Political Science Research and Methods Vol 5, No.

2, 261275 April 2017

The European Political Science Association, 2015 doi:10.1017/psrm.2015.63

Coalition Formation and Selectorate Theory:

An Experiment*
ANDREW W. BAUSCH

T
his paper uses a laboratory experiment to examine how different rules for re-selecting the
leader of a group affects how that leader builds a winning coalition. Leaders play an
inter-group game and then distribute winnings from that game within their group before
standing for re-selection. The results of the experiment show that leaders of groups with large
winning coalition systems rely heavily on distributing winnings through public goods, while
leaders of groups with small winning coalition systems are more likely to target specic
citizens with private goods. Furthermore, the experiment shows that supporters of small
coalition leaders benet from that support in future rounds by receiving more private goods
than citizens that did not support the leader. Meanwhile, citizens that support a large coalition
leader do not benet from this support in future rounds. Therefore, small coalition leaders
target individual citizens to maintain a coalition over time in a way not possible in a group
with a large winning coalition. Finally, in the experiment, small coalition leaders increased
their payoffs over time, suggesting that once power has been consolidated, small coalition leaders
narrow their coalition.

W
hile all leaders desire to remain in ofce, the strategies used by leaders holding ofce
under different regime types will inevitably be different (Bueno de Mesquita et al.
2005). The key question this paper addresses is how do leaders facing different
incentives assemble a coalition to preserve their hold on power. Furthermore, how do different
re-selection rules affect how leaders choose their strategy when building and maintaining a
coalition, while also trying to maximize their own benets? This paper uses an incentivized
laboratory experiment to address these questions.
In the experiment, subjects are divided into groups that vary based on the size of their
winning coalition and play an inter-group conict game. After the inter-group game, the leaders
distribute earnings within their group. This paper focuses on the distribution phase of the game
and the results show that, consistent with the predictions of Selectorate Theory, leaders assigned
to groups with large winning coalitions distributed points via a public good more frequently
than small coalition leaders, while small coalition leaders distributed points to individual citizens
via private goods more frequently.
Behaviorally, this paper proposes that small coalition leaders play a game similar to an apex
game and may begin their time in ofce by seeking to form a large coalition, but later aim to
increase their own payoff by excluding more demanding members of that initial coalition. In
fact, the experiment shows that in small coalition groups, citizens that supported the leader
in previous rounds beneted in the next round as leaders learned which citizens support is

* Andrew W. Bausch, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Institute for Politics and Strategy, Carnegie Mellon
University (bausch@nyu.edu). A draft of this paper was presented at the Midwest Political Science Associations
2013 Annual Conference and in the SDS Lecture Series at Carnegie Mellon University. The author thanks Bernd
Beber, Mik Laver, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Sarah Croco, John Miller, and Rebecca Morton for their helpful
comments. Funding for this study was provided by a New York University, Department of Politics Data
Gathering Grant. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/
psrm.2015.63

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 262 BAUSCH

easily bought. Small coalition leaders directed private goods to citizens that supported them in
past rounds of the experiment and away from citizens that did not. Moreover, consistent with
shrinking their coalition, as small coalition leaders remained in power, they increased their own
payoff. Meanwhile, focusing on individual citizens is too costly in a large coalition, so citizens
that supported the leader in a large coalition received no benet in future rounds for this support,
nor did large coalition leaders increase their own payoff over their time in ofce. Overall, the
experiment shows how the rules of small coalition systems allow leaders to form and maintain a
coalition by targeting individuals in a way not possible in a large coalition system.
This paper precedes as follows: I begin by discussing Selectorate Theory and how I use that
theory to induce regime type in the laboratory before I present the details of the game used in
the experiment. The next sections derive the hypotheses and explain the experimental procedure.
Finally, I present the results of the experiment before concluding.

COALITION FORMATION IN AUTOCRACIES AND DEMOCRACIES

This section begins by addressing how I dene regime types in the laboratory. To induce a
political regime in the laboratory, I rely on the assumptions of Selectorate Theory. According to
Selectorate Theory, the goal of all leaders is to retain ofce, but the strategy for doing so may
differ by regime type (Bueno de Mesquita and Siverson 1995; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999;
Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2004; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2005).
Selectorate Theory uses the ratio of two key components to determine regime type. The rst
component is the selectorate, S, which is the set of the population empowered to participate in
choosing the leader. The second component is the winning coalition, W, which is the minimum
subset of the selectorate that is of sufcient size to support a leader in power. Democracies tend
to have a large selectorate, that is, nearly all of the population can participate in choosing the
leader, and a large ratio of W to S, that is, a large proportion of the selectorate is required to
maintain a leader in power. In contrast, autocracies have a small ratio of W to S, implying that
dictators can lean on a few key supporters to keep themselves in power.1
The ratio of W to S has implications for the strategy used by the leader to satisfy his winning
coalition and retain ofce. In large coalition systems, too many votes are needed for a leader to
attempt to buy off voters with private goods, so democratic leaders tend to invest resources
in public goods. In contrast, in small coalition systems, the leader needs to satisfy fewer
supporters, making the distribution of private goods a low-cost strategy for a leader that hopes
to maximize her own payoff. Empirically, Morrow et al. (2008) show that democracies do, in
fact, invest more in public goods than autocracies.
While autocratic leaders use resources differently than democratic leaders, a related question
is whom do leaders target with goods. Specically, does having supported a leader previously
make an individual more likely to receive private goods in the future? In a large coalition
system, this preposition seems unlikely, as individuals receive so few private goods anyway.
While democratic leaders understand that high levels of public goods are necessary to continue
in ofce, this strategy is undertaken without regard for the votes of individual citizens. By the
nature of a public good, whether or not an individual voted for the leader does not affect her
ability to share in the public good once it has been delivered. Therefore, compared with key
supporters of an autocrat, citizens that helped place the leader of a large coalition in ofce
should expect fewer special benets in the future.
1
Throughout the paper, I refer to large coalition groups as groups with larger W/S and small coalition groups
as groups with a lower ratio of W to S.

