Autocracy and Revolutions

Existing models of political transitions tend to treat either civil society or the incumbent as a unitary actor. Although useful in specific settings, both these assumptions are unrealistic in most cases and miss important dynamics, especially in cases of revolution. We develop a model of transitions in which two collective action games are nested within a larger political transformation game. We treat civil society as a large-N group that needs to overcome a collective action problem in order to overthrow an autocratic incumbent. On the other side, the incumbent is modeled as a coalition of civil and military authority that is engaged in a coordination game. On both sides of the game there is uncertainty about how the other game will end. Both of these nested games influence each other, and the payoffs for the different players depend crucially on what happens in all the other games. We illustrate the game through cases studies of autocratic incumbent – civil society interactions in Burma, Portugal, Poland and Romania. Draft – Very much a work in progress!