James D. Morrow, University of Michigan

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, New York University and Hoover Institution,

Randolph M. Siverson, University of California, Davis, and

Alastair Smith, New York University

 

This paper is a reply to Clarke and Stone’s (2008) critique of some of the empirical tests presented in the Logic of Political Survival. The paper prepared for the APSR is here. The following table contains the additional statistical results discussed, although not presented, in the paper.

 

Unfortunately, due to length constraints and editorial directives, not all of our responses could be included in the above manuscript. Here we attach two additional documents. The first deals with an explanation as to why Clark and Stone find the empirical results they do.

 

Second, Clarke and Stone incorrectly argue that Bing Powell’s measure votegov is a measure of coalition size. They then show that votegov is not associated with private and public goods in the manner predicted by selectorate theory. We are not surprised by this result as the selectorate theory does not predict the alleged association between votegov and policy outcomes.

 

We believe strong in replication and transparency. For this reason we made all the Logic of Political Survival data readily available. These data are available at http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/data/bdm2s2/Logic.htm. Continuing our belief in making materials available, the batch file required to run all the analyses presented is available.

 

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