What you know about power is wrong.
The modern vernacular of politics and international relations, from balances of power and hegemony to partisanship and national interest, is the stuff of high school civics and nightly news punditry. What you think you know about power is wrong.
Introducing the Mesquita model (named after Bruce Mesquita) which posits : “the self-interested calculations and actions of rulers are the driving force of all politics.” There are four distinct lessons on how to rule. The first is to understand that the nature of politics is about attaining and keeping power. This is the only focus, it is not, as commonly believed, about the welfare of his constituents (unless it serves his purpose in staying in power). The second is that once obtained political survival is best kept secure by depending on as few people as possible to hold on to that power. Because of this power paradigm dictators usually have much longer reigns that their democratic counterparts who do not have the luxury of depending on small coalitions of supporters. Third, the few people you do have in your supporting coalition knows and are acutely aware that there are a great number of people who will gladly replace them in order to enjoy the benefits of such a position. This leads to the fourth rule in which the ruler is in the enviable position of having greater leeway/discretion in picking over how revenue is spent and how much and where to tax.
The Mesquita model has its parameters. Not necessarily to include various ideas and beliefs but to exclude what we have assimilated over years concerning how we think about other governments, the parameters are very narrow and in order to better understand the nature of politics we must “unlearn” that what we have been taught concerning not only our relations with leaders from other countries but our own leaders as well. Ideology, nationality, culture, adherence to liberal ideals in promoting the common good and the general welfare of the people; all of these are secondary as to what the true nature of politics which that individuals who rule are motivated by what is beneficial for them and not for others unless the two coincide. Leaders, whether tyrannical or democratic do not rule unilaterally, each must depend on a core of supporters to remain in power, the difference is only in the numbers.
Mesquita itemizes what is meant by supporters. At the very basic level there is the nominal selectorate which includes every person who has at least a minimal say in deciding who is elected, for example in the United States this includes everyone eligible to vote. None of them have an “individual” say per se in who assumes office, their power comes as part of the masses. Above the nominal selectorate is another stratum, that of the real selectorate, these are members whose votes are much more influential and belong to a much narrower subset. An example would be that of China in which members of the communist party are members of the real selectorate. Finally there is a third subset of the selectorate that is comprised of a few individuals who directly influenced or controlled policy. This is much more applicable within those regimes that are one party systems or are dictatorial. An example would be the ruling hierarchy with the Soviet Union. Before Khrushchev could seize power he needed individuals like Zhukov to help propel him and while in power needed those certain but few individuals support in remaining and maintain power. Within democratic systems these subcategories of selectorates are much larger and are defined as the number of minimal voters necessary to propel an individual to power, explained further as the minimal number of voters needed to accomplish this goal. All of these groups are defined by the authors as interchangeable, influentials, and essentials. The voters at the base level would be interchangeable, the real selectorate would be the influentials and the members of the winning coalition would be called the essentials.
Among autocratic societies a leader’s hold on power is directly proportional to the amount of benefits/rewards etc that he gives to his essential core of supporters. This is easier accomplished within autocratic regimes than in democratic ones as the number of supporters within an essential coalition is much smaller, especially in the case of a leader being established by an armed overthrow of the existing government. One of the primary ways that leaders use in supplying their core supporters with benefits is within the use of taxation. If rulers have a small coalition of supporters (almost always autocratic regimes) then the well being and comfort of the general population is sacrificed by redistributing the wealth among the small core of supporters. This in turn increases the chances of the leader staying in power as his supporters know that it is through this mode of operation that they receive their benefits. A challenger to the present incumbent may not include them in his core of essentials (in fact they run the risk of even being shot) so it also keeps them from backing a challenger unless they are convinced it is in their best interests to back the challenger. It is much more difficult for rulers within a democratic society however, their coalitions are much too large to warrant (if not impossible) rewarding each individual one.
