The study analyzed factors to denote the effectiveness of state institutions, population well-being,[1] and found that partial democracies with low involvement in international trade and with high infant mortality are most prone to revolutions.
[3] The State Failure Problem Set dataset and spreadsheets were originally prepared in 1994 by researchers at the Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM) at the University of Maryland under the direction of Ted Robert Gurr and subject to the review of the State Failure Task Force.
The Problem Set was subsequently reviewed, revised, and updated on an annual basis through 1999 under the direction of Ted Gurr and, beginning in 1999, Monty G. Marshall at CIDCM.
A few, like the events in South Africa's black townships in 1976–77, involve large-scale demonstrations and riots aimed at sweeping political reform that were violently suppressed by police and military.
Additional variables specific to the Adverse Regime Change episodes are as follows: Genocide and politicide events involve the promotion, execution, and/or implied consent of sustained policies by governing elites or their agents or in the case of civil war, either of the contending authorities that result in the deaths of a substantial portion of a communal group or politicized non communal group.
In the case of genocide and politicide authorities physically exterminate enough (not necessarily all) members of a target group so that it can no longer pose any conceivable threat to their rule or interests.
[4] Quantitative models developed during the study would have accurately predicted over 85% of major state crises events occurring in 1990–1997.