Shorrocks & Martin POLI10201|2

Types of Dictatorship
(contd.) Lecture 8
POLI10201 Introduction to Comparative Politics
19/10/2018

Dr Rosalind Shorrocks
Rosalind.shorrocks@manchester.ac.uk
Feedback and Advice Hours: 10am-11am Wednesday; 3pm-4pm Thursday
Book via SOHOL

Shorrocks & Martin POLI10201|2

 Introduction
Key Questions
• What is a selectorate and a winning coalition?
• How does the size of the selectorate and winning coalition
affect regime performance?

Learning Objectives
• Explain selectorate theory
• Relate selectorate theory to the three-part classification of
dictatorships
• Analyse the relationship between the selectorate and regime
performance
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 Types of Dictatorship: Summary
• Dictatorships can be classified as monarchic,
military, or civilian (dominant party or
personalistic)

• This classification is based on who the key

supporters sustaining a dictator in power are

• The type of dictatorship (and support coalition)

influence 1) how long-lived the dictatorship will be
and 2) how likely it is to become a democracy
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 Selectorate Theory
• Another way to think about types of dictatorship is
using selectorate theory

• Selectorate theory can be applied to both

dictatorships and democracies

• Selectorate theory can help explain variation in

economic performance between different types of
regime

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 Selectorate Theory

Key assumption of selectorate theory: that political

leaders are motivated to gain office

Selectorate theory is also based on the key insight

that no-one can rule alone – all leaders need at least
some supporters

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 Key Concepts in Selectorate
Theory
• Residents: everyone in a country

• Disenfranchised: don’t have a legal right to participate

in choosing the government

• Selectorate: those who do have a legitimate say in

choosing the leader

• Winning coalition: members of the selectorate whose

support is necessary for the leader to remain in power
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Shorrocks & Martin POLI10201|2
Which regime has a larger
selectorate?
A. Monarchy
B. Dominant Party
Dictatorship

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Which regime has a larger
winning coalition?
A. Monarchy
B. Democracy

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Selectorate Theory: Democracies
vs Dictatorships
UK:
Residents: 66,573,504 (population)
Selectorate: 46,148,000 as of Dec 2017 (eligible voters)
Winning coalition*: 13,636,684 (Conservative votes in
June 2017)

Swaziland:
Residents: 1,398,122 (population)
Selectorate: ? ~1,000 (royal family)
Winning coalition: <1,000 (royal council)
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Shorrocks & Martin POLI10201|2
 The Winning Coalition and
Regime Stability
• The winning coalition is large in democracies and
small in dictatorships

• Members of small winning coalitions are very loyal to

the dictator
• The overall probability of anyone being in the winning
coalition is small
• Being a member of the winning coalition in a dictatorship
comes with certain benefits
• Members of the winning coalition don’t want to take the
chance of being pushed out of the winning coalition by
regime change
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 Why use Selectorate Theory?
• It turns out that selectorate theory can help us
understand differences in performance between
different types of regime

• A country’s material well-being is related to the size

of selectorate and winning coalition

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 The Dictator’s Handbook
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_
1kKVfWoJHM

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Shorrocks & Martin POLI10201|2
Back to the key questions
• The selectorate is the pool of people who could possibly
select the leader
• The winning coalition is the pool of people who are
actually required to select the leader

• Regimes with larger selectorates and winning coalitions

will provide more public goods to their citizens, because
they need to attract the support of many people
• Regimes with smaller selectorates and winning coalitions
will be more likely to have corruption and less provision of
goods for citizens because they only need to attract the
support of a few elites
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 Readings for this topic
Textbook chapter: Chapter 10: Varieties of Dictatorship

Selectorate Theory: EconTalk podcast with Bruce Bueno de

Mesquita:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/02/bruce_bueno_de.html

More on selectorate theory: Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce and Smith,

Alastair (2003) The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press. Chapter 1: Reining in the Prince.

Debating selectorate theory: Gallagher, Mary and Hanson, Jonathan

(2015) Power Tool or Dull Blade? Selectorate Theory for
Autocracies. Annual Review of Political Science. 18: 367-385
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 Tutorial Preparation on Topic 4:
Types of Dictatorship

Principles, Chapter 10 Exercise 3: Classifying

Political Regimes

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 Essay Guidance
Imagine that you work for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a
foreign policy advisor. You have been asked to assess the likelihood of
democratisation in a country. Pick ONE of: 1) Turkey; 2) Honduras; 3)
Belarus OR 4) Saudi Arabia.

Write a policy briefing paper that answers the question “How likely is
it that [your chosen country] will become more democratic in the
next three years?”. Use information from the sources used during
tutorials, and other reliable comparative databases.

Please provide a bibliography of at least 5 academic works which

inform your report and use normal academic referencing conventions.

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 Sources of Information
Potential sources of information on the state of democracy, economy,
and culture:
• World Values Survey -
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp
• Freedom House Freedom in the World - https://freedomhouse.org
• Polity IV - http://www.systemicpeace.org/globalreport.html
• State Fragility Index - http://fundforpeace.org/fsi/country-data/
• Global Nonviolent Action Database -
https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu
• Electoral Integrity Project - https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com
• World Bank -
http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=2&Topic=3

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Good policy briefing papers
will…
Good answers will:
• Apply general theories about what makes a regime more likely to
be and to become a democracy to the specific case.
• Make use of at least three of the databases to provide accurate and
relevant information on the country. (Excellent answers will make
use of more).
• Come to an informed judgement about what the indicators
available to you suggest about the likelihood of democratisation.

We are not looking for:

• Accurate foreign policy predictions.
• A general essay on democracy and democratisation.

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 Informed Judgement
• There is a weak/medium/strong chance that this
country will become a democracy

• This should be based on the evidence. If your data

and arguments are mostly indicating that the
country is likely to become a democracy, then this
should be your conclusion

• If the evidence is mixed, it is ok to be uncertain

about the prospects for democratization.
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 Essay Guidance: General Points
• Make use of advice and feedback hours
• Rosalind: Wednesday 10am-11am; Thursday 3pm-4pm
• Nicole: Thursday 3pm-4pm; Friday 3pm-4pm
• Your course tutor will also have an advice or feedback
hour

• The essay is worth 40% of your grade for this

course – and is worth spending a substantial amount
of time on
• The course guide contains information on the
marking criteria that will be used
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 Marking criteria
First class essays are: reports which are excellent
and provide a largely-full and well-structured
answer to the question, demonstrating a wide use of
relevant data sources, insight and depth of
understanding of the scholarly material and
literature, and the exercise of critical judgement in
analysing institutions, procedures, and behaviour.

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 General Advice
• Make a plan or outline before you start writing

• There are many possible structures but a good possible structure will
• Present the problem (how democratic is the country and what is likely to happen in the
future?)
• Systematically review your chosen evidence. You could structure it by type of evidence or
by type of explanation (theory)
• Come to a conclusion. In the conclusion briefly reiterate your supporting reasons for that
conclusion

• Go through what we have learnt in the first 5 topics of the course. Write down what
you need to know about a country in order to assess how likely it is to democratise or
be a democracy e.g. what kind of dictatorship is it?

• You are using real data and the real world is complicated – so don’t be afraid if not
all data is saying the same thing. You can remark on this and what it means for the
likelihood of democratisation in your report

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Questions?

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