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 Coalition Formation and Selectorate Theory 263

Meanwhile, in a small coalition system, previously supporting the leader indicates to the
leader that an individual will be satised if she continues to benet from the regime. The leader,
with some indication of what level of goods is necessary to maintain that support, can target
individuals with private goods at a level that satises them while excluding more demanding
citizens. Therefore, previous support for a small coalition leader will likely result in that citizen
beneting from the continued leadership of that leader in the future in a way not possible in a
large coalition system. Likewise, citizens that did not support an autocratic leader previously are
likely to receive no share of private goods in the future. Thus, the lack of both formal and
informal constraints on resource use by an autocratic leader enables the leader to target citizens
in a way that ensures enough support to prevent challenges to her hold on power (Acemoglu,
Verdier and Robinson 2004). Moreover, targeting individual citizens with private goods invests
those citizens in the regime and promotes loyalty to the leader in the future because citizens
worry they may be left out of future coalitions (Wintrobe 1998).
Furthermore, because an autocrats coalition is initially unstable, dictators will often form a
coalition consisting of more supporters than necessary and then eliminate redundant,
demanding, or threatening supporters from the coalition over time (Bueno de Mesquita et al.
2004; Svolik 2009). For example, Thornhill (2004) argues that, while coming to power in
Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser initially built a large oligarchy-style dictatorship. However, once he
began to consolidate power, Nasser jettisoned unnecessary coalition members, such as com-
munists and the Muslim Brotherhood, resulting in the elimination of all serious internal rivals
and securing Nassers hold on power. Likewise, Saddam Hussein relied on purges to undermine
the institutional power of Baath Party, which helped bring him to power in Iraq. Instead, he
ruled through relying on family ties and long-time associates (Karsh and Rautsi 1991, 17682).
In North Korea, Kim II Sung used a series of purges in the late 1950s to destroy factions within
the Korean Workers Party to eliminate all political competition and obtain virtually unrestricted
control over the party and the nation (Lankov 2002). Svolik (2009) argues this elimination
of former supporters is strategic behavior on behalf of the leader to move his rule from a
contested dictatorship to an established dictatorship, or a dictatorship that cannot be
credibly challenged. Here I build on this logic to argue that small coalition leaders, because of
the uncertainty of the process of power consolidation, may initially include more supporters
than strictly necessary in their winning coalition, but then disregard excess supporters later.
I now address how I test these predictions using a laboratory experiment.

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

To test the effect of political structure on the formation of coalitions, I present a game in which a
leader can distribute points within their group and then stand for re-selection. In the game, there
are two groups, each consisting of n members attempting to capture a prize of value p. One
member of each group is randomly selected as the leader and given a budget of points, b1 and b2,
respectively. The two groups engage in negotiations that may lead to conict over the division of p.
I present the details of the international conict phase of the game in the appendix and a full
analysis in Bausch (forthcoming). Here, I focus on the internal distribution phase.
In the distribution phase, the leader holds points from their budget plus their share of p.
Leaders can keep points for themselves, give them directly to individual group members, or
invest them in a public good, in which those points are multiplied by , where > 1, and then
distributed evenly to all members of the group. After the distribution, the group members vote
on retaining the leader for the next round. If the leader receives wg votes, where g represents the

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 264 BAUSCH

group number and the number of votes needed can differ between groups, the leader is retained
for the next round. If the leader does not receive the requisite number of votes, the leaders
payoff for the round is set to 0 and a new leader is randomly selected from the other members of
the group at the beginning of the next round.2 Before voting, citizens are informed of the total
points controlled by the leader, the points they received as private goods, and the points
distributed as public goods. Importantly, after voting, the vote of each citizen is revealed to the
leader and all other citizens.
Thus, the round payoffs for the citizens consist of any points given directly to that group
member by the leader plus /n times the amount invested in public goods by the leader. The
round payoffs for the leaders are the points kept by the leader plus /n times the amount invested
in public goods by the leader if that leader is retained and 0 otherwise. The payoffs here depart
from standard Selectorate Theory payoffs, where leaders do not benet from public good
spending, which likely biases leaders toward using public goods in the experiment.
Given that analyzing the domestic phase separately from the international phase may result in
the loss of experimental control, in this paper I only present results from rounds where no
international war occurred. While the results do not change when war rounds are included,
excluding rounds where war occurred gives me greater experimental control.3 In addition,
~74 percent rounds resulted in no war, so a large portion of the data remains available.
Moreover, the possibility of war seems unlikely to bias the results, as Bausch (forthcoming)
shows that once regime type and the leaders usage of points on public and private goods are
controlled for, the outcome of the war had no effect on whether or not the leader won re-
selection (see in the further section and the appendix). Therefore, analyzing the domestic phase
separately from the international phase in the manner done here is unlikely to bias the results.

