The killing game: A theory of non-democratic succession

Georgy Egorov*, Konstantin Sonin

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

The winner of a battle for a throne can either execute or spare the loser; if the loser is spared, he contends the throne in the next period. Executing the losing contender gives the winner a chance to rule uncontested for a while, but then his life is at risk if he loses to some future contender who might be, in equilibrium, too frightened to spare him. The trade-off is analyzed within a dynamic complete information game, with, potentially, an infinite number of long-term players. In an equilibrium, decisions to execute predecessors depend on the predecessors' history of executions. With a dynastic rule in place, incentives to kill the predecessor are much higher than in non-hereditary dictatorships. The historical illustration for our analysis contains a discussion of post-World War II politics of execution of deposed leaders and detailed discussion of non-hereditary military dictatorships in Venezuela in 1830-1964, which witnessed dozens of comebacks and no single political execution.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)398-411
Number of pages14
JournalResearch in Economics
Volume69
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1 2015

Keywords

  • Execution
  • Markov perfect equilibrium
  • Non-democracy
  • Reputation
  • Succession

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Economics and Econometrics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The killing game: A theory of non-democratic succession'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this