Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is an American political scientist and the Julius Silver Professor of Politics at New York University. His research applies game theory to international conflict, negotiation, political institutions and economic development. He has also served as president of the International Studies Association and as a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

His nonfiction treats politics as a system of incentives rather than a contest between noble intentions and personal failings. Working alone and with fellow political scientist Alastair Smith, he asks what leaders must do to gain power, reward indispensable supporters and remain in office. The method is analytical and often deliberately unsentimental, drawing examples from democracies and autocracies alike.

His books include The Predictioneer’s Game, about forecasting political outcomes; The Invention of Power, an argument about church-state competition and Western development; and The Spoils of War, co-written with Smith, on American presidents’ political incentives during wartime. His academic work helped develop selectorate theory, which studies how the size of a leader’s essential supporting coalition affects policy and political survival.

Start with The Dictator’s Handbook. It is the clearest entry into the central argument of his work: every ruler depends on a coalition, and the size of that coalition shapes taxation, public goods, corruption and repression. Its cases range from ancient Rome and Tammany Hall to modern states, turning formal political theory into a brisk work of explanatory nonfiction.