Why autocrats get high on skyscrapers
Quantifying the relationship between concentrated power and vanity skyscrapers has presented a tricky problem
The Ryugyong Hotel towers over the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, a 105-storey concrete pyramid that's been dubbed the Hotel of Doom and even the "worst building in the history of the world". Construction began in 1987, halted five years later, then resumed in 2008. The exterior was eventually completed, but according to reports the hotel has still not opened. It's the kind of building only a dictator could love. Political scientists have long noted how fond autocratic rulers are of "white elephants", expensive and useless construction projects. Yet quantifying the relationship between concentrated power and vanity skyscrapers has presented a tricky problem: not all autocracies are alike, nor are all boondoggles. In a working paper published last month, two researchers at the University of Oslo proposed a clever solution, cross-referencing a database of completed skyscrapers against a mechanism for scoring governments across time, country and the degree to which power resides wi...
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