How Encompassing is a Dictator's Interest? Interest Groups, Targeted Repression, and Economic Development

Abstract

This paper explores some implications of the existence of politically active groups within dictatorships. The analysis reaches the more or less plausible conclusion that dictators will treat supporters differently than opponents and that a dictator often lacks a significant encompassing interest, because different groups are more or less important to him. The implications of this conclusion for fiscal (and regulatory) policies are also consistent with contemporary evidence on the economic and political performance of dictatorships. There is substantial variation in the economic performance of dictatorships, and the slowest growing and least civil of governments are always dictatorships (Przeworski et. al., 2000).

The analysis focuses entirely on economic interests of dictators and interest groups and demonstrates that the observed variation in the economic performance of dictatorships may well be grounded in rational responses to particular security and economic circumstances, rather than irrationality or ignorance.

Keywords: Dictatorship, Interest Groups, Fiscal Policies, Rational Repression, Public Choice, Stability, Security-Economy Tradeoffs

JEL Classification: H11, O10