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Democracy and the Logic of Political Survival

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2008

KEVIN A. CLARKE  and
RANDALL W. STONE
KEVIN A. CLARKE*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
RANDALL W. STONE*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
*
Kevin A. Clarke is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0146 ([email protected]).
Randall W. Stone is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0146 ([email protected]).
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Abstract

Although democracy is a key concept in political science, debate continues over definitions and mechanisms. Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, Siverson, & Morrow (2003) make the important claim that most of democracy's effects are in fact due to something conceptually simpler and empirically easier to measure than democracy: the size of the minimum winning coalition that selects the leader. The argument is intuitively appealing and supported by extensive data analysis. Unfortunately, the statistical technique they use induces omitted variable bias into their results. They argue that they need to control for democracy, but their estimation procedure is equivalent to omitting democracy from their analysis. When we reestimate their regressions controlling for democracy, most of their important findings do not survive.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 102 , Issue 3 , August 2008 , pp. 387 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2008

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