For eighteen years, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith have been part of a team revolutionizing the study of politics by turning conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don't care about the "national interest"--or even their subjects--unless they have to.

This clever and accessible book shows that the difference between tyrants and democrats is 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. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.

About the Author

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 and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Alastair Smith is Professor of Politics at New York University. In 1997-1998 he was selected as a National Fellow by the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Reviews

"Enlightenment Economics," July 14, 2011
"Machiavelli's "The Prince "has a new rival. It's THE DICTATOR'S HANDBOOK by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith.... This is a fantastically thought-provoking read. I found myself not wanting to agree but actually, for the most part, being convinced that the cynical analysis is the true one.""R. James Woolsey Director of Central Intelligence, 1993-1995, and Chairman, Foundation for Defense of Democracies"," "July, 2011"In this fascinating book Bueno de Mesquita and Smith spin out their view of governance: that all successful leaders, dictators and democrats, can best be understood as almost entirely driven by their own political survival--a view they characterize as 'cynical, but we fear accurate.' Yet as we follow the authors through their brilliant historical assessments of leaders' choices--from Caesar to Tammany Hall and the Green Bay Packers--we gradually realize that their brand of cynicism yields extremely realistic guidance about spreading the rule of law, decent government, and democracy. James Madison would have loved this book." "Roger Myerson, Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, "July, 2011
"In this book, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith teach us to see dictatorship as just another form of politics, and from this perspective they deepen our understanding of all political systems." "Wall Street Journal," September 24, 2011"A lucidly written, shrewdly argued meditation on how democrats and dictators preserve political authority.... In a style reminiscent of "Freakonomics," Messrs. Bueno de Mesquita and Smith present dozens of clever examples... The most fascinating chapter in "The Dictator's Handbook" concerns the rewards that governments provide other governments. The authors make the obvious, but nevertheless controversial, argument that almost all aid money is dispersed not to alleviate poverty but to purchase loyalty and influence....