Succession Rules and Leadership Rents

Kai Konrad and Stergios Skaperdas

No 5206, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Leaders compensate supporters not just for performing their duties but also in order to preempt an overthrow by the same supporters. We show how succession rules affect the power of leaders relative to supporters as well as the resources expended on possible succession struggles. We compare two regimes of leadership succession: the conclave regime and the divide-et-impera regime which differ with respect to the role of supporters of the previous leader once the new leader takes power. The leadership rent is higher and supporters receive a lower compensation in the divide-et-impera regime, as supporters have to fight harder for succession to avoid the grim outcome of loss. Leaders, then, would like to induce the divide-et-impera regime even when every supporter has veto power over his leadership.

Keywords: Political leadership; Political support; Political survival; Successorship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D74 H50 N40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP5206 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Succession Rules and Leadership Rents (2007)
Working Paper: Succession rules and leadership rents (2007)
Working Paper: Succession Rules and Leadership Rents (2005)
Working Paper: Succession rules and leadership rents (2005)
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:cpr:ceprdp:5206

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP5206

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().