The Investment Theory of Wars: Belligerent Dictators in the McGuire/North-Model of Autocracy

Thomas Wilke

Public Choice, 2002, vol. 112, issue 3-4, 319-33

Abstract: In the early 90s Martin C. McGuire and Mancur Olson Jr. developed an economic explanation of autocracy. The differentiation between roving and stationary bandits is the core of their theory. The authors claim that an "invisible hand" leads to a conversion of roving bandits into stationary bandits. In this respect, stationary bandits are "public goods providing kings" who reign peacefully. Thus, war is hardly a rational political option. However, this result stands in contradiction to the overwhelming evidence for wars in human history. Therefore, war as a political option is introduced. It is shown that the McGuire/Olson argument challenging the idea that the welfare of people ruled by stationary bandits is always higher than welfare of people ruled by roving bandits proves to be valid only under certain circumstances. Copyright 2002 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0048-5829/contents link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:112:y:2002:i:3-4:p:319-33

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().