January 19th, 2011
The revolution in Tunisia is a fascinating story on many levels, from the First Lady fleeing with 1.5 tons of gold to the First Daughter being holed up at DisneyLand Paris. But what interests me most is how the mechanics of abdication work in the modern world.
First off, it should be clear that abdication is a very good thing. Western governments looking at Third-World autocrats should do everything in their power to make clear to corrupt rulers that if they want to slip out, they’ll live out their days in luxury and comfort. The CIA should have a standing offer to guys like Bashar al-Assad that if things get too hot, we’ll set them up in a Swiss castle with Tricia Helfer, half the Florida State cheerleading squad, and a lifetime of free shopping on Amazon.com.
The reason, of course, is simple game theory: If you’re a strong-man sitting on top of an unstable government with no way out, then your incentive is to be as brutal as possible when things go sideways. Better to have an attractive offer of exile than streets full of dead rioters and a last stand in the palace bunker.
But abdication requires that a number of conditions be met: They tyrant needs means, a path to asylum, and the ability to take care of enough loyalists that these foot soldiers can successfully get him out of the country.
All of which means that the time optimal time for abdication is going to come in the foggy period after the tyrant believes his rule is untenable, but before the rest of the ruling class reaches the same conclusion. That’s a pretty narrow window under any circumstances, particularly because once our tyrant makes his decision to leave, then it becomes essential that no one else find out about it until he’s safely out of the country. Nearly everyone who does find out will have to be bought off (or killed) to prevent an information cascade cutting off his escape.
That was all hard enough to orchestrate in the bad old days, but I imagine that mass communication and the internet has made it significantly harder.
It would be great if someone wrote a thorough tick-tock of how Ben Ali escaped.
Kathy January 20, 2011 at 12:51 am
What would really be better than the tick-tock on Ben-Ali’s escape, would be someone finding out why Baby Doc came back to Haiti.