audience costs, credibility, and political survival

what is the selectorate?

the total group of people who have a say in picking a leader

what is the winning coalition?

the smaller group within the selectorate whose actual support the leader needs to stay in power

what is a small W like?

the leader only needs to keep a small group of people happy, it is cheap to bribe them using private goods (cash, land, favors) (dictatorships and monarchies)

what is a large W like?

the leader needs millions of voters, they can’t bribe everyone, so the leader using public goods (roads, clean air, healthcare) (democracies)

what is a small W inside a large S like?

if a general betrays the leader, the odds of them getting chosen for the next leader’s W is zero. (north korea)

what is a large W close to an S like?

if a voter switches sides, they are still a voter under the new leader. loyalty isn’t guaranteed, it has to be earned. (us, canada)

what is the W and S like in a personal monarchy? how do the leaders stay in power?

both W and S very small, bribes and rewards

what is the W and S like in a military junta? how do the leaders stay in power?

W small, S moderate, keep the senior military officer happy

what is the W and S like in a single party state? how do the leaders stay in power?

W small/moderate, S large, keep the top party officials happy

what is the W and S like in a democracy? how do the leaders stay in power?

W large, S large, give good public policies to voters

how do small W leaders benefit in a war?

they can lose a war and still stay in power as long as their W is happy

how do large W leaders benefit in a war?

they cannot afford to lose a war, if their policy fails, the W will punish and replace them

what is culpability?

leaders who start unnecessary wars get punished more for losing rather than new leaders who inherit it

what is cheap talk?

simply saying “i’m gonna attack you” costs nothing, and the enemy can call a bluff easily

what is a credible threat?

a threat that must cost something in order to be believable

what is the ex-ante?

spending money and moving threats before the crisis is resolved

ex: britain 1982 sending a naval task force 8,000 miles to falkland islands

what is the ex-post?

making a high public threat that costs nothing but backing down will shatter your political career.

ex: john f. kennedy’s tv annoucement during the cuban missile crisis

what is the democratic advantage?

democracies make it easier for citizens to see what the leader did, organize, and then vote them out

what is the selection bias problem? what was the solution?

it’s hard to measure real-world costs because effective threats work silently. tomz used surveyed experiments with hypothetical scenarios about president’s making threats then backing down

what were tomz’s findings?

approval ratings decrease when a leader backs down, penalties worsen when commitment increases, penalties happen regardless of the country’s (US) interests being at stake

what is weeks’ typology?

autocracies have audience costs, the audience is just not ordinary voters and instead are internal elites

how does weeks’ findings work with personalist bosses?

power is held by one person, so audience costs are low

how does weeks’ findings work with military juntas?

power is held by a council of officers, so audience costs are high

how does weeks’ findings work with single-party machines?

power is held by a party system, so audience costs are high