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Time Remembered: A Dynamic Model of Interstate Interaction Crescenzi, Mark J. C. Enterline, Andrew J. Uploaded 05-23-2000 Keywords dynamic model growth decay cooperation conflict Abstract Over time, states form relationships. These relationships, mosaics of past interactions, provide political leaders with information about how states are likely to behave in the future. Although simple, this claim holds important implications for the manner in which we construct and test empirically our expectations about interstate behavior. Empirical analyses of interstate relations implicitly assume that the units of analysis, principally dyad-years, are independent. Formal models of interstate interaction are often cast in the absence of historical context. In the following paper, we construct a dynamic model of interstate interaction that we believe will assist scholars employing empirical and formal methods by incorporating history into their models of interstate relations. Our conceptual model includes both conflictual and cooperative components, and exhibits the basic properties of growth and decay indicative of a dyadic behavioral history. In an empirical exposition, we derive a continuous measure of interstate conflict from the conflictual component of the model. Turning to Oneal and Russett's (1997) analysis of dyadic conflict for the period 1950-85 as a benchmark, we examine whether the inclusion of our measure of interstate conflict significantly improves our ability to predict militarized conflict. We find empirical support for this hypothesis, indicating that our continuous measure of interstate conflict significantly augments a fully specified statistical model of dyadic militarized conflict. We conclude that our research underscores the considerable purchase gained by incorporating historical context into models of interstate relations.

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Voter Turnout and the Life Cycle: A Latent Growth Curve Analysis Plutzer, Eric Uploaded 04-09-1997 Keywords turnout life-cycle random effects model HLM latent growth models Abstract The distinctive relationship between age and voter turnout has intrigued students of electoral behavior since at least the early 1960s. Nevertheless, political scientists actually know little about how individuals acquire the habit of voting during young adulthood. Moreover, previous speculations and explanations are all questionable because they are based on data and models that are inappropriate for what is essentially a developmental process. Problems include confounding age with generational effects, assumptions of reversibility of gains in participation from key life events, and a failure account for the fact that an individual's probability of turnout at any particular age is a function of two distinct latent variables: their turnout rate in the very first elections, and their subsequent rate of increase. Theory construction is muddled because these two variables are negatively correlated and have different predictors. This study uses longitudinal data covering young voters over their first four presidential elections and uses latent growth curve models -- a special case of multi-level or Hierarchical Linear Models which are finding wide applicability in the social sciences. Given appropriate data, this approach permits statistical models that better correspond to life-cycle hypotheses. The findings clarify the role of parental influence, marriage and parenthood, while raising questions about the costs of mobility.