EXPERIMENTAL PARAMETERS

The specic values of the parameters of the game used in the experiment are as follows: the
value of the prize, p, was 100 for all treatments. In each round the initial budgets are randomly
set to either 150 for both groups or 100 for one group and 200 for the other, with the more
powerful group also randomly determined in each round. Because I only analyze rounds with no
war, this resulted in both leaders controlling 200 points or one leader controlling 267 and one
controlling 133.
When the leader invests points in the public goods, those points are multiplied by 2.8 and
then distributed evenly to all members of the group. After receiving their allocation of points,
the citizens voted on whether to retain the leader from that round for the next round or not. The
number of votes needed for re-selection of the leader was w = 1 for small coalition systems and
w = 3 for large coalition systems.4 Varying the number of votes needed to win re-selection
changes W/S in accordance with Selectorate Theorys assumptions about retaining ofce in a
small versus large coalition system.
2
While acknowledging Goemanss (2008) nding on the post-tenure fate of leaders and how it differs by
regime type, this rule is meant to induce the leader to be primarily concerned with retaining ofce, the key
assumption of Selectorate Theory.
3
In models with lagged variables presented below, rounds are only included in the analysis if the previous
round also did not result in war.
4
The leader did not vote on her own re-selection. Given that the leader had a dominate strategy to vote yes
and that the computer lab only held 24 subjects, it made practical sense to set the group size to six so that four
groups could t in the lab at one time. While it may affect citizen behavior in small coalition systems given that a
single favorable vote ensures re-selection, I selected w = 1 to strengthen the treatment effect.

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 Coalition Formation and Selectorate Theory 265

DEVIATIONS FROM STANDARD SELECTORATE THEORY

Before turning to the hypotheses, it is important to note how the model tested here differs from
the standard model of Selectorate Theory. Perhaps most notably, I did not include a challenger
to the incumbent leader in the game. This omission was necessary to simplify an already
complex game. However, this simplication seems unlikely to bias the results because the
challenger in the standard model cannot credibly commit to provide goods to any defectors from
the incumbents winning coalition. Essentially, the challenger can only engage in cheap talk and
so, by itself, the simple up or down vote on the incumbent approximates this well.
However, the combination of lack of a challenger, small group size, and citizens replacing
removed leaders, all departures from the standard model but necessary for practical reasons
here, may result in different behavior than a test of the standard model. In fact, citizens who
believe that the ofce of leader is valuable may vote against an otherwise suitable leader, simply
because they anticipate random assignment into the leadership role in the next round. If citizens
behave this way, citizens in small coalition systems will be more likely than otherwise to vote
against the leader given that the role of leader is more valuable in a small coalition than in a
large coalition. Accordingly, citizens may demand a higher share of goods to support the leader
than would otherwise be expected in a small coalition system.
Another deviation from the standard model is that leaders receive a share of the public goods.
Especially in small coalitions, this will likely predispose leaders toward spending more on
public goods than in the standard model. The implications of this change to the leaders payoff
function is discussed in more depth in the hypotheses section as well as in the appendix.

HYPOTHESES

This section derives predictions about the experimental behavior in the game. The game begins
with the leader in control of the groups points after the negotiated settlement of the conict
phase of the game. The leader decides how to distribute the points within her group. The leader
faces the dilemma of distributing points in such a way that she ensures re-selection, while also
retaining as many points as possible for herself. Put more straightforwardly, if the leader gives
all the points to citizens, she may win re-selection but receive a low round payoff for herself.
Meanwhile, if she keeps too many points for herself, she will likely be removed from ofce (and
have her round payoff set to 0).
Assuming that each citizen has a reservation price that represents the minimum number of
points, she will accept for a payoff in a given round and still vote in favor of re-selection for the
leader, the cheapest way for large coalition leaders to secure enough support for re-selection is
through investing points in the public goods. Meanwhile, small coalition leaders can target one
citizen through private goods.5 Thus, I expect the experimental results to support Selectorate
Theorys prediction concerning the use of public goods and private goods by regime type,
leading to the following two hypotheses:

HYPOTHESIS 1a: Large coalition leaders will invest more resources in public goods than small
coalition leaders.

HYPOTHESIS 1b: Small coalition leaders will invest more resources in private goods than large
coalition leaders.

