt politically consequential third-party institutions when they fear that their narrow victory might result in a costly post-election confrontation. Extensions of our model address the role of repression and urban bias, examine the differences between commissions, courts, and observers, and clarify not only the potential but also the limits to institutional solutions to the problem of electoral compliance in new and transitioning democracies

Deliver the Vote! Micromotives and Macrobehavior in Electoral Fraud

Most election fraud is not conducted centrally by incumbents but rather locally by a machinery consisting of hundreds of political operatives. How does an incumbent ensure that his local agents deliver fraud when needed and as much as is needed? We address this and related puzzles in the political organization of election fraud by studying the perverse consequences of two distinct incentive problems: the principalagent problem between an incumbent and his local agents, and the collective action problem among the agents. Using the global game methodology, we show that these incentive problems result in a herd dynamic among the agents that tends to either oversupply or undersupply fraud, rarely delivering the amount of fraud that would be optimal from the incumbent’s point of view. This equilibrium dynamic predicts overwhelming victories for incumbents that are punctuated by his rare but resounding defeats and it explains why incumbents who enjoy genuine popularity often engage in seemingly unnecessary fraud. A statistical analysis of anomalies in precinct-level results of Russian legislative and presidential elections supports our key claims