Publications by Author: James Alt

1990
A Unified Model of Cabinet Dissolution in Parliamentary Democracies
Gary King, James Alt, Nancy Burns, and Michael Laver. 1990. โ€œA Unified Model of Cabinet Dissolution in Parliamentary Democracies.โ€ American Journal of Political Science, 34, Pp. 846โ€“871.Abstract
The literature on cabinet duration is split between two apparently irreconcilable positions. The attributes theorists seek to explain cabinet duration as a fixed function of measured explanatory variables, while the events process theorists model cabinet durations as a product of purely stochastic processes. In this paper we build a unified statistical model that combines the insights of these previously distinct approaches. We also generalize this unified model, and all previous models, by including (1) a stochastic component that takes into account the censoring that occurs as a result of governments lasting to the vicinity of the maximum constitutional interelection period, (2) a systematic component that precludes the possibility of negative duration predictions, and (3) a much more objective and parsimonious list of explanatory variables, the explanatory power of which would not be improved by including a list of indicator variables for individual countries.
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