5
For a proof and a discussion of the underlying assumptions, see the appendix.

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 266 BAUSCH

While Hypotheses 1a and 1b address how coalitions are built, I now address how coalitions
will persist over time. In large coalition groups, when a citizen casts a vote in favor of a leader
in the previous round, that vote will likely have little effect on the actions of the leader in the
next round. Large coalition leaders that deviate from the public good strategy and instead
distribute private goods are unlikely to be re-selected. Therefore, the leader has no incentive to
reward supporters from previous rounds in the current round. In fact, targeting previous
supporters individually with private goods may draw so many resources away from the public
goods that the leader loses support overall. Thus, I expect that support for a large coalition
leader in one round will have little effect on a citizens payoff in the next.
However, previous support for the leader may affect the allocation of resources for a small
coalition leader. For a small coalition leader, staying in ofce is similar to playing the role of the
apex in an apex game. In an apex game, the apex player needs only to form a coalition with one
non-apex, or base, player to receive a positive payoff, while the only coalition with positive
payoffs that excludes the apex includes all base players. Therefore, the leader is similar to an
apex player in that she needs only one supporter to stay in ofce. Meanwhile, to remove the
leader from ofce, all citizens, who are similar to base players, must oppose the leader.
Research on the apex game shows that both apex and base coalitions form regularly in
laboratory experiments, as do grand coalitions including all base players and the apex player
(Kahan and Rapoport 1984).
Returning to the current game, in her rst round as leader, a small coalition leader may
deviate from the optimal strategy of targeting one citizen with private goods and instead target
multiple citizens with private goods or invest in public goods. Because she is unsure of the
reservation prices of her citizens, a small coalition leader can target more than one citizen to
increase her chances of nding at least one supporter. This strategy is akin, but not identical, to
attempting to form a grand coalition in an apex game. Assuming at least one citizens
reservation price is met, this deviation, while not maximizing points for the leader, allows the
leader to retain power. However, coalitions that are larger than necessary are not likely to be
stable in the long term (Acemoglu, Egorov and Sonin 2008).
For example, in the next round, a small coalition leader that targeted multiple citizens in the
rst round now has information about the reservation prices of at least some of her citizens. The
small coalition leader can use this information to target the citizen with the lowest reservation
price in subsequent rounds in order to increase her chances of both staying in ofce and
maximizing her own payoff. Small coalition leaders in their second round in ofce will likely
decrease payoffs to the citizens overall, increasing their own payoff while keeping the payoff of
at least one citizen that previously supported her constant. This strategy effectively exploits the
leaders role as an apex-like player with the ability to form multiple coalitions by choosing the
one that is most to her advantage (Beest, Dijk and Wilke 2004). As a result, citizens that did not
support the leader may all see their payoff decrease, while only some of the payoffs of citizens
that did support the leader will decrease. Overall, then, a citizen that supported a small coalition
leader in the previous round is likely to obtain a larger payoff in the current round than citizens
that did not support the same leader in the previous round.6 This payoff will induce the citizen
to continue to support the leader, especially considering a future leader may not provide that

6
It is important to note that the prediction is not that the payoff of previous supporters will increase in the
current round. The payoff may increase or decrease relative to the previous round, but it will be larger for
supporters from the previous round than for non-supporters. This is related to, but distinct from, Olivers (1984)
nding that base players punish other base players to induce the base coalition, as here the leader is punishing
base players for action in previous rounds.

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 Coalition Formation and Selectorate Theory 267

citizen any positive payoff at all. Considering this behavioral implication, Selectorate Theorys
assumptions about coalition formation lead to the following two hypotheses:

HYPOTHESIS 2a: In a large coalition, previous support for the leader will not affect a citizens
payoff in the current round.

HYPOTHESIS 2b: In a small coalition, a citizen that previously supported the leader will, on
average, have a higher payoff in the current round than a citizen that did not
support the leader in the previous round.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

I programmed the experiment in z-Tree and ran it at New York Universitys Center for
Experimental Social Science (CESS) (Fischbacher 2007). I recruited 120 subjects through
CESSs undergraduate recruitment pool to participate in ve sessions of the experiment. All
sessions included 24 subjects divided into four groups of six subjects.
After I obtained the subjects consent and read the instructions, the experiment began. Before
the rst round, subjects were randomly assigned to groups of six, randomly assigned a player
number, and a leader was randomly selected from each group.7 The groups and player numbers
remained the same throughout the experiment. The experiment lasted 18 or 20 rounds
depending on the session and the length was not revealed to the subjects.
At the beginning of each round, the four leaders in the session were randomly divided into
pairs and played the conict game, which is described in the appendix.8 Over the course of the
experiment, a given group was paired with three different groups for the inter-group game, but
leaders were only told the type of group they were paired with and not the specic group. They
also did not know the distribution of group types in the experiment. As noted above, in this
paper, rounds where leaders selected into war are excluded from the analysis.
After receiving her share of the negotiated settlement, the leader distributed points to
individual players or put them into a public good, described as a multiplier fund to the subjects.
Citizens learned the result of the inter-group game as well as how many points the leader had
available to distribute. After the leader distributed the points, all players were informed of their
direct payoff from the leader (their private goods), the total public good investment of the leader,
their share of the public goods, and their total payoff for the round. Citizens then voted on whether
to retain the leader and the result of the vote was revealed to all group members, as well as how
each individual member of the group voted. The leader retained her position for the next round if
she earned one or three votes, depending on the groups coalition size. If the leader lost the vote,
her round payoff was set to 0 and one of the other ve group members was randomly selected as
leader at the beginning of the next round.9
Subjects were paid a show-up fee of 10 dollars. Subjects received additional payment
according to a random round payoff mechanism (Morton and Williams 2010, 382). Two
rounds were randomly selected and used to calculate the subjects payoff from the experiment.
7
While Mintz, Redd and Vedlitz (2006) express concerns about the difculty of generalizing results obtained
from student subjects to the behavior of real-world national security decision makers, Hafner-Burton et al. (2012)
nd no evidence elites behave in a different manner than their student sample. Meanwhile, Belot, Miller and
Duch (2010) provide evidence that differences between student pools and non-student pools are fairly minor.
8
I present the results of the inter-group conict experiment in Bausch (forthcoming).
9
The full experimental instructions can be found in the appendix.

