INCUMBENT PARTY RE-ELECTION IN AUSTRALIA, CANADA AND THE U.S. AN EXPONENTIAL DECAY MODEL

Exponential functions, widely employed in the physical sciences, also have been used to model some political phenomena. To the best of our knowledge, however, no one has employed this tool to replicate the electoral survival of the government or administration in several democracies. In this paper, we report that an exponential survival model is a good fit for the re-election rate of the party controlling the executive in states or provinces in three countries, Australia, Canada, and the United States.