Politics takes place in time and space–both the immutable physical space and the institutional space that politics can alter, but with much inertia. To express the effects of such limiting frames, I have developed a number of logical