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 268 BAUSCH

Points from these rounds were converted to US dollars at a rate of 10 points to 30 cents.
The subjects earned an average of $3.80 during the experiment for a total of $13.80 (including
the show-up fee). The experimental sessions lasted about an hour.

RESULTS

Public and Private Goods

I begin by examining how leaders distribute their points. First, as Model 2 in Table 1 shows,
citizens in large coalition groups received a higher payoff in each round on average than citizens
in small coalition groups. The model predicts that the average citizen in a large coalition group
received a payoff of 76.5 points/round, while the average citizen in a small coalition group
received a payoff of 61.1 points/round, a statistically signicant difference. Model 3 in Table 1
and the accompanying marginal effects plot in Figure 1 help to explain this difference.
As predicted by Hypothesis 1a, for all three endowment levels, large coalition leaders place
signicantly more points in the public goods than small coalition leaders.10 Although small
coalition leaders did place a larger portion of their groups points in the public goods than
expected, large coalition leaders relied on the public goods even more heavily, which is
unsurprising given the predictions of Selectorate Theory that large coalition leaders would need
high public good expenditures to secure re-selection.11
I now turn to the use of private goods. While private goods in the form of direct payments to
citizens were used less frequently than public goods, Model 4 in Table 1 and the accompanying
marginal effects plot in Figure 2 support Hypothesis 1b, which predicted small coalition leaders
would give out signicantly more private goods than large leaders.12 Model 5 in Table 1 shows
similar results when the dependent variable is binary and represents whether or not a leader
distributed any private goods.
Taken together, leaders distribution strategies explain why citizens in large coalition groups
averaged higher payoffs than citizens in small coalition groups. Leaders of large coalitions
invested more points in the public goods, raising all members payoffs, while leaders of small
coalitions were more likely to target individual citizens with private goods.13

10
Throughout the results section, parametric regressions are presented. Regressions allow controls for both
experimentally induced variables, such as the groups endowment, and variables that are endogenous to the
experiments. For example, the log of the number of rounds the leader was in ofce is included in an attempt to
control for any learning during the experiment or for different types of leaders lasting longer in ofce than others.
See the appendix for scatter plots of key dependent variables plotted against the leaders rounds in ofce.
Parametric regressions also have the advantage of allowing the results to be interpreted more easily. Tobit
regressions are employed for all non-binary dependent variables due to the high level of censoring. In Models 3,
4, and 5, I dropped leaders that distributed no points as they made no decision (including them did not change the
results). The differences between regime type in Figure 1 are all signicant at the level of p 0.5.
11
The high use of public goods by small coalition leaders may be due to leaders beneting from the public
goods, which was true in the model but not in standard Selectorate Theory. The payoff function here biases
against the nding as small coalition leaders used more public goods than would have been expected in the
standard theory. This nding is consistent with Bauschs (2014) experimental test of Selectorate Theory and
Kahan and Rapoports (1984) nding that grand coalitions are common in apex games.
12
Private goods include only points given out to citizens, not points the leader kept for herself. The differ-
ences in Figure 2 for endowments of 100 and 150 are signicant at the level of p 0.5, while for endowments of
200 the p value is 0.062.
13
For a discussion of how spending on public goods translated into the probability the leader won reelection,
see gure 2 in Bausch (forthcoming).

