Frenemies: Coalitions and Conflict in the Dictator’s Inner Circle Public
Cuttner, Allison (Spring 2021)
Published
Abstract
Maintaining the small coalition of powerful individuals necessary to support her regime is not without risks for a dictator. One of the fundamental tensions of authoritarian governance is how a dictator interacts with these elites: while giving them power, riches, and access is fundamental to maintaining their loyalty, these resources can easily be turned against you. Given the inherent threat that her elite allies pose, how can a dictator consolidate her own power? Can a dictator undermine the strength of the elites within her own ruling coalition? Across the papers of this dissertation, I explore the potential strategies that a ruler can undertake to strengthen her own position relative to the elites in her ruling coalition.
First, I consider purges: a leader’s forcible removal of a high-ranking party, government, or military member from office. When faced with elite rivals with varying levels of power, which member of her coalition will the dictator target for a purge? I formalize the dictator’s attempt to seize power from a regime insider with a dynamic and novel adaptation of a classical flexible contest framework. The conclusions I derive show that elite coalitions can lead to more purge attempts instead of deterring them and that both powerful and relatively weak dictators will initiate conflict with their inner circle of elites, an important implication for empirical studies of purges and the personalization of power in dictatorships. I then expand the dictator’s strategy set to include simultaneous power sharing and purges. In my theoretical model, a dictator faces a multi-stage process of conflict and consolidation, eliminating elites from his ruling coalition to win more power for himself. The dictator can offer rewards to other members of the elite in return for their support, but empowering a rival directly affects the dictator’s ability to purge said rival in the future. Lastly, I investigate the use of the masses as a tool to undermine the strength of local elites. With a multi-stage Rubinstein alternating offer bargaining program, I show how a central ruler can use investment in distribution to the masses to reduce the bargaining power of local elites while still using them to ensure the support of the district. I compare multiple institutional arrangements, showing that unit proliferation only benefits the dictator if she does not need unanimous support and, instead, can credibly threaten to exclude some local elites from power-sharing. These varying institutions also yield different implications for where the dictator will invest in his popularity to strengthen his position vis-a-vis the local elite.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Overview of the Dissertation........................... 4
2 Who to Target? Strategic Elite Elimination in the Contest for Power 8
2.1 Power Consolidation and Conflict ........................ 12
2.1.1 The Rewards of Elite Purges....................... 13
2.1.2 The Risks of Elite Purges ........................ 14
2.1.3 The Path to Personalist Power ..................... 16
2.2 Modeling Elite-Dictator Conflict......................... 17
2.2.1 Model Setup................................ 19
2.3 Targeting without Coalitions........................... 22
2.3.1 Multiple Rounds of Conflict ....................... 24
2.4 Coalitions and Conflict with Three Players................... 26
2.4.1 Coalition Formation ........................... 26
2.4.2 Targeting Behavior ............................ 27
2.4.3 Two Players Remaining ......................... 29
2.5 Dynamic Coalitions and Conflict ........................ 30
2.5.1 Targeting Behavior ............................ 31
2.6 Discussion..................................... 34
2.6.1 Heterogeneity and Coalitions ...................... 35
2.7 Conclusion..................................... 36
2.8 Formal Appendix ................................. 38
3 Sowing Seeds of Destruction? Empowering Elite Rivals under Contested Dictatorship 55
3.1 Coalitions and Consolidation........................... 58
3.1.1 Model Setup................................ 63
3.1.2 Results................................... 67
3.2 Conclusions .................................... 73
3.3 Appendix: Alternative Bargaining Protocol................... 75
3.4 Formal Appendix A: Main Model ........................ 79
3.5 Formal Appendix B: Rubinstein Bargaining .................. 94
4 Local Elites Drive a Hard Bargain: Strategic Investment in Mass Distribution under Electoral Autocracy 107
4.1 Building and Maintaining Local Support .................... 111
4.2 Model ....................................... 115
4.2.1 Bargaining Protocol and Sequence of Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.3 Results....................................... 119
4.3.1 One District................................ 120
4.3.2 Two Districts: Two of Two ....................... 124
4.3.3 Two Districts: One of Two........................ 127
4.3.4 The Effect of Institutions: Homogeneous Baseline . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.3.5 Heterogeneous Districts ......................... 132
4.4 Discussion..................................... 139
4.5 Conclusion..................................... 141
4.6 FormalAppendix ................................. 143
Bibliography 191
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