Big Questions, Little Answers

Majority faction
share hoard
Minority faction
cooperate plot cooperate plot
Nature
10 12
8 6
success success fail
(probability = p) fail
(probability = 1- p)
12(1 -p)
-2p 10(1 - p) -2p -2(1- p)
12p -2(1 - p) 12p
Fig. 2.3. Game between factions within personalist clique
operation would be much lower, but rarely lower than the payoff
for refusing to cooperate.
After the leader's faction has chosen its strategy, the rival
faction must decide whether to continue supporting the regime
or not. During normal times, it has strong reasons to continue.
Because its members "face the prospect of losing all visible
means of support in a political transition, they have little option
but to cling to the regime, to sink or swim with it" (Bratton and
van de Walle 1997, 86).
Unlike in single-party regimes, the leader's faction in a per-
sonalist regime may actually increase benefits to itself by exclud-
ing the rival faction from participation. Where the main benefits
of participation in the government come from access to rents
and illicit profit opportunities, the payoff to individual mem-
bers of the ruling group may be higher if these benefits need not
be shared too widely. It may also be easier to keep damage to
the economy below the meltdown threshold, and thus increase