Przeworski’s theory starts from a simple seeming claim: that “democracy is a system in which parties lose elections.” It then uses a combination of game theory and informal argument to lay out the implications. If we assume (as Przeworski assumes) that parties and political decision makers are self-centered, why would the ruling party ever accept that they had lost and relinquish control of government? Przeworski argues that it must somehow be in their self-interest to so. He argues that they will admit defeat if they see that the alternative is worse, and (this is crucial) because democracy generates sufficient uncertainty about the future that they believe they might win in some future election. They know that they will hurt their interests if they refuse to give in, and they have some (unquantifiable but real) prospect of coming back into power again. Democracy, then, will be stable so long as the expectation of costs and the uncertainty of the future give the losers sufficient incentive to accept that they have lost.
