The hazard rate of political regimes

We present a preliminary study on the stability of political regimes. In a longitudinal data set we study the effect of some observable economic and p olitical conditions on the hazard rate of different types of political regi mes. We find that economic development has a stabilizing effect in countrie s with democratic political institutions, but rich autocracies do not show a lower hazard rate than less developed autocracies. While the stability of autocracies is not affected by their degree of economic development, it is greatly associated with the degree of popular discontent. Widespread disco ntent with leaders in autocratic regimes highly increases their hazard rate . This relationship is much weaker for regimes with democratic institutions . We also find a non-monotonic time dependence pattern for the hazard rate of political regimes. Political regimes are found to be at an increasing ri sk of collapse during the first years, with their hazard rates reaching a p eak around the fourth year.