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Chapter Twelve: Domestic Institutions and National Performance
We can describe all domestic political systems in terms of the size of their winning coalitions and selectorates. The selectorate is the group of people in a society who have a say in the selection of the leader; the winning coalition is the subset of the selectorate whose support maintains the leader in office. Leaders of political systems with large selectorates and large winning coalitions have incentives to use public goods, which provide dispersed benefits to all members of a society, to stay in office. This often results in good public policy, which leads to economic growth, higher levels of education, and success in foreign policy (winning wars). Leaders of political systems with small winning coalitions, regardless of the size of the selectorate, have incentives to use private goods, which benefit only the individuals who control them, to stay in office since they have far fewer people to please.
- What is a winning coalition? What is a selectorate? How do they differ?
- What are public goods? How do they differ from private goods? Which do leaders of small winning coalition systems use, and why? Which do leaders of large winning coalition systems use, and why?
- In general, what effect does this differential incentive to provide public goods have on trade policy? On economic growth? On success in wars? On foreign aid?
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