Statistical Analysis of Executive Stability in Serbia 1990-2011

Marko Pejković

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to mesure the degree of executive stability in Serbia via possible correlation between two political notions: one being the fragmentation of the party system and the other the stability of the government, e.g. the length of the period during which the “cabinet” is in office. If the correlation is strong, we can conclude that this would not only permit us to follow further changes of their relationships, so to have some basic insights of their processual tendencies also, but it would also enable us to raise the Serbian political science to a higher level, which implies a relatively reliable prognostics through the use of the regression. Prior to that, an overview of all known formulas for the fractionalization is presented and one option is chosen, for even though the formula does not influence the coefficient of the correlation or the regression, we have wanted to clarify some counterintuitive inconsistencies which can emerge when bias toward under/overestimation of the fragmentation in the formulas is mathematically detected.

References

1. Vukomanović, D. (2005) ”Dinamika partijskog sistema Srbije (1990-2005)”, Srpska politička misao, 14 (1-2): 29-52.
2. Dumont, & Caulier, J. F. The “Effective Number of Relevant Parties”: How Voting Power Improves Laakso-Taagepera’s Index; http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/17846/ (15.02.2011)
3. Dunleavy, P. & Boucek, F. (2003) ”Constructing the Number of Parties”, Party Politics, 9 (3): 291-315.
4. Hinton, P. R. (2004) Statistics explained. New York: Routledge.
5. Јovanović, M. (2008) Političke institucije u političkom sistemu Srbije. Beograd: Institut za političke studije.
6. King, G. (1988) ”Statistical Models for Political Science Event Counts: Bias in Conventional Procedures andEvidence for the Exponential Poisson Regression Model”, American Journal of Political Science, 32 (3): 838-863.
7. King, et al. (1990) ”A Unified Model of Cabinet Dissolution in Parliamentary Democracies”, American Journal of Political Science, 34 (3): 846-871.
8. Kuster, S. Botero, F. (30.09 – 10. 2008) ’’How Many is Too Many? Assessment of Party System Fragmentation Measurements with Data from Latin America”, Ponencia para presentar en el 1 Congreso de la Asociación Colombiana de Ciencia Política, Bogotá.
9. Laakso, M. & Taagepera, R. (1979) “Effective Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to Western Europe”, Comparative Political Studies, 12 (1): 3-27.
10. Lajphart, А. (2003)Modeli Demokratije, Beograd, Podgorica: Službeni list SCG, CID.
11. Lijphart, A. (1990) ”The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws 1945-85”, The American Political Science Review, 84 (2): 481-496.
12. Lijphart, A. (2008) Thinking about Democracy – Power sharing and majority rule in theory and practice, London, New York: Routledge.
13. Molinar, J. (1991) ’’Counting the Number of Parties: An Alternative Index’’, The American Political Science Review, 85 (4): 1383-1391.
14. Nikolenyi, C. (2004) ‘’Cabinet Stability in Post-Communist Central Europe’’, Party Politics, 10 (2): 123-150.
15. Taagepera, R. (1999) ”Supplementing the effective number of parties”, Electoral Studies, (18): 497-504.
16. Taylor, M. & Herman, V. M. (1971) ’’Party Systems and Government Stability’’, The American Political Science Review, 65 (1): 28-37.
17. Warwick, & T. Easton, S. (1992) ’’The Cabinet Stability Controversy: New Perspectives on a Classic Problem’’, American Journal of Political Science, 36 (1): 122-146.