Every now and then I go back to the ideas developed by Mesquita and his colleagues about the Selectorate Theory. They entered public discourse via CGP Grey’s videos, and a book called The Dictator’s Handbook.
The wikipedia article I linked to above, gives a pretty good overview. I see it as a work in the line of Machiavelli, or Gramsci: a theory of how power operates. There are some very good common-sense arguments there for example for expanding democratic participation (“the size of the selectorate”) as much as possible in as many spheres as possible, because small selectorates simply mean less public goods. At its limit, it leads quite naturally to egalitarianism in politics, the economy, etc.
I’m not saying it is perfect as a universal theory of everything, of course. It’s an abstraction, but it seems a very useful one. I think that it’s a very useful tool that seems to be completely ignored in left/socialist circles.
it’s probably ignored because there are many other theorists with more nuanced analyses of power: Marx, Gramsci, Marcuse, Foucault…
The Dictator’s Handbook doesn’t offer much in that regard. it assumes homo economicus and bases conclusions on flawed studies. selectorate theory has thus far failed as a tool for analysing — or making predictions about — states in the periphery.
What I find interesting in Selectorate Theory is that it links power and economics in a quantifiable way. Coming from STEM, I understand it, in ways that frankly I don’t when it comes to “continental” theorists, who make much less sense to me. But I’m not well read, so maybe I just don’t understand shit.
Can you please explain what you are basing this critique on?
reviews i’ve read, and my own bygone notes and experience with The Dictator’s Handbook and The Logic of Political Survival. my critique is leveraged at both of them, because my memories of them are intertwined, and the former is based heavily on the latter.
The Logic of Political Survival is based in game theory (rational choice model), which falls apart when you consider that people don’t/can’t always process all information and don’t/can’t always minmax their choices. the supporting data for selectorate theory is biased; correcting for this bias heavily diminishes the findings.
on the theory’s usefulness as a tool for analysis: Gallagher and Hanson wrote two papers ([1],[2]) about it. tl;dr: it’s not a great predictor; it doesn’t explain illiberal systems or peripheral politics; and it doesn’t account for plurality.
i can appreciate that; i also have a STEM background. if you’re modelling a core liberal democracy, i think it does well enough. however, i think it’s oversimplified, which is a common problem i find with quantified theories of social phenomena. it also probably falls apart if you want to predict the effects of a system reform/upheaval, or beyond.
that’s why i refer to the philosophers and social scientists. their theories aren’t calculus, but they provide the framework for understanding the origins and also what rough shape the outcome can take, without being too prescriptive.
Lovely answer and great pointers, thank you very much!