Chapter 6 Why Authoritarian Parties? The Regime Party as an ...

CHAPTER 6
Table 6.1: A comparison of cooptation via transfers and cooptation via a regime party
Transfers Regime party
per-period Current Expected Average
Party rank payoff rank payoff lifetime payoff per-period payoff
Senior
Junior
b−c
2 b b b
b−c
b−c
−c b−c 2 2
of the party hierarchy on their incentives to defect. As in the setting without a party, the
junior expects to receive b −c over the two stages of her career in the party and therefore
has to be offered an average payoff of at least (b−c)/2 in each period in order to defect to
the challenger. However, the senior now has to be offered at least b – the benefit she will
obtain from the incumbent in the current period – in order to defect to the challenger. Thus
with a hierarchical assignment of service and benefits within the party, the challenger must
command greater resources in order to replace the incumbent dictator than if he were facing
an incumbent without a party, b+(b−c)/2 > b−c. Or equivalently, the incumbent needs to
command fewer resources in order to deter the same challenger when he coopts via a regime
party.
Table 6.1 contrasts the costs of coopting the two citizens with and without a regime
party. By assigning costly service to the early stages of party members’ career and delaying
the benefits of membership to the latter stages, the hierarchical structure of the party makes
the incumbent dictator more resilient to potential challengers. Because they have already
expended the costly service at the junior stage and only expect to reap the benefits, senior
party members have a stake in the incumbent dictator’s survival that is absent in a regime
that coopts without the institution of the party, even if the latter spend the same resources
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