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Table 1 about here
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Findings
The results of this preliminary analysis are encouraging, though I must emphasize
that these results are based on a limited sample. The full analysis will provide much stronger
tests of these hypotheses. The logit results are shown in Table 2. Three of the independent
variables achieved statistical significance at the .05 level. The coefficient on the number of
factions in a self-determination group is negative and significant, indicating that an increase
in the number of factions makes agreement over autonomy less likely. Likewise, the
coefficient on the number of veto players in the state is negative and significant, indicating
that the greater the number of veto players, the less likely an autonomy transfer is.
However, the interaction term of veto players and logged GDP is also significant but
positive. This indicates that the negative effects of multiple veto players may be mitigated by
an increased amount of state resources.
No other variables achieved significance in this analysis. The coefficient on
economic value has an unexpected positive sign but is not statistically significant. The
coefficients on other controls are also insignificant.
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The number of observations in the
logit analysis is 80. A number of cases were dropped from the analysis due to a lack of data.
Specifically, I am missing data on self-determination groups for a number of variables such
as percent of total population and number of countries with ethnic kin. While MAR has a
number of gaps in their dataset at the group level, I believe that these omissions can be
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I also ran the analysis including whether or not the group had received autonomy in the 10 years prior to
1991, but this did no change the results significantly. Given the moderate level of correlation usually found
between economic performance and level of democracy, I also ran this test controlling for democracy. The
results were unchanged, and democracy was not a significant predictor of autonomy agreements.
Convention