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 Coalition Formation and Selectorate Theory 269

TABLE 1 Random Effects Regressions with Standard Errors Clustered on Individual Subjects
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Citizen Vote Round Payoff Public Goods Private Goods Private Goods (Binary)
Large coalition 0.643* 15.919*** 67.679*** 87.037*** 3.865***
(0.084) (0.000) (0.003) (0.009) (0.006)
Endowment 150 0.394* 22.669*** 106.756*** 22.894 1.094
(0.070) (0.000) (0.000) (0.296) (0.145)
Endowment 200 1.398*** 37.139*** 132.334*** 17.591 0.525
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.516) (0.552)
Log (times leader) 0.117 18.661*** 33.880*** 22.654 0.250
(0.313) (0.000) (0.000) (0.118) (0.594)
Round payoff 0.051***
(0.000)
Constant 2.532*** 12.812*** 10.103 10.377 0.056
(0.000) (0.000) (0.614) (0.725) (0.959)
Observations 1450 1450 271 271 271
Left-censored 152 15 236
Right-censored 0 116 0

Note: Model 1 is a logit regression estimating when an individual citizen votes in favor of re-selection of the
leader. Model 2 is a Tobit regression estimating the round payoff of an individual citizen. Models 3 and 4 are
Tobit regressions for the amount of public goods and private goods used by the leader in a given round,
respectively. Model 5 is a logit regression for if a leader used any private goods. The unit of analysis is the
individual citizen in Models 1 and 2 and the individual leader in Models 3, 4, and 5. Left-censored observations
occur when a citizen receives a payoff of 0 in Model 2 or a leader either uses no points for public or private goods
in Models 3 and 4, respectively. Right-censored observations occur when a leader uses all available points on the
public goods or private goods in Models 3 and 4, respectively.
*p < 0.10, **p < 0.05, ***p < 0.01.

300

250
Public Good Investment

200

150

100

50

100 150 200

Endowment

Fig. 1. Predicted level of public good investment by regime type and initial endowment with 95 percent
condence intervals
Note: large coalitions are represented by squares and small coalitions by diamonds.

Coalition Maintenance
Turning to Hypotheses 2a and 2b, I examine how domestic coalitions are maintained over time.
On one hand, it is clear from Model 1 in Table 1 that in the short term, a leader increasing a

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 270 BAUSCH

40

30

Private Goods
20

10

100 150 200

Endowment

Fig. 2. Predicted level of private goods dispersed by regime type and initial endowment with 95 percent
condence intervals
Note: large coalitions are represented by squares and small coalitions by diamonds.

citizens payoff increases the probability that that citizen votes for the leader.14 The results
presented in Table 2 and the marginal effects in Table 3 address whether leaders, when returned
to ofce, attempt to hold their winning coalition together through the use of private goods.
Model 1 simply looks at the round payoff of citizens controlling for their votes in the previous
round.15 Model 2 addresses if differences in payoffs are due to the level of private goods, asking
if a vote in favor of the leader in the previous round increased the amount of private goods a
citizen receives in the next. However, the fact that in only about 5 percent of citizen-rounds
did a given citizen receive private goods may make use of a Tobit model inappropriate.
Therefore, I code a binary variable 1 if a citizen received any private goods in a round and
0 otherwise in order to determine if a vote in favor of the leader in the previous round
increased the probability a citizen received private goods in the next. The key to all three models
is the interaction between the lagged vote of the citizen and regime type, as Hypothesis 2b
predicts supporters of small coalition leaders will be rewarded with private goods to hold the
leaders coalition together. Meanwhile, as Hypothesis 2a predicts, large coalition leaders rely
heavily on public goods that cannot target a specic voter, so I expect the lagged vote of a
citizen to have little effect on the goods that a citizen in a large coalition group receives in the
next round.
The results conrm that small coalition leaders reward their supporters while large coalition
leaders do not. As predicted by Hypothesis 2b, a vote for a small coalition leader in the previous
round results in that citizen having a payoff of 13.2 points higher in the current round than a
citizen that voted against an autocrat. The comparable number in a large coalition group is 2.3
points, supporting Hypothesis 2as prediction. Furthermore, citizens that voted in favor of a
small coalition leader in the previous round received over three times as many private goods as

14
A point received through the public goods or through a private good both increase the likelihood a citizen
votes for re-selection. Models not presented here suggest that across regime type, a point received as a private
good raised the citizens probability of voting for re-selection slightly more than a point received through the
public goods, results that bordered on statistical signicance.
15
The key difference between Model 1 in Table 2 and Model 2 in Table 1 is that leaders in their rst round
holding ofce have been dropped in Table 2 as the model includes a lagged vote. It is reassuring to note that the
main results from Model 2 in Table 1 continue to hold here.

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 Coalition Formation and Selectorate Theory 271

TABLE 2 Random Effects Regressions with Standard Errors Clustered on Individual Subjects
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Round Payoff Private Good Received Private Goods (Binary)

Large coalition 22.920*** 162.927 7.256
(0.000) (0.982) (0.996)
Lag vote 13.301*** 29.228*** 1.086***
(0.000) (0.003) (0.007)
Large coalition lag vote 10.982** 110.941 5.243
(0.016) (0.987) (0.997)
Endowment difference 0.272*** 0.133** 0.007***
(0.000) (0.047) (0.003)
Log (times leader) 10.029*** 22.034*** 0.779***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Constant 43.899*** 37.983** 1.467**
(0.000) (0.010) (0.011)
Observations 905 905 905
Left-censored 41 859

Note: Model 2 is a Tobit regression addressing the amount of private goods received by a citizen in a given round.
Left-censored observations occur when a citizen received no private goods. Model 3 is a probit regression addressing
the probability a citizen received private goods in a given round. The unit of analysis is the individual citizen.
*p < 0.10, **p < 0.05, ***p < 0.01.

