Table of Contents Title Page Dedication Epigraph Introduction Chapter 1 - The Rules of Politics Three Political Dimensions Virtues of 3 - D Politics Change the Size of Dimensions and Change the World Rules Ruling Rulers Taxing Shuffling the Essential Deck Do the Rules Work in Democracies? Chapter 2 - Coming to Power Paths to Power with Few Essentials Speed Is Essential Pay to Play Mortality: The Best Opportunity for Power Inheritance and the Problem of Relatives Papal Bull - ying for Power Seizing Power from the Bankrupt Silence Is Golden Institutional Change Coming to Power in Democracy Democratic Inheritance Democracy Is an Arms Race for Good Ideas Coalition Dynamics A Last Word on Coming to Power: The Ultimate Fate of Sergeant Doe Chapter 3 - Staying in Power Governance in Pursuit of Heads The Perils of Meritocracy Keep Essentials Off-Balance Democrats Aren’t Angels Bloc Voting Leader Survival Chapter 4 - Steal from the Poor, Give to the Rich Taxation Tax Collectors Privatized Tax Collection Extraction Borrowing Debt Forgiveness Chapter 5 - Getting and Spending Effective Policy Need Not Be Civic Minded Bailouts and Coalition Size Is Democracy a Luxury? Public Goods Not for the Public’s Good Who Doesn’t Love a Cute Baby? Clean Drinking Water Building Infrastructure Public Goods for the Public Good Earthquakes and Governance Chapter 6 - If Corruption Empowers, Then Absolute Corruption Empowers Absolutely Power and Corruption Private Goods in Democracies Private Goods in Small Coalition Settings Wall Street: Small Coalitions at Work Dealing with Good Deed Doers Cautionary Tales: Never Take the Coalition for Granted Discretionary Money Chapter 7 - Foreign Aid The Political Logic of Aid The Impact of Aid An Assessment of Foreign Aid Aid Shakedowns Fixing Aid Policy Nation Building Chapter 8 - The People in Revolt To Protest or Not To Protest Nipping Mass Movements in the Bud Protest in Democracy and Autocracy Shocks Raise Revolts Are Disasters Always Disasters for Government Survival? Responding to Revolution or Its Threat Power to the People Chapter 9 - War, Peace, and World Order War Fighting To Try Hard or Not Fighting for Survival Who Survives War The Peace Between Democracies Defending the Peace and Nation Building Chapter 10 - What Is To Be Done? Rules to Fix By Lessons from Green Bay Fixing Democracies Removing Misery Free and Fair Elections: False Hope Acknowledgments Notes Index Copyright Page To our dictators, who have treated us so well— Arlene and Fiona What is important here is cash. [A] leader needs money, gold and diamonds to run his hundred castles, feed his thousand women, buy cars for the millions of boot-lickers under his heels, reinforce the loyal military forces and still have enough change left to deposit into his numbered Swiss accounts. —MOBUTU SESE SEKO OF ZAIRE, PROBABLY APOCRYPHAL Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar (I, II, 140-141) 4 Steal from the Poor, Give to the Rich WHETHER YOU’RE TAKING CHARGE OF THE OTTOMAN Empire, a corporation, or Liberia, controlling the flow of funds is essential to buying support. However once you’ve emptied the state’s or the corporate coffers by buying off both your essential supporters and their replacements, if necessary, you must reckon with the entirely new challenge of refilling the treasury. If a leader cannot find a reliable source of income, then it is only a matter of time until someone else will offer his supporters greater rewards than he can. Money is essential for anyone who wants to run any organization. Without their share of the state’s rewards, hardly anyone will stick with an incumbent for long. Liberia’s Prince Johnson knew this when he tortured Samuel Doe, demanding the number of the bank accounts where the state’s treasure had been hidden. Without getting his question answered, Johnson would not be able to secure power for himself. In fact, neither he nor rival insurgent Charles Taylor could secure state revenue enough to buy control of Liberia’s government immediately after Doe was overthrown. The upshot: Samuel Doe died under Prince Johnson’s torture without answering the question, and Liberia degenerated into civil war. Each faction was able to extract enough resources to buy support in a small region, but no one could control the state as a whole. The succession process in the Ottoman Empire is another illustration of the same point. Upon the death of their father, the Ottoman princes rushed from their provinces to secure the treasury, buy the loyalty of the army and have all their potential rivals (also known as brothers) strangled. Whoever first secured control over the money was likely to win. If no one son triumphed, cleanly wresting the treasury out of his siblings’ control, then no one could summon up the necessary revenues to pay his backers. The common result, as in Liberia, was civil war. “Knowing where the money is” is particularly important in autocracies—and particularly difficult. Such systems are shrouded in secrecy. Supporters must be paid but there are no accurate accounts detailing stocks and flows of wealth. Of