Kemal Kivanc Akoz Spoke on 'Political Change Driven by a Dissident Elite: The Effect of Rents from Power and Information'

On November 17 a research seminar on political economy took place at HSE. Kemal Kivanc Akoz (NYU Abu Dhabi) presented the report on 'Political Change Driven by a Dissident Elite: The Effect of Rents from Power and Information'.

Abstract:

We study how a dissident elite influences the mass public to mobilize against the incumbent regime. In our model, a sizable dissident group and a continuum of individuals decide whether to mobilize based on their private information about the strength of the regime. Both types are better-off coordinating, but the dissident group appropriates the rents from power if change occurs. The influence that the dissident group exerts depends largely on whether individuals observe its action. When individuals do not observe the group's mobilization decision, higher rents and a more precise assessment of the regime's strength make them more aggressive. When individuals do observe the group's action, rents can make them less aggressive. When the group's information is arbitrarily more precise, individuals disregard their own information and follow the group's action whatever it may be. Our paper provides a simple framework to analyze public mass protests leading to regime change in the past three decades.