SIMULATION OF POLITICAL-DEVELOPMENT, POLITICAL-CONFLICT, AND REGULATION POLICIES

What are the relationships among political development, political conf lict and attempts to regulate political conflict? I approach this ques tion from both empirical analyses and a simulation model in order to b etter understand the interactive relationships. The relevant data are extracted from the ''Time-series Cross-national Data Archive'' constru cted by A. Banks, and the ''World Handbook of Political and Social Ind icator III'' constructed by Taylor and Jodice. The tentative result of the sensitivity analysis of the simulation model shows that political development does matter. Its findings support Huntington (1968). That is, the relationship of political development and political violence is an inverse U-curve. Insurgency is minor in the less developed and h ighly developed systems, but it occurs most often in the developing sy stems. The relationship of political development and protest is positi ve; the higher the political development, the more the protest behavio rs. However, the correlation of political development and sanctions is negative. This finding supports Gurr and Lichbach (1986), Henderson ( 1991), and Ziegenhagen (1994). Yet, the relationship of political deve lopment and sanction apparatus is positive. Finally, the highly develo ped systems are distinguished by their limited use of sanctions and by their ability to handle political violence.