TABLE 3 Predicted Round Payoff, Private Goods Received, and Private Goods as a Binary
Variable with Standard Errors in Parentheses by Lag Vote and Regime Type
Autocracy Large Coalition

Round Payoff Private Goods Binary Round Payoff Private Goods Binary
Lag vote = 0 62.4 0.79 0.008 85.2 0.00 0.000
(2.47) (0.368) (0.009) (3.38) (0.000) (0.000)
Lag vote = 1 75.6 3.24 0.065 87.5 0.208 0.001
(2.09) (1.01) (0.031) (1.86) (0.132) (0.001)
Difference 13.2*** 2.45*** 0.057** 2.3 0.208 0.001

Note: *p < 0.10, **p < 0.05, ***p < 0.01.

a citizen that voted against the leader. Similarly, a vote in favor of a small coalition leader
makes it approximately eight times more likely a citizen received some private goods in the next
round compared with a citizen voting against the leader. These results do not hold in large
coalition groups. A vote for the leader in the previous round has no effect on receiving private
goods in the next round in a large coalition group.
From Tables 2 and 3, different strategies for retaining ofce and maintaining a coalition
clearly emerge between large and small coalition groups. Large coalition leaders rely on public
goods in an attempt to satisfy enough voters to stay in ofce. In contrast, small coalition leaders
are more likely to target specic citizens with private goods because they need fewer votes to
retain ofce and can maximize their own payoff by excluding non-essential coalition members.
Moreover, the targeted citizen is likely to be a citizen that previously supported the leader.16

16
It is telling that all nine subjects (totaling 11 citizen-rounds) in the experiment that voted in favor of the
leader when receiving a payoff of 0 in a round were in small coalition groups. While merely suggestive, it seems

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 272 BAUSCH

TABLE 4 Random Effects Regressions with Standard Errors Clustered on Individual Subjects
(1) (2) (3)

Leader Private Leader Private Round Payoff

Large coalition 35.899 20.055 12.894
(0.277) (0.614) (0.189)
Endowment 150 26.242* 27.715* 36.331***
(0.081) (0.069) (0.000)
Endowment 200 69.110*** 71.575*** 68.090***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Experienced leader 15.030 20.233***
(0.481) (0.001)
Large coalition experienced leader 22.693 15.708*
(0.447) (0.077)
Constant 23.465 35.158 47.916***
(0.364) (0.259) (0.000)
Observations 237 237 237
Left-censored 154 154 1

Note: Only rounds in which the leader won re-selection are included. Models 1 and 2 are a Tobit regressions
addressing the amount of private goods kept by the leader in a given round. Left-censored observations occur
when a leader kept no private goods for herself. Model 3 is a Tobit regression addressing round payoff of leaders
in a given round. The unit of analysis for all models is the individual leader.
*p < 0.10, **p < 0.05, ***p < 0.01.

Because the leader knows the reservation price of that supporter, she can tune her distribution
strategy to increase her own payoff. Citizens that received private goods and then voted against
a small coalition leader represent those citizens that leader attempted to include in her coalition
but then are subsequently excluded through the drop in payoff. The next section presents
evidence that, once secure in ofce, small coalition leaders began attempting to maximize their
own payoff in a way not possible in a large coalition, namely through decreasing the payoffs of
those excluded from the coalition.

Leader Payoffs
Table 4 presents results related to the leaders strategy with respect to her own payoff. The data
used here contain only rounds when the leader won re-selection in order to test the differences
in successful leader strategies by regime type. Model 1 solely examines the effect of coalition
size on the amount of private goods kept by the leader. Although not statistically signicant, the
large coefcient suggests that small coalition leaders keep more for themselves. Predictions
from the marginal effects of the model suggest that, on average, small coalition leaders keep
about 44.1 points in private goods, while large coalition leaders only keep about 27.8 points for
themselves.
Models 2 and 3 in Table 4 add a variable to test for consistency with Hypotheses 2a and 2b.
Experienced Leader is a binary variable indicating whether the leader is in her rst round in
ofce or not. This measure is meant to provide insight into how a leaders strategy changes from

(Fnote continued)
likely they supported the leader in order to signal their low reservation price in hopes of receiving private goods
in the future. Moreover, the computer program used in the experiment defaulted to a vote to replace the leader, so
this nding is unlikely to be the result of inattentive subjects.

