The Political Economy of Revolution and Democracy

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Abstract
Abstract. Electoral democracy and revolutionary violence are both forms of political competition involving leaders vying for public office. Political leaders seek benefit from public position. By redefining those benefits into concepts of profit and costs, a rational choice framework can give an ordering of those types of political competition which are of the greatest value to officeholders, assuming that they are profit‐maximizers. The ordering that result conforms to the definition of prisoner's dilemma and creates a game theoretic matrix based on leader's choices of either electoral or violent competition. The result is an explanation of various modes of political competition. The analysis draws on experimental work on prisoner's dilemma and on empirical material drawn from Latin American politics. Revolution, democracy, and dictatorship are shown to be varieties of a basic cost‐benefit analysis of political leaders.

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