Revolution or gradualism: optimal strategy of a leader

Abstract

Leader wishes to confront/overthrow the present regime and every period chooses the nature of its opposition. Opposition can either be a non-political protest or a political protest. The non-political protest does not threaten the existence of the present regime. The sucess or failure of both the types of protest depends upon the unknown ability of the leader and mass participation. We find that for intermediate ranges of the ability of the leader, it is optimal for the leader to follow a strategy of gradualism in which it undertakes non political protest initially to favorably update the belief about his ability and mobilize a higher participation for the political protest. For very low and high values of the ability of the leader, it is optimal to do the political protest in the first period.