So, you want to start a government? Using Federalist #1 to explain why not all governments are successful

Abstract

In Federalist #1, Alexander Hamilton identifies two developmental pathways for governments. He asserts that governments arise from either “accident and force” or by “reflection and choice”. He then goes on to claim that good governments arise from “reflection and choice” rather than through “accident and force”. This study is an attempt to validate or refute that claim by using a variety of metrics and historical knowledge to run regressions to study the relationship between government development and government quality. We found that formation type is a statistically significant determinant of government quality. Other factors that impact quality are regime age, continent, and type of government.