Download The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics Books Online
The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics Hardcover | Pages: 352 pages
Rating: 4.29 | 6506 Users | 814 Reviews

Be Specific About Based On Books The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

Title:The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
Author:Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
Book Format:Hardcover
Book Edition:Deluxe Edition
Pages:Pages: 352 pages
Published:September 27th 2011 by PublicAffairs
Categories:Politics. Nonfiction. History. Philosophy. Political Science

Description During Books The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

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.

Declare Books As The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

ISBN: 161039044X (ISBN13: 9781610390446)
Edition Language: English

Rating Based On Books The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
Ratings: 4.29 From 6506 Users | 814 Reviews

Commentary Based On Books The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics


Even in print form, so much to take in. A denser text than I expected - talking narrow margins and small font - and so my politics nerd half hopes to buy a copy for myself and better absorb the material. Lots of insightful commentary and things that just make sense in here.

Different take on coalition politics and how power is truly maintained. Excellent examples in world history of how coalitions are the main driving forces behind any political decision. However, the author ended up advocating for open borders and mass immigration in the final chapter thus spoiling what was prior to that, a decent read.

No matter whether the governing body is an autocracy, consisting of a domineering ruler who will strip every penny he can from his citizens or the most benevolent leader of a democracy, who seems from all outward appearances to care for his or her citizens, all rulers without exception follow the same basic rules of governing other human beings. Prior to reading this book, I would not have identified the patterns of a ruler's behavior and been able to boil them down to simple and predictable

This was a really interesting read. On the one hand, it's incredibly fascinating, but on the other, it's kind of so obvious that I feel like we should all be out here like "DUH. Dude, everyone knows that." But, clearly, no, not everyone does. Including myself. It's obvious to me after finishing this book, just how painstaking the research into this topic was - they had to go through so much history and political policy, for so many countries and political factions, and then analyze so much

Basically, this author tells us over and over that powerful people abuse their power if no one checks them. This is not news. Also, there's a certain incoherence to the thesis even in the examples he uses: Bell, California was inevitably corrupt, but he can tell the story because everyone involved went to jail; foreign aid never works but the Marshall Plan was very successful, etc. Something is missing from the model. He needs to explain how the checks on corruption change in strength over time

Read the first few chapters through and then skimmed the rest. The basic premise is that, regardless of whether a leader is democratically elected or assumes power through violent overthrow of the previous regime, the leader's raison d'être is to stay in power -- whatever it takes. The author proceeds through many chapters to give excellent examples of historical and more recent dictators and other world leaders and how they accomplished their main goals. Interesting but skimmable.