“A lucidly written, shrewdly argued meditation on how democrats and dictators preserve political authority.” —Wall Street Journal Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith’s canonical book on political science turns conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single proposition: leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don’t care about the “national interest”—or even their subjects—unless they must. As Bueno de Mesquita and Smith show, democracy is essentially 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. And it is also the key to returning power to the people.
![《独裁者手册: 为什么坏行为几乎总是好政治》 作者: [美] 布鲁诺·德·梅斯奎塔 / [美] 阿拉斯泰尔·史密斯 出版社: 江苏文艺出版社 原作名: The Dictator's Handbook](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0575/8097/8291/products/2022-11-3011.18.50.png?v=1669803593&width=480)
