An additional, unrelated note: the model of The Dictator’s Handbook suggests that incentives push away from the middle, towards total democracy (when there are already a large number of key supporters) or total autocracy (where the number of key supporters approaches one). But don’t other models suggest that the middle state of oligarchy is actually the default, and that both democracy and monarchy tend to decay towards oligarchy over time? And aren’t examples of this widespread? I notice that I am confused.
I haven’t read The Dictator’s Handbook or know what models there are already, but an autocrat could choose to convert to oligarchy to ensure a stable succession plan (assuming they felt no other autocrat could successfully wield power other than them), and a democracy could become an oligarchy if no individual could seize enough power to directly become an autocrat, but a group working together could. Under the right circumstances these incentives could overwhelm the ones going in the opposite direction.
The common strategy for autocrats is to name successors, typically their own children.
If the dictator’s handbook is right about the forces, oligarchy isn’t a “stable succession plan” (because it’s less stable), so this wouldn’t make oligarchy an equilibrium, it would just make nothing an equilibrium. (IE these forces don’t balance out, they just keep transitioning other states into the least stable state, which would result in continuing transitions back and forth.)
I haven’t read The Dictator’s Handbook or know what models there are already, but an autocrat could choose to convert to oligarchy to ensure a stable succession plan (assuming they felt no other autocrat could successfully wield power other than them), and a democracy could become an oligarchy if no individual could seize enough power to directly become an autocrat, but a group working together could. Under the right circumstances these incentives could overwhelm the ones going in the opposite direction.
The common strategy for autocrats is to name successors, typically their own children.
If the dictator’s handbook is right about the forces, oligarchy isn’t a “stable succession plan” (because it’s less stable), so this wouldn’t make oligarchy an equilibrium, it would just make nothing an equilibrium. (IE these forces don’t balance out, they just keep transitioning other states into the least stable state, which would result in continuing transitions back and forth.)