What is the incentive of the Pakistani government to catch terrorists and hoe does it depend on how democratic the government is?
A democratic leader’s incentives are driven by the desire to get re-elected. Suppose voters vote retrospectively – that is they are backward looking and punish the leader for bad performance. (This can be made forward-looking by adding some story about political competence revealed by performance.)
If terrorism adversely affects the “voters” but voting is not occurring as the country is a dictatorship, it’s optimal for the U.S. to promote democratization. A leader motivated by re-election has better incentives to reduce terrorism. But if terrorists are supported by the median voter, there is no incentive to promote democratization. In fact, if the dictator is threatened by terrorists, it is better to have a dictator in place.
So, a realist perspective suggests only partial support for spreading democracy. The “model” above is very simple but would already suggest checking the preferences of the average voter before pursuing democratization. Hamas anyone?
This is only a sketch but there are alkso sorts of more subtle incentive issues that come out of it. Future posts. Maybe Jeff can get in on the game?
Cheap Talk 
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February 25, 2009 at 4:02 pm
jeff
I think that once you take into account the incentives for the government to fight terrorrists the dictatorship begins to dominate. fighting terrorists within your own borders is a public good. a dictator internalizes the benefits of this public good more than an individual voter in a democracy. the efficiency of public good provision shrinks in a large democracy but is roughly constant in a dictatorship.
We have to factor in the foothold that the terrorists already have. To put them on an equal footing, lets say that if a fraction x of the population are already terrorists, then the dictator is a terrorist with probability x. As x increases you are likely to have terrorists control the government in either case. Perhaps at some point for large enough x you start to prefer democracy because democratic institutions, once in place, are likely to limit the damage that a terrorist government can inflict.
March 24, 2009 at 5:17 am
Mikko
How about the possibility that the dictatorship changes the preferences of the people, in other words, having a dictatorship increases support for terrorists. How does a calculation then change?
March 24, 2009 at 5:49 am
Jason
If fighting terrorism (in your own borders) is a public good then democracy will likely lead to antiterrorism activity. FOr a dictator to stay in power they probably have to pay off a small group of people (generals etc) to stay in power, but in a democracy that have to pay off a large good – more in the nature of public goods (see Mesquita)
Its hard to imagine within border terrorism being supported by the average voter.
March 24, 2009 at 5:51 am
Jason
If fighting terrorism (in your own borders) is a public good then democracy will likely lead to antiterrorism activity. FOr a dictator to stay in power they probably have to pay off a small group of people (generals etc) , but in a democracy that have to pay off a large GROUP to stay in power – more in the nature of public goods (see Mesquita)
Its hard to imagine within border terrorism being supported by the average voter.
March 24, 2009 at 11:27 am
Medi
As Mikko said, in medium-run having a dictatorship will lead people to oppose the government (in their hearts) and support the opposition. If the opposition is a terrorist group that fights the government, it may gain median voter support. The story DOES NOT end here.
Now, when the government becomes democratic, the median voter will choose the terrorist group. Then again in the medium-run people will understand that the new government (of terrorist group) is not certainly better than the previous one and the median voter will choose the opposition next time (which could be different from the both previous ones). The equilibrium of this is that either terrorists will lose power or they gradually switch to more moderate policies to stay in power. In either case, the problem of terrorism is solved.
This is the main reason that we should promote democracy all over the world (but not with force obviously). Dictatorship in the medium to long-run is against everybody’s interests.
March 26, 2009 at 8:53 am
sandeep
Hi: I wrote a second entry on this partly to respond you your comments.
April 3, 2009 at 8:23 pm
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