The political economy of dictatorship

About this book

In The Political Economy of Dictatorship, Ronald Wintrobe uses rational-choice theory to model dictatorships: their strategies for accumulating power, the constraints on their behavior, and the reasons why they are often more popular than is commonly accepted. The book explores both the politics and the economics of dictatorships, and the interaction between them. The questions addressed include: What determines the repressiveness of a regime? Can political authoritarianism be "good" for the economy? After the fall of a dictatorship, who should be held responsible for crimes against human rights?