A Theory of Political Legacy

• In Event: Models of the Presidency

Abstract

Political leaders care about their policy legacies, even in authoritarian regimes. Because of societal actors' bounded rationality (such as limited memory or limited attention), a leader would like to devote most of her effort on developing only one policy reform that can be the most recognized by society out of several options. In a dynamic environment, thanks to the legacy concern, the new leader would pick a policy dimension that makes herself sufficiently differentiated from her predecessor, although such a dimension is not the mostly demanded by society. We develop a game theoretic model to analyze such pursuit of legacies by leaders under authoritarian contexts. The model generates several implications under authoritarian regimes such as swing of policy focus across different leaders on the same position, and more specifically the political budget cycles in China. We also analyze an extension with a potential threat to the incumbent's position during her term. Such a threat will strengthen the legacy effect and offer the incumbent stronger incentive to defend her policy focus.

Author

• Jidong Chen, Beijing Normal University