We provide a general framework for the analysis of the dynamics of institutional change (e.g., democratization, extension of political rights or repression of di¤erent groups), and how these dynamics interact with (anticipated and unanticipated) changes in the distribution of political power and in economic structure. We focus on the Markov Voting Equilibria, which require that economic and political changes should take place if there exists a subset of players with the power to implement such

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... hanges and who will obtain higher expected discounted utility by doing so. Assuming that economic and political institutions as well as individual types can be ordered, and preferences and the distribution of political power satisfy natural "single crossing" (increasing di¤erences) conditions, we prove the existence of a pure-strategy equilibrium, provide conditions for its uniqueness, and present a number of comparative static results that apply at this level of generality. We then use this framework to study the dynamics of political rights and repression in the presence of radical groups that can stochastically grab power. We characterize the conditions under which the presence of radicals leads to repression (of less radical groups), show a type of path dependence in politics resulting from radicals coming to power, and identify a novel strategic complementarity in repression. Political change often takes place in the midst of uncertainty and turmoil, which sometimes brings to power -or paves the road for the rise of -the most radical factions, such as the militant Jacobins during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution or the Nazis during the crisis of the Weimar Republic. The possibility of "extreme" outcomes is of interest not only because the resulting regimes have caused much human su¤ering and powerfully shaped the course of history, but also because, in many episodes, the fear of such radical extremist regimes has been one of the drivers of repression against a whole gamut of opposition groups. The events leading up to the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia illustrate both how an extremist fringe group can ascend to power, and the dynamics of repression partly motivated by the desire of ruling elites to prevent the empowerment of extremist -and sometimes also of more moderate -elements. Russia entered the 20 th century as an absolute monarchy, but started a process of limited political reforms in response to labor strikes and civilian unrest in the aftermath of its defeat in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. Despite the formation of political parties (for the ...rst time in Russian history) and an election with a wide franchise, the repression against the regime's opponents continued, and the parliament, the Duma, had limited powers and was considered by the tsar as an advisory rather than legislative body (Pipes, 1995). The tsar still retained control, in part relying on repression against the leftist groups, his veto power, the right to dissolve the Duma, full control of the military and cabinet appointments, and his ability to rule by decree when the Duma was not in session. This may have been partly motivated by the fear of further strengthening the two major leftist parties, Social Revolutionaries and Social Democrats (corresponding to communists, consisting of the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks), which together controlled about 2/5 of the 1906 Duma and explicitly targeted a revolution. 1