Dynamics of Formal Political Structure: An Event-History Analysis

Abstract

In exploring a series of hypotheses from the modernization and world-system perspectives regarding the causes of changes in national political structure, we depart from the static tradition of cross-national research and apply event-history methods to records on 90 countries over the 1950-1975 period. Like previous investigators, we find that per capita gross national product, population, and ethnic diversity affect overall rates of political change. However, our results also suggest that the effects are more complex than earlier quantitative research has shown.