The last decade has witnessed growing interest among political scientists and economists in
nondemocratic politics. This trend has been reflected in increasingly rigorous game …

In recent decades, dictatorships based on mass repression have largely given way to a new
model based on the manipulation of information. Instead of terrorizing citizens into …

We develop an informational theory of autocracy. Dictators survive not by means of force or
ideology but because they convince the public—rightly or wrongly—that they are competent …

We propose a novel explanation for the most prevalent form of democratic breakdown after
the end of the Cold War: the subversion of democracy by incumbents. In the classics of …

Vladimir Putin has managed to achieve strikingly high public approval ratings throughout his
time as president and prime minister of Russia. But is his popularity real, or are respondents …

Constitutions in authoritarian regimes are often denigrated as meaningless exercises in
political theater. Yet the burgeoning literature on authoritarian regimes more broadly has …

Noncompliance--a critical aspect of organizational life--fits into the core of many social
science disciplines. However, to date, the diverse knowledge on the subject has not been …

We characterize a ruler's decision of whether to censor media reports that convey
information to citizens who decide whether to revolt. We find:(i) a ruler gains (his ex ante …

I develop a theory of propaganda which affects mass behavior without necessarily affecting
mass beliefs. A group of citizens observe a signal of their government's performance, which …

Most electoral fraud is not conducted centrally by incumbents but rather locally by a
multitude of political operatives. How does an incumbent ensure that his agents deliver fraud …