The Dictator's Handbook
Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
Published on 12. May 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-1-5417-0136-6 (ISBN)
Description
"A lucidly written, shrewdly argued meditation on how democrats and dictators preserve political authority." -Wall Street Journal
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith's canonical book on political science turns conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single proposition: leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don't care about the "national interest"-or even their subjects-unless they must. As Bueno de Mesquita and Smith show, democracy is essentially just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind, but only in the number of essential supporters or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with and the quality of life or misery under them. And it is also the key to returning power to the people.
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith's canonical book on political science turns conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single proposition: leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don't care about the "national interest"-or even their subjects-unless they must. As Bueno de Mesquita and Smith show, democracy is essentially just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind, but only in the number of essential supporters or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with and the quality of life or misery under them. And it is also the key to returning power to the people.
Reviews / Votes
A lucidly written, shrewdly argued meditation on how democrats and dictators preserve political authority... Bueno de Mesquita and Smith are polymathic, drawing on economics, history, and political science to make their points...The reader will be hard-pressed to find a single government that doesn't largely operate according to Messrs. Bueno de Mesquita and Smith's model. So the next time a hand-wringing politician, Democrat or Republican, claims to be taking a position for the 'good of his country, 'remember to replace the word 'country' with 'career.' * Wall Street Journal * Machiavelli's The Prince has a new rival. It's The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith.... This is a fantastically thought-provoking read. I found myself not wanting to agree but actually, for the most part, being convinced that the cynical analysis is the true one. * Enlightenment Economics * ply the best book on politics written.... Every citizen should read this book. * CGP Grey, YouTuber and podcaster * In this fascinating book, Bueno de Mesquita and Smith spin out their view of governance: that all successful leaders, dictators and democrats, can best be understood as almost entirely driven by their own political survival-a view they characterize as 'cynical, but we fear accurate.' Yet as we follow the authors through their brilliant historical assessments of leaders' choices-from Caesar to Tammany Hall and the Green Bay Packers-we gradually realize that their brand of cynicism yields extremely realistic guidance about spreading the rule of law, decent government, and democracy. James Madison would have loved this book. * R. James Woolsey Director of Central Intelligence, 1993-1995, and Chairman, Foundation for Defense of Democracies * In this book, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith teach us to see dictatorship as just another form of politics, and from this perspective they deepen our understanding of all political systems. * Roger Myerson, Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
549 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5417-0136-6 (9781541701366)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Alastair Smith | Bruce de Mesquita
The Dictator's Handbook
Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
Book
07/2012
PublicAffairs,U.S.
€39.80
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Persons
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is the Julius Silver Professor of Politics and director of the Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy at New York University. He is the author of twenty-five books, including The Predictioneer's Game and The Invention of Power.
Alastair Smith is the Bernhardt Denmark Chair of International Politics at New York University. The recipient of three grants from the National Science Foundation and author of six books, he was chosen as the 2005 Karl Deutsch Award winner.
They are also the authors of The Spoils of War: Greed, Power, and the Conflicts That Made Our Greatest Presidents.
Alastair Smith is the Bernhardt Denmark Chair of International Politics at New York University. The recipient of three grants from the National Science Foundation and author of six books, he was chosen as the 2005 Karl Deutsch Award winner.
They are also the authors of The Spoils of War: Greed, Power, and the Conflicts That Made Our Greatest Presidents.