The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
By Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith
Read by Dan Woren
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1 Format: CD
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ISBN: 9781668610039
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“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.
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Summary
“A lucidly written, shrewdly argued meditation on how democrats and dictators preserve political authority.” —Wall Street JournalBruce 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.
Editorial Reviews
Editorial Reviews
Author
Author Bio: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
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, as well as a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is the author of several books, including The Predictioneer’s Game; Principles of International Politics; Predicting Politics; Strategy, Risk and Personality in Coalition Politics; and the coauthor of many others. Bruce received his doctorate in political science from the University of Michigan in 1971 and a doctorate from the University of Groningen in 1999. He is the 2007 recipient of South Korea’s DMZ Peace Prize, and the recipient of many other academic honors for his teaching and research. Bruce lives with his wife, Arlene, in San Francisco and New York.
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Author Bio: Alastair Smith
Alastair Smith is professor of politics at New York University. The recipient of three grants from the National Science Foundation, he was chosen as the 2005 Karl Deutsch Award winner, given biennially to the best international relations scholar under the age of forty. He is the author of Election Timing and coauthor of Punishing the Prince and The Logic of Political Survival, and his work has appeared frequently in academic journals and other publications.
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Details
Details
| Available Formats : | CD |
| Category: | Nonfiction/Political Science |
| Runtime: | 15.64 |
| Audience: | Adult |
| Language: | English |
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