Recent research suggests that authoritarian leaders are most likely to initiate large-scale democratic reforms when they have a special combination of impulsive optimism and rational calculation. By using mathematical models to map how political leaders handle risk and reward, this study provides evidence that paths to reform, which may seem risky in the short term, are often beneficial in the long term. The survey results are American Political Science Journal.
Eugene Yu Ji, a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive science and computer science at the University of Waterloo and the Mira-Québec Institute for Artificial Intelligence, conducted the study to understand the psychological mechanisms behind major political changes. Ji, who was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago during his research, wanted to explain why strong leaders voluntarily relinquish control. Previous research has tended to focus on the broader social and economic pressures faced by governments rather than those in charge.
Ji designed this study to bridge the gap between these large-scale political dynamics and the individual cognitive processes that occur in the minds of leaders. The goal was to build a model that predicts how leaders will handle rare but highly impactful decisions. These situations include the capitulation of power, the initiation of large-scale economic transformation, or the country’s transition to democracy.
“One of the motivations is the gap between psychology and other social science fields in addressing many real-world problems,” Ji told PsyPost. “How authoritarian leaders make decisions is a central question in comparative politics, and it is fundamentally a psychological question, but psychologists have few answers, largely because it is difficult to study with most traditional empirical means. This led me to develop the framework of the authoritarian decision-making model.”
To investigate these decision-making processes, Ji created a mathematical framework based on a dynamic systems approach. Dynamical systems are mathematical methods used to explain how complex states evolve over time, similar to how astronomers predict the movement of planets. In this context, researchers used two mathematical equations to map how leaders’ thoughts and feelings change as they consider the future outcomes of potential reforms.
This model focuses on two different types of cognitive processing that occur simultaneously. The first is metacognition. This is the process of slowly, deliberately and consciously thinking about your own thoughts. In behavioral science, this mental engagement is sometimes referred to as System 2 thinking.
System 2 thinking allows people to handle complex analytical tasks and make logical decisions based on deliberate effort. In a mathematical model, this represents how leaders rationally calculate the potential benefits of reforms and the uncertainty surrounding those future rewards.
The second type of processing is subcognitive. This includes quick and automatic emotional responses to pressing situations. Scientists often refer to this quick, intuitive response as System 1 thinking.
System 1 works with little or no conscious effort, relying on intuition and past experience to make quick assessments. In this model, this represents a leader’s impulsive and risk-averse response to potential threat or loss. Researchers suggest that major political decisions require both systems to interact, balancing deep logical analysis with strong emotional instincts.
Ji applied this mathematical model to six historical and contemporary cases in East and Southeast Asia to test its accuracy. The sample includes China in the early 1990s and 2010s, Taiwan in the late 1980s, and Singapore from the 2000s to the present. It also included Myanmar in the early 2010s and Vietnam in the 2010s.
Researchers assigned a numerical score to each area based on historical data. These scores reflect domestic economic performance, the strength of the ruling party, and international geopolitical pressures. We then plugged these numbers into an equation to see if we could mathematically predict whether there would be major reforms, minor reforms, or no reforms.
In assessing Taiwan in the late 1980s, researchers noted that the ruling party achieved strong economic growth but faced indirect pressure from the United States. This particular combination of strengths and pressures created a high degree of risk-driven optimism in the mathematical model. The equation predicted that this would lead to major reforms consistent with Taiwan’s actual transition to democracy.
In contrast, this model analyzed China during the early 1990s, a period of intense political instability. The mathematical variables indicated scenarios in which leaders expected the risks of reform to simply outweigh the benefits. As a result, the equation accurately predicted that there would be no major changes in democracy and only minor economic reforms.
Overall, the calculations successfully predicted the actual historical outcome for five of the six cases investigated. The model accurately mapped major democratic reforms in Taiwan and Myanmar and the lack of political reform in Singapore and contemporary China. The only exception is Vietnam, where the model predicted major reforms but only small to moderate political changes actually occurred.
“While dictators may be sophisticated decision-makers, their actions are not beyond scientific understanding, and psychology can provide essential perspectives and tools to understand and analyze it,” Ji said.
This model suggests that major reforms occur only under very specific psychological conditions. Leaders must anticipate what researchers call a “bittersweet road.” This means that leaders expect an initial surge in uncertainty and risk after reforms are announced, representing a “bitter” stage.
However, leaders must believe that these uncertainties will eventually fall to a lower level than before the reform began, which corresponds to the “soft” stage. Researchers have found that rational calculations alone are usually not enough to encourage leaders to embrace this chaotic mid-term. Instead, this model provides evidence that leaders require a degree of wishful thinking driven by impulsive and emotional subcognitions.
This optimistic impulse allows them to overcome their innate aversion to risk and weather the initial instability of major political transitions. Small changes in the political environment can change these psychological variables and completely change outcomes. For example, small changes in economic performance or party strength can make leaders feel that the risks are too high and halt the reform process altogether.
“What surprised me most was how powerful and productive cognitive modeling approaches are for addressing major problems in political science,” Ji told PsyPost. “The practical importance lies in showing that important psychological processes that shape modern life, even those difficult to study with controlled experiments, can be meaningfully approached. Cognitive modeling provides a way for psychology to approach these types of questions, which are important across the social sciences.”
The mathematical model offers a new way to look at political history, but researchers say there are some caveats. This study does not confirm the biological reality of the two thought systems used in the equation, but rather uses them as a practical framework for understanding human behavior.
“This is a modeling study and does not confirm or deny the validity of the dual process framework of System 1 and System 2. System 1 and System 2 have very different interpretations within psychology and across the social sciences,” Ji explained. “Rather, we show that this framework can serve as a useful heuristic for specific questions and act as an interdisciplinary bridge in certain situations.”
The mathematical framework also does not take into account the dynamics of leadership across generations. For example, this equation does not take into account how older leaders behave differently from younger successors. This model currently treats the decision-making process as an independent event rather than a long chain of interconnected choices involving multiple politicians. Future research is expected to incorporate more complex scenarios.
“One of our goals is to develop a more integrated and dynamic explanation of System 1 and System 2 processes, bridging the gap between behavioral economics, where the framework is often seen as transformative, and psychology, where the framework is sometimes seen as overly simplistic,” Ji explained. “More broadly, this work paves the way for studying rare but important social science phenomena through cognitive modeling, and I have already begun several interesting and important projects building on this framework, particularly rare but critical decision-making under fundamental uncertainty across the social sciences.”
“This study suggests that psychology can contribute more powerfully to core questions in other social sciences than is commonly thought. It also highlights the value of theoretical and modeling approaches in extending the scope of psychology beyond traditional empirical settings (especially given the field’s strong empiricist orientation).”
This study, “Unraveling Authoritarian Reform Decision-Making: A Metacognitive-Subcognitive Model,” was authored by Eugene Yu Ji.
