Regime change is the removal of a political regime and its replacement with another, often in pursuit of foreign policy goals. In recent years, the United States has engaged in regime-change operations abroad, nominally in the name of democracy and human rights, but actually to advance its economic and security interests. This strategy has been largely unsuccessful, producing civil wars and other deleterious side effects.
In this article, we develop a global game in which atomistic citizens face a dilemma: They can either support or resist a rebellious regime’s authority by rioting, but the success of the rebellion depends on their level of discontent. The regime can best survive hostile popular riots by optimally setting the amount of public goods. However, the regime’s information supply is biased against it and thus unable to fine-tune its policies. As a result, it is prone to corruption and can lose office rents in the event of a successful revolt.
In the game, we find that policymakers may be prone to focus on the desirability of the goals of forcible regime change and neglect to think about the full resources required. This leads to a miscalculation of the risks and leads to costly and lengthy nation-building missions. In addition, foreign policymakers should remember that the domestic audiences of imposed leaders are often different from their external patrons, and doing things to please one invariably alienates the other. This drives a wedge between an imposing power and its local proteges, and ultimately undermines the legitimacy of imposed regimes.
