Political Survival Analysis

Political survival analysis applies survival and event-history models to the time leaders, governments, and regimes remain in power before failing. Methodologically it rests on the hazard-modeling apparatus codified for social scientists by Box-Steffensmeier and Jones in 2004 — the Cox proportional-hazards model and parametric alternatives such as the Weibull, estimated on duration data with censoring. Substantively it is anchored in the selectorate theory of Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, Siverson, and Morrow's 2003 The Logic of Political Survival, which explains the hazard of losing office in terms of the size of the winning coalition (W) and the selectorate (S). The model links institutional structure and performance to the risk that an incumbent's tenure ends.