Autocracy is a system of government in which one person has absolute power over a country or state. Laws and the opinion of the masses do not restrain an autocrat’s decisions. Autocracies are small-coalition systems.

Democracy is a form of government in which the citizens of a state have the power to decide legislation either directly or indirectly through elected officials. For Bueno de Mesquita and Smith, democracies have a large number of essentials and a large number of interchangeables, with the influential group being almost as big as the interchangeable group. The authors underscore that no two democracies are alike, differing in the make-up of interchangeables, influentials, and essentials. They use the term “democracy” in the book out of convenience. They strongly believe that large-coalition systems are the key to improving life for people around the world.

Dictatorship is a form of government in which absolute power is in the hands of one person or small group. Dictatorships are often identified with an autocracy, although they do not need to be. For Bueno de Mesquita and Smith, this type of government has a “particularly small number of essentials drawn from a very large group of interchangeables and, usually, a relatively small batch of influentials” (8).