"The Rules for Rulers"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

"The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" (2022, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith)

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

Both publications cover the politics of most firms with stakeholders. =3

You should read "The Dictator's Handbook". Dictators may be driven to externally irrational behavior by what appear internally to be an entirely rational chain of decisions. And I mean rational in the Homo economus sense of the word.

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

It's also one of the subjects in The Dictator's Handbook, an excellent layman's read on political economics by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith.

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

If you want the hardcore game theory version, check out The Logic of Political Survival by the same authors: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/gov2126/files/bueno_mesquita...

In light of the prior article about ICANN as an unaccountable private company (1), this is a good time to encourage everyone to read Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's The Dictator's Handbook (2). This is a classic setup for dictatorship by a small cabal (the board): a vast, unempowered populace, a clear source of money (increasing domain fees), and a fairly small elite that needs to be compromised, particularly relative to the size of the unempowered populace.

If governments and corporations haven't already started buying influence, I'd be shocked.

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/21/icann-int...

(2) https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...