Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace

We examine formally the link between domestic political institutions and policy choices in the context of eight empirical regularities that constitute the democratic peace. We demonstrate that democratic leaders, when faced with war, are more inclined to shift extra resources into the war effort than are autocrats. This follows because the survival of political leaders with larger winning coalitions hinges on successful policy. The extra effort made by democrats provides a military advantage over autocrats. This makes democrats unattractive targets, since their institutional constraints cause them to mobilize resources for the war effort. In addition to trying harder, democrats are more selective in their choice of targets. Because defeat is more likely to lead to domestic replacement for democrats than for autocrats, democrats only initiate wars they expect to win. These two factors lead to the interaction between polities that is often referred to as the democratic peace.

War and the Survival of Political Leaders: A Comparative Study of Regime Types and Political Accountability

We seek to answer the question, What effect does international war participation have on the ability of political leaders to survive in office? We develop a model of political reliability and derive seven related hypotheses from it that anticipate variation in the time a national political leader will survive in office after the onset of a war. Drawing upon a broadly based data set on state involvement in international war between 1816 and 1975, our expectations are tested through censored Weibull regression. Four of the hypotheses are tested, and all are supported by the analysis. We find that those leaders who engage their nation in war subject themselves to a domestic political hazard that threatens the very essence of the office-holding homo politicus, the retention of political power. The hazard is mitigated by longstanding experience for authoritarian elites, an effect that is muted for democratic leaders, while the hazard is militated by defeat and high costs from war for all types of leaders. Additionally, we find that authoritarian leaders are inclined to war longer after they come to power than democratic leaders. Further, democratic leaders select wars with a lower risk of defeat than do their authoritarian counterparts.

War and the Fate of Regimes: A Comparative Analysis.

Governments are likely to be held accountable for the success or failure of their foreign policies. Consequently, we claim that international wars can, under specified conditions, have domestically instigated consequences for violent regime change in the political systems of the participants. Drawing upon all international war participation between 1816 and 1975, we seek to answer the question, Do wars lead to violent changes of regime and if so, under what conditions? Three hypotheses set out the expected associations of a nations initiator or target role in a war, the war outcome, and the costs of the war with domestically instigated violent changes of regime. Direct relationships are found for all three and hold even against possible threats to their validity and robustness. The results suggest that domestic politics play a larger role in national security policy than is generally believed by realist or neorealist theorists.

Foreign Aid and Policy Concessions

We model foreign-aid-for-policy deals, assuming that leaders want to maximize their time in office. Their actions are shaped by two political institutions, their selectorate and winning coalition. Leaders who depend on a large coalition, a relatively small selectorate, and who extract valuable policy concessions from prospective recipients are likely to give aid. Prospective recipients are likely to get aid if they have few resources, depend on a small coalition and a large selectorate, and the policy concession sought by the donor is not too politically costly. The amount of aid received, if any, increases as the recipient leaders coalition increases, the selectorate decreases, the issues salience increases, and the domestic resources increase. The theory explains why many Third World people hate the United States and want to live there. Empirical tests using the U.S. Agency for International Development data for the post—World War II years support the models predictions.

A Political Economy of Aid

We model how the size of a leaders support coalition and government revenues affect trades between policy concessions and aid. We find that aid benefits donor and recipient leaders, while harming the recipients, but not the donors, citizenry. The willingness to grant policy concessions for aid depends on how easily leaders can reimburse supporters for their concession. As coalition size increases, incumbents rely more on public goods to reward supporters, making it difficult to compensate for policy concessions. Small-coalition leaders rely more on private goods to retain office, making it easier for them to grant policy concessions for aid. Empirical tests of bilateral aid transfers by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations between 1960 and 2001 support the predictions that (1) aid is given by wealthy, large-coalition systems; (2) relatively poor, small-coalition systems are most likely to get aid; but, (3) conditional on receiving aid, the amount increases as the recipients coalition size, wealth, and policy salience increase. Evidence suggests that OECD members have little humanitarian motivation for aid giving.

