The Logic of Political Survival

1. Political Survival Hinges on Satisfying Key Supporters

Political leaders need to hold office in order to accomplish any goal.

The Core of Politics. Every political leader, regardless of regime type, is fundamentally driven by the need to maintain power. This desire for survival shapes their decisions, from policy choices to resource allocation. Leaders must cater to their winning coalition, the group essential for keeping them in office, as losing their loyalty can lead to removal by a challenger.

Winning Coalition. The winning coalition is the subset of the selectorate whose support is essential if the incumbent is to remain in power. This group controls the essential features that constitute political power in the system. If enough members of the winning coalition defect to a rival politician, the incumbent loses office.

The Selectorate. The selectorate is the set of people whose endowments include the qualities or characteristics institutionally required to choose the government’s leadership and necessary for gaining access to private benefits doled out by the government’s leadership. All selectorate members within a polity, therefore, share certain common characteristics.

2. Institutions Shape Policy Choices: Public vs. Private Goods

We will suggest that the appearance of honest, civic-minded government is a consequence of key features of republican political institutions and that corruption and political security are consequences of parallel features in monarchy and autocracy.

Incentive Compatibility. Political institutions play a crucial role in shaping the incentives of leaders. Some institutions, particularly those associated with republican governments, reward good public policies, while others, like monarchies and autocracies, incentivize corruption and the pursuit of private gain. The key lies in understanding how these institutions influence the prospects for political survival.

Public vs. Private Goods. Leaders have a limited set of tools to maintain political support: providing public goods that benefit all citizens and doling out private benefits to key backers. The mix of these goods depends on the size of the winning coalition. Larger coalitions necessitate a focus on public goods, while smaller coalitions allow for the concentration of private benefits.

The Selectorate Theory. The selectorate theory examines how political-selection institutions influence the prospects that political leaders will survive and shows that different institutions create different imperatives of action for politicians who want to remain in office.

3. Coalition Size Dictates the Mix of Public and Private Benefits

Consequently, as the size of the coalition increases, leaders are expected to shift their effort to the provision of public goods that benefit all in society.

The Size of the Coalition. The size of the winning coalition is a fundamental institutional aspect of governance that leads to structure-induced allocation decisions. It influences the price that must be paid to assemble it.

Public Goods. Public goods are nonexcludable and nonrival, benefiting everyone in society. Examples include national security, the rule of law, and access to education.

Private Goods. Private benefits are distributed only to members of the winning coalition and diminish in value as the group expands. These can include favorable tax policies, subsidies, and trade privileges.

4. The Loyalty Norm: A Double-Edged Sword for Leaders

The larger the selectorate relative to the winning coalition, the smaller the chance that a given member of the current leader’s coalition will be included in the challenger’s new winning coalition and so continue to receive private benefits.

The Loyalty Norm. The incentive to defect from the incumbent to a challenger depends on the prospects of being included in the challenger’s winning coalition. The larger the selectorate relative to the winning coalition, the smaller the chance of inclusion.

Small vs. Large Coalitions. In systems with small winning coalitions and large selectorates, supporters are particularly loyal due to the high risk of exclusion. Conversely, in systems with large coalitions and large selectorates, supporters have weaker bonds and are more willing to defect.

Rigged Elections. Political systems characterized by small winning coalitions and large selectorates—as is common in many rigged-election autocracies—supporters of the leader are particularly loyal because the risk and cost of exclusion if the challenger comes to power are high.

5. Economic Performance: A Reflection of Political Incentives

At the same time, we show how institutions for selecting leaders create incentives to pursue good or bad public policy, with good and bad referring to governmental actions that make most people in a society better off or worse off.

Economic Policies. The selectorate theory challenges the notion that government leaders fail to understand what policies lead to economic growth. Instead, it posits that political incentives and institutions shape whether leaders prioritize policies conducive to growth and social welfare.

Self-Interest. Political leaders are self-interested and their actions are chosen to be politically beneficial to themselves. Bad economic policies are not irrational; they are a rational decision by self-interested leaders.

Political vs. Economic Rationality. Theories focused on economic rationality alone often fail to incorporate political rationality, leading to flawed policy recommendations.

6. Endogenous Institutional Change: A Quest for Survival

If leaders want to survive in office, they must have an interest in choosing institutional arrangements that insulate them from threats of removal.

Institutional Preferences. Leaders want to survive in office and must have an interest in choosing institutional arrangements that insulate them from threats of removal.

Strategic Considerations. The alteration of political systems is subject to strategic considerations well within the control of the competitors for and subjects of political authority.

Chance Circumstances. Chance circumstances in history may seemingly influence who gets to define a political system, but the alteration of political systems is also subject to strategic considerations well within the control of the competitors for and subjects of political authority.

7. War Aims Reflect Domestic Political Realities

The politics behind survival in office is, we believe, the essence of politics.

Political Survival. The desire to survive motivates the selection of policies and the allocation of benefits; it shapes the selection of political institutions and the objectives of foreign policy; it influences the very evolution of political life.

Domestic and Foreign Policy. The policies and programs necessary to ward off domestic and foreign threats to a leader’s survival vary dramatically under different institutional arrangements.

War Aims. Selection institutions influence war aims, particularly with regard to why democracies seem more inclined to depose defeated foreign foes than are autocrats.

8. The Democratic Peace: A Selectorate Theory Perspective

We have provided an explanation of when bad policy is good politics and when good policy is bad politics.

The Democratic Peace. The selectorate theory provides a comprehensive account of the known empirical regularities collectively called the democratic peace.

Novel Deductions. The selectorate theory also evaluates the empirical evidence regarding novel deductions from the dyadic version of the selectorate theory.

Bad Policy. Bad policy is good politics under some political arrangements, while being disastrous for political survival under other arrangements.

9. The Hobbes Index: Measuring Quality of Life Beyond Regimes

We develop the Hobbes Index to assess how far each country has come from life in the state of nature—that is, life that is solitary, nasty, poor, brutish, and short.

The Hobbes Index. The Hobbes Index is developed to assess how far each country has come from life in the state of nature—that is, life that is solitary, nasty, poor, brutish, and short.

Policy Suggestions. The Hobbes Index is used in conjunction with insights suggested by the selectorate theory to provide policy suggestions that, if implemented, might result in improved quality of life around the world.

Quality of Life. The Hobbes Index is used in conjunction with insights suggested by the selectorate theory to provide policy suggestions that, if implemented, might result in improved quality of life around the world.

10. Promoting Peace and Prosperity

Ultimately, of course, this theory—like any theory—can only be judged through the development of still more demanding tests, better indicators, and the extent to which its core arguments prove consistent with the empirical record, past, present, and future.

Policy Prescriptions. The selectorate theory offers policy prescriptions in the closing chapter, being careful to base those prescriptions on what we believe has been demonstrated theoretically and empirically.

Theoretical and Empirical. The policy prescriptions are based on what we believe has been demonstrated theoretically and empirically.

Future Tests. Others, of course, will prove far better judges of what we have done and what we propose than we can be.

Last updated: March 23, 2025