Jennifer Gandhi

This book wasn't quite what I expected. The author's basic thesis, which she repeats on several occasions, is enticing: dictators use nominally democratic institutions for concessions and cooperation with opponents and outsiders. However, she relies on previous research in formulating this starting point (see p.77-81). Her personal contribution, which comes in the latter half of the book, consists only of statistical analyses of various social and economic data from countries ruled by dictatorships: she uses variables contrived to represent civil liberties, social spending, economic growth, natural resources etc. and calculates correlations.

It must have required a great deal of work to compile this database, especially considering how dispersed the sources seem to be. But despite all the hard work, the author's own conclusions seem tentative and unclear. I don't think she really manages to say anything interesting about how or why dictators use nominally democratic political institutions. I did like the first three chapters of this book, where the author discusses the subject in general terms and presents a few illustrative cases. But if you're looking for new perspectives on dictatorship, this book has little to offer aside from the bibliography it cites.… (meer)