Choosing Sides in Wars

We present a rational-choice theory of how decision makers choose sides, or neutrality, in ongoing wars. The theory focuses on each nations expected utility from the wars possible outcomes, and on each nations utility for its available strategies. Once the decision-making calculus is specified, the theory is tested against more than two thousand national decisions to remain neutral or to join an ongoing war on one side or the other. The theory proves to have considerable explanatory power, with the results of the data analysis indicating that the basic decision-making calculus used to choose sides in wars has not changed substantially during the past century and a half, although there have been some adjustments upwards and downwards in the relative importance of particular elements in the calculus.

Measuring Systemic Polarity

Indicators of the tightness and discreteness of poles in the international system, as well as of the distribution of capabilities and interaction opportunities among poles, are developed. With alliance bonds as the focus, scores for each indicator are presented for each year of the past century and a half, and several prevalent theories linking polarity to war are tested. The amount of major power war begun during five-year periods is found to be unrelated to the tightness of the poles, although increases in tightness are substantially associated with large amounts of war. Bipolar systems are found to experience less war than multipolar systems, with increases in the number of clusters being especially strongly associated with the amount of major power war during subsequent five-year periods. Neither changes in the discreteness nor the distribution of capabilities among the poles has any appreciable effect on the amount of major power war.Indicators of the tightness and discreteness of poles in the international system, as well as of the distribution of capabilities and interaction opportunities among poles, are developed. With alliance bonds as the focus, scores for each indicator are presented for each year of the past century and a half, and several prevalent theories linking polarity to war are tested. The amount of major power war begun during five-year periods is found to be unrelated to the tightness of the poles, although increases in tightness are substantially associated with large amounts of war. Bipolar systems are found to experience less war than multipolar systems, with increases in the number of clusters being especially strongly associated with the amount of major power war during subsequent five-year periods. Neither changes in the discreteness nor the distribution of capabilities among the poles has any appreciable effect on the amount of major power war.

Political Survival and Endogenous Institutional Change

Incumbent political leaders risk deposition by challengers within the existing political rules and by revolutionary threats. Building on Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, Siverson, and Morrows selectorate theory, the model here examines the policy responses of office-seeking leaders to revolutionary threats. Whether leaders suppress public goods such as freedom of assembly and freedom of information to hinder the organizational ability of potential revolutionaries or appease potential revolutionaries by increasing the provision of public goods depends, in part, on the sources of government revenues. Empirical tests show that governments with access to revenue sources that require few labor inputs by the citizens, such as natural resource rents or foreign aid, reduce the provision of public goods and increase the odds of increased authoritarianism in the face of revolutionary pressures. In contrast, without these sources of unearned revenues, governments respond to revolutionary pressures by increasing the provision of public goods and democratizing.

Political Institutions, Policy Choice and the Survival of Leaders

Institutional arrangements influence the type of policies that leaders pursue. We examine two institutional variables: size of the selectorate (S) – the set of people who have an institutional say in choosing leaders – and the size of the winning coalition (W) – the minimal set of people whose support the incumbent needs in order to remain in power. The larger the winning coalition, the greater the emphasis leaders place on effective public policy. When W is small, leaders focus on providing private goods to their small group of supporters at the expense of the provision of public goods. The size of the selectorate influences how hard leaders work on behalf of their supporters. The greater the size of the selectorate, the more current supporters fear exclusion from future coalitions. This induces a norm of loyalty that enables leaders to reduce their effort and still survive. As a first step towards a theory of endogenous selection of institutions, we characterize the institutional preferences of the different segments of society based on the consequences of these institutions for individual welfare. We conclude by examining the implication of the model for the tenure of leaders, public policy, economic growth, corruption, taxation and ethnic politics.

The War Trap Revisited: A Revised Expected Utility Model

The expected utility framework developed in The War Trap is revised to correct several deficiencies. Risk-taking orientations are now treated as an integral part of the model by introducing concavity or convexity into the utility functions. The zero-sum properties of the theory are largely eliminated, and the tendency toward interpersonal comparisons of utility is removed. Several earlier results are replicated with the new model, and with annual capabilities data. New propositions are deduced that identify important limitations on conflict initiation, and relationships resulting from differences in perceptions are tested. Support is found for the contention that the revised version of the theory, of which the original model is a special case, is a powerful tool for integrating many extant hypotheses about conflict and for explaining a substantial portion of the tendency for some threats to escalate to violence or warfare and for others to be resolved peacefully.