Authoritarian Election as an Incentive Scheme

Authoritarian rule requires teamwork of political elites. However, elite class members may lackincentive for the contribution of their efforts. In this paper, we develop a model to study the deci-sion of authoritarian rulers to introduce elections. Our model suggests that elections can moti-vate the ruling class to devote more effort to public good provision. As a result, elections alleviatethe moral-hazard-in-teams problem within the authoritarian government. Excessive electoral con-trol hinders the introduction of elections, but mild electoral control facilitates it. Our findingsoffer a new perspective on understanding authoritarian elections and explain many stylized factsin authoritarian regimes