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<jats:p> Why do some citizens remove the same politicians that they elected from office? This article examines the use of recall referenda, an increasingly prevalent process in which citizens organize a vote to remove politicians from office before they complete their terms. Although celebrated as a tool to improve electoral accountability, we argue that recall referenda are organized to pursue political vendettas. We test this claim using an original data set on the different stages leading to subnational recalls in Peru. Recalls are initiated more often when politicians lose by narrow vote margins and when women hold office. Once put to a vote, citizens do use office performance to decide whether to retain their politicians. Losing politicians organized fewer recall referenda following an institutional reform that allowed politicians to name their successors. The implication is that recall referenda create weak incentives to improve office performance, but careful institutional design can improve their functioning. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Monarchy was the dominant form of rule in the pre-modern era and it persists in a handful of countries. We propose a unified theoretical explanation for its rise and decline. Specifically, we argue that monarchy offers an efficient solution to the primordial problem of order where societies are large and citizens isolated from each other and hence have difficulty coordinating. Its efficiency is challenged by other methods of leadership selection when communication costs decline, lowering barriers to citizen coordination. This explains its dominance in the pre-modern world and its subsequent demise. To test this theory, we produce an original dataset that codes monarchies and republics in Europe (back to 1100) and the world (back to 1700). With this dataset, we test a number of observable implications of the theory—centering on territory size, political stability, tenure in office, conflict, and the role of mass communications in the modern era. </jats:p>