A lucidly written, shrewdly argued meditation on how democrats and dictators preserve political authority... Bueno de Mesquita and Smith are polymathic, drawing on economics, history, and political science to make their points...The reader will be hard-pressed to find a single government that doesn't largely operate according to Messrs. Bueno de Mesquita and Smith's model. So the next time a hand-wringing politician, Democrat or Republican, claims to be taking a position for the 'good of his country, 'remember to replace the word 'country' with 'career.'