Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ Roberts

of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website

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My guest today is Bruce Bueno de Mosquita, the Julius Silver Professor of Politics at New

York University. He's a senior fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University

and the author of numerous books, including The Logic of Political Survival, co-authored

with Alistair Smith, Randolph-Severson and James Morrow. A book that's had a big impact

on the way I think about politics and a book that was the subject of a podcast we did last

summer. Bruce, welcome back to Econ Talk. Thank you, it's a pleasure.

Bruce, I want to talk with you today about some of the policy differences between democracies

and dictatorships and the incentives they face. So first, let's look at your theory of

the selector it, the you outlined in The Logic of Political Survival. We all know about

the electorate, the people who vote in a democracy. What do you mean by the selector it?

By the selector it, I mean the people who have a meaningful say in choosing who leaders

are and in a democracy that is the outcome of elections is determined by how people

vote. In a military junta, the selector it might be the general, perhaps some kernels,

maybe some senior civil servants that would also be true in many autocracies although

the civil servants would probably be a little bit more numerous. In monarchy, it might be the

royal family and some key entrepreneurs and so forth. So the selector it is the set of people

who have a say and it varies greatly in its side. When you say they have a say outside of

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