IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/24966.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Authoritarian Elites

Author

Listed:
  • Adlai Newson
  • Francesco Trebbi

Abstract

We explore the role of ruling elites in autocratic regimes and provide an assessment of tools useful to clarify the structure of opaque political environments. We first showcase the importance of analyzing autocratic regimes as non-unitary actors by discussing extant work on nondemocracies in Sub-Saharan Africa and China, where the prevailing view of winner-take-all contests can be clearly rejected. We show how specific biographical information about powerful cadres helps shed light upon the composition of the inner circles that empower autocrats. We further provide an application of these methods to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), one of the most personalistic, opaque, and data-poor political regimes in the world today. Employing information from DPRK state media on participants at official state events, we are able to trace the evolution and consolidation of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un around the transition period following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il. The internal factional divisions of the DPRK are explored during and after this transition. Final general considerations for the future study of the political economy of development are presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Adlai Newson & Francesco Trebbi, 2018. "Authoritarian Elites," NBER Working Papers 24966, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24966
    Note: DEV POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w24966.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baron, David P. & Ferejohn, John A., 1989. "Bargaining in Legislatures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1181-1206, December.
    2. Monica Martinez‐Bravo & Priya Mukherjee & Andreas Stegmann, 2017. "The Non‐Democratic Roots of Elite Capture: Evidence From Soeharto Mayors in Indonesia," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85(6), pages 1991-2010, November.
    3. Francesco Trebbi & Eric Weese, 2019. "Insurgency and Small Wars: Estimation of Unobserved Coalition Structures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(2), pages 463-496, March.
    4. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2011. "Dictators And Their Viziers: Endogenizing The Loyalty–Competence Trade‐Off," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(5), pages 903-930, October.
    5. Sonin, Konstantin & Egorov, Georgy, 2005. "The Killing Game: Reputation and Knowledge in Non-Democratic Succession," CEPR Discussion Papers 5092, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Acemoglu,Daron & Robinson,James A., 2009. "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671422, September.
    7. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2001. "A Theory of Political Transitions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 938-963, September.
    8. Robert Gibbons & Michael Waldman, 1999. "A Theory of Wage and Promotion Dynamics Inside Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1321-1358.
    9. North,Douglass C. & Wallis,John Joseph & Weingast,Barry R., 2013. "Violence and Social Orders," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107646995.
    10. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    11. Dani Rodrik & Arvind Subramanian & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 131-165, June.
    12. Ilia Rainer & Francesco Trebbi, 2014. "New Tools for the Analysis of Political Power in Africa," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume I: Government and Institutions, pages 145-212, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Prendergast, Canice & Topel, Robert H, 1996. "Favoritism in Organizations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 958-978, October.
    14. Green, Jerry R & Stokey, Nancy L, 1983. "A Comparison of Tournaments and Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 349-364, June.
    15. Gordon Tullock, 1971. "The paradox of revolution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 89-99, September.
    16. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Alastair Smith & Randolph M. Siverson & James D. Morrow, 2005. "The Logic of Political Survival," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262524406, April.
    17. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2005. "The Killing Game: Reputation and Knowledge in Politics of Succession," Game Theory and Information 0505003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & Tristan Reed & James A. Robinson, 2014. "Chiefs: Economic Development and Elite Control of Civil Society in Sierra Leone," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(2), pages 319-368.
    19. Edward P. Lazear, 1991. "Labor Economics and the Psychology of Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 89-110, Spring.
    20. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-927, October.
    21. Patrick Francois & Ilia Rainer & Francesco Trebbi, 2015. "How Is Power Shared in Africa?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 465-503, March.
    22. Nicola Persico & José C. R. Pueblita & Dan Silverman, 2011. "Factions and Political Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(2), pages 242-288.
    23. James M. Snyder Jr. & Michael M. Ting & Stephen Ansolabehere, 2005. "Legislative Bargaining under Weighted Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 981-1004, September.
    24. George Baker & Michael Gibbs & Bengt Holmstrom, 1994. "The Internal Economics of the Firm: Evidence from Personnel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 881-919.
    25. Olson, Mancur, 1993. "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 567-576, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2024. "The Political Economics of Non-democracy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 594-636, June.
    2. Patrick Francois & Francesco Trebbi & Kairong Xiao, 2023. "Factions in Nondemocracies: Theory and Evidence From the Chinese Communist Party," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(2), pages 565-603, March.
    3. Björn Toelstede, 2020. "Social hierarchies in democracies and authoritarianism: The balance between power asymmetries and principal-agent chains," Rationality and Society, , vol. 32(3), pages 334-366, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    2. Andrea Asoni, 2008. "Protection Of Property Rights And Growth As Political Equilibria," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 953-987, December.
    3. Sunde, Uwe & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe & Cervellati, Matteo, 2011. "Democratization and Civil Liberties: The Role of Violence During the Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 8315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Leonid Polishchuk & Georgiy Syunyaev, 2015. "Ruling elites’ rotation and asset ownership: implications for property rights," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 159-182, January.
    5. Apolte, Thomas, 2015. "Autocracy and the public: Mass revolts, winning coalitions, and policy control in dictatorships," CIW Discussion Papers 5/2015, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).
    6. Cervellati Matteo & Fortunato Piergiuseppe & Sunde Uwe, 2012. "Consensual and Conflictual Democratization," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-51, December.
    7. ROUGIER Eric, 2015. ""The parts and the whole”: Unbundling and re-bundling institutional systems and their effect on economic development," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2015-12, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    8. Carl Henrik Knutsen, 2012. "Democracy and economic growth: A survey of arguments and results," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 393-415, December.
    9. Apolte, Thomas, 2015. "Abused rebels and winning coalitions: Regime change under the pressure of rebellions," CIW Discussion Papers 1/2015, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).
    10. Knutsen, Carl Henrik, 2013. "Democracy, State Capacity, and Economic Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-18.
    11. Braunfels, Elias, 2016. "Further Unbundling Institutions," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 13/2016, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    12. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Gradstein, Mark, 2005. "Democracy, Property Rights, Redistribution and Economic Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 5130, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Bernardo Guimaraes & Kevin D. Sheedy, 2017. "Guarding the Guardians," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(606), pages 2441-2477, November.
    15. David Castells-Quintana & Maria del Pilar Lopez-Uribe & Tom McDermott, 2015. "Climate change and the geographical and institutional drivers of economic development," GRI Working Papers 198, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    16. Daron Acemoglu & Davide Ticchi & Andrea Vindigni, 2010. "A Theory of Military Dictatorships," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-42, January.
    17. Sezer Yasar & Ceyhun Elgin, 2024. "Democracy and fiscal-policy response to COVID-19," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 198(1), pages 25-45, January.
    18. Shaun Larcom & Mare Sarr & Tim Willems, 2018. "Dictators Walking the Mogadishu Line: How Men Become Monsters and Monsters Become Men," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(3), pages 584-609.
    19. Park, Hyungmin, 2023. "Developmental Dictatorship and Middle Class-driven Democratisation," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1485, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    20. Ghosal, Sayantan & Proto, Eugenio, 2009. "Democracy, collective action and intra-elite conflict," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(9-10), pages 1078-1089, October.
    21. Hyungmin Park, 2024. "Theory of developmental dictatorship," Discussion Papers 2024-10, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24966. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.