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 Coalition Formation and Selectorate Theory 273

the rst round in ofce to later rounds in ofce.17 Experienced Leader is interacted with
large coalition to see if leaders are changing their strategies over time. The argument above
anticipates that small coalition leaders can whittle down their coalition as they become more
secure in power, leading to an increase in their own payoff. This whittling can occur either by
excluding unnecessary supporters or decreasing payoffs to previous supporters. Meanwhile,
large coalition leaders, because they rely on public goods, are not likely to increase their own
payoff as they continue to hold power.
The predictions from the marginal effects from Model 2 suggest that small coalition leaders
keep about 7.7 points more for themselves in later rounds than in their rst round in ofce,
while large coalition leaders actually kept about 3 points less. Though this difference is not
statistically signicant, the results are consistent with the prediction that small coalition leaders
keep more points for themselves over time while large coalition leaders do not.
Meanwhile, Model 3 examines the overall round payoff for leaders that won re-selection.
Here, the marginal effects show that small coalition leaders increase their payoff by over
20 points with experience, a statistically signicant increase. However, large coalition leaders
only increase their payoffs by about 4.5 points after their rst round. Thus, once small coalition
leaders secure their hold on power, they increase their payoff much more than large coalition
leaders. Although only an indirect test, this increase is consistent with my conception of small
coalition leaders as apex players in an apex game. Small coalition leaders may initially attempt
to form an over-sized coalition giving payoffs to more citizens in their coalition than necessary
before knowing the relative reservation prices of potential supporters. Citizens that do not
support the leader reveal their relatively high reservation price. Once secure in ofce, small
coalition leaders increase their own payoffs by exploiting their role as apex-like players, purging
unnecessary or expensive coalition members, and targeting the citizen with the lowest reservation
price in order to maximize their own payoff.

CONCLUSION

This paper has presented an experiment to test how leaders build support for themselves under
different regime types. It began with the assumptions of Selectorate Theory, namely, that regime
type is determined by the ratio of the number of supporters needed to stay in power to the
number of potential supporters. When this ratio is high, leaders must act democratically and
appease a large number of citizens to stay in power. When this ratio is low, the leader can target
a narrow group of allies and still retain ofce. According to Selectorate Theory, large coalition
systems will result in that leader investing more resources in public goods, while small coalition
leaders can funnel private goods to the few supporters they need. The experimental results
strongly supported the predictions of Selectorate Theory. Large coalition leaders invested more
heavily in public goods than small coalition leaders. Meanwhile, small coalition leaders relied
on private goods to purchase the votes of individual citizens more frequently than large
coalition leaders. Overall, this had the effect of making citizens in large coalition systems better
off than citizens of small coalition systems.

17
Changing Experienced Leader to continuous measures of time in ofce produce similar results, but
Experienced Leader is used here for simplicity. Summary statistics show that small coalition leaders in their rst
round in ofce averaged 89.0 points, while experienced small coalition leaders averaged 99.2 points. Meanwhile,
large coalition leaders in their rst round in ofce averaged 92.1 points, while experienced large coalition leaders
averaged 97.6 points.

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 274 BAUSCH

However, I must add a caveat to the discussion of public versus private goods in the
experiment. The experiment did not make the distribution of club goods a possibility. The
experiment also provided no possibility or incentives for special interest groups to develop.
Given the ability of such groups to shape legislation to their benet outside the laboratory,
adding club goods to the experiment may decrease the advantage that large coalition systems
have at providing public goods.
This paper also proposed that small coalition leaders, needing so few supporters to stay in
power, are in a position similar to the apex player in an apex game. In the current game, small
coalition leaders only needed the support of one citizen, or base player, while all citizens
are necessary to remove the dictator from ofce. Working from a behavioral perspective,
I predicted that small coalition leaders would initially attempt to form grand coalitions that
included more than the lone requisite supporter. However, subsequently, small coalition leaders,
now having some information about the reservation prices of their citizens, would only target
the citizen who was cheapest to buy off. Results consistent with this prediction emerged,
as small coalition leaders targeted previous supporters with private goods to hold their
coalition together rather than trying to buy off new, and potentially more demanding,
supporters. Thus, a citizen that supported the leader in the previous round in a small coalition
received a higher payoff in the next round than a citizen that did not support the leader.
In contrast, rewarding previous supporters would have proved too costly for large coalition
leaders, and so previous support for the leader had little effect on citizens payoffs in future
rounds.
The difference between how large and small coalition leaders use resources and build and
maintain coalitions in the experiment has implications for how coalitions form under different
regime types we see in the real world. Coalitions in large coalition systems will likely be
relatively exible or adaptable as the cost of leaving a leaders coalition is low. Meanwhile,
coalitions in small coalition systems are likely to decrease in size as the leader consolidates
power. Once secure in power, coalitions in small coalition systems may become xed, because
leaders can target supporters with private goods and supporters, now invested in the leaders
system, have little incentive to leave the leaders coalition.
Furthermore, while not directly tested in this paper, the converse of this nding is consistent
with the theory presented here. As an autocrats grip on power loosens, that autocrat may need
to expand the coalition, or return the coalition to its original size, through co-opting opposition
groups. This broadening of dictatorship in response to threats has been noted by several scholars
(Przeworski 1991; Lust-Okar 2005; Gandhi and Przeworski 2006; Lucas 2012). The experiment
presented here suggests that as a dictators hold on power tightens, that dictator will gradually
cut supporters out of the coalition in an attempt to form an established dictatorship in which the
leader has unchallenged power and control of resources.

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