Therefore their mode of operation is to emphasize spending on those policies that benefit the general population as a whole. The problem though is that the masses cannot be rewarded within democratic societies like those in autocratic ones because the price is too high. Dictators, monarchs, junta leaders and other military figures running a regime have a much easier task in that they are much more adapt at buying the loyalty of their supporters because their supporting coalitions are much smaller. Within both systems the incumbents must be able to offer their supporters more than their challengers can. If the pool of prospective members is large then those existing members in a supporting coalition can be “bought off” at a cheaper price, simply for the fact that there is a large pool of individuals who are waiting to replace them. If a small number of supporters are needed to rule and it can be drawn from a much larger pool of supporters then the rule does not need to spend a large portion of his revenue to buy their loyalty. But there is a medium here, if there are fewer members in the pool waiting in the wings to replace existing coalition members then more will be spent by the ruler to keep the existing coalition members loyal. This in turn is fraught with difficulties in exhausting a ruler’s revenue, for the more he has to spend in securing his coalition’s loyalty the less revenue he has.
The Mesquita Model posits a set of axioms in what makes a good ruler. First they must keep the coalition as small as possible, secondly they must expand the number of interchangeable, and thirdly they must seize control of the sources of revenue which leads to the next one: reward your essentials at all costs. In a myriad of forms they are all shared by democratic and dictator alike. While democratic leaders have a grace period before coming to power, those that seize power must reward their backers almost immediately (such as Samuel Doe’s case when he seized power in Liberia and promptly increased the salaries of army supporters. Passing power to your offspring is another way to stay in power for an extended period of time as essential supporters are less likely to stray to a challenger if he knows his benefits will continue under the same policies continued by a relative of the existing (albeit possibly dying) ruler. Examples would include the Il dynasty in North Korea and Fidel Castro. In addition it is a mistake to even attempt to improve the integrity and expertise of your government as hiring competent ministers can be a potential source of rivals. Above all Mesquita emphasizes that loyalty must be the only key ingredient if one wants to rule successfully (defined them as the ability to remain in office for an extended period of time).
Anyone who thinks leaders do what they ought to do—that is, do what is best for their nation of subjects—ought to become an academic rather than enter political life. In politics, coming to power is never about doing the right thing. It is always about doing what is expedient.
That is, the general rule of thumb for rebellion is that revolutions occur when those who preserve the current system are sufficiently dissatisfied with their rewards that they are willing to look for someone new to take care of them. On the other hand, revolts are defeated through suppression of the people—always an unpleasant task—so coalition members need to receive enough benefits from their leader that they are willing to do horribly distasteful things to ensure that the existing system is maintained. If they do not get enough goodies under the current system, then they will not stop the people from rising up against the regime.
As it turns out, one thing that is always expedient is remaining solvent. If a ruler has run out of money with which to pay his supporters, it becomes far easier for someone else to make coalition members an attractive offer. Financial crises are an opportune time to strike. The Russian Revolution is often portrayed through the prism of Marxist ideology and class warfare. The reality might be much simpler. Kerensky’s revolutionaries were able to storm the Winter Palace in February 1917 because the army did not stop them. And the army did not bother to stop them because the czar did not pay them enough. The czar could not pay them enough because he foolishly cut the income from one of his major sources of revenue, the vodka tax, at the same time that he fought World War I. Czar Nicholas confused what might seem like good public policy with bad political decision making. He had the silly idea that a sober army would prove more effective than an army that was falling-over drunk. Nicholas, it seems, thought that a ban on vodka would improve the performance of Russia’s troops in World War I. He missed the obvious downsides, however. Vodka was vastly popular with the general populace and, most assuredly, with the troops. So popular and widely consumed was vodka that its sale provided about a third of the government’s revenue. With vodka banned, his revenue diminished sharply. His expenses, in contrast, kept on rising due to the costs of the war. Soon Nicholas was no longer able to buy loyalty. As a result, his army refused to stop strikers and protesters. Alexander Kerensky formed Russia’s short-lived democratic government after toppling the czar’s regime.
But he couldn't hang on to power for long. His mistake was operating a democratic government, which necessitated a large coalition, and implementing an unpopular policy—continuing the czar’s war—thereby alienating his coalition right from the start. Lenin and the Bolsheviks made no such mistakes. The czar fell once there was no one to stop the revolution.
