Dictators walking the Mogadishu line: how men become monsters and monsters become men by Willems, T, Larcom, S, Sarr, M

“…History offers many examples of dictators who worsened their behavior significantly over time (like Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe), while there are also cases of dictators who have displayed remarkable improvements (like Jerry Rawlings of Ghana). We show that such mutations can result from rational behavior when the dictator's flow use of repression is complementary to his accumulated stock of wrongdoings. …”