1. Graphical Presentation for Robustness Checks AKA Pretty Pictures for Everyone!
Benjamin Graham

2. Today’s Plan Powersharing and Democratic Survival Varying the Lags
Hard Cases (aka subsetting the sample)
Benjamin Graham

3. Powersharing and Democratic Survival
Three types of powersharing
Inclusive, Dispersive, Constraining
Which, if any, promote democratic survival?
If you are a democracy in year t, what institutions cause you to still be a democracy in year t+5?
Benjamin Graham

4. The Data 180 countries from 1975-2010
Index measures of each type of powersharing
Observational data
Benjamin Graham

5. Causal inference in this context
Benjamin Graham

6. 19 page paper
41 page online appendix

7. Empirical Approach Sample = Democracies in year t
Dependent Variable: Regime type (binary) in year t+5
Logit regressions
Benjamin Graham

8. Varying the Lags The choice of five years is arbitrary
So let me show you what happens with:
1 year lag
2 year lag
...
8 year lag
10 year lag
Benjamin Graham

9. I could make a giant regression table
Benjamin Graham

10. Benjamin Graham

11. What do you need?
Coefficients & standard errors from your variables of interest
Organized into their own mini dataset
Benjamin Graham

12. First set up the mini-dataset
drop if gwno == .
scalar numobs = _N
moreobs 10
gen lead = .
replace lead = _n-numobs
foreach var in constraining inclusive dispersive{
gen `var'_coef = .
gen `var'_se = . }
Benjamin Graham

13. Then fill in the values forvalues i=1(1)10 {
quietly logit F`i'.democracy constraining CONTROLS, robust
replace constraining_coef = _b[constraining] if lead == `i'
replace constraining_se = _se[constraining] if lead == `i' }
Then drop everything else and save
drop if lead == .
keep lead constraining_coef constraining_se
saveold varying_lags, replace version(13)
Benjamin Graham

14. Benjamin Graham

15. Benjamin Graham

16. Hard Case Subsamples
Some countries are at no risk of democratic failure
Are low-risk countries driving our results?
Evaluate subsamples of high risk cases
Benjamin Graham

17. Hard Case Subsamples Recent civil war (3 flavors) High state fragility
New democracy
Poor
Recent financial crisis
Ethnic divisions (2 flavors)
Low predicted survival (our own models)
Benjamin Graham

18. Benjamin Graham

19. Benjamin Graham

20. Benjamin Graham

21. And if you need help with any of this…
The slides and code are up on my website under “Useful Stuff”
SPEC Lab stats consulting office hours
And/or me:
Don’t be shy!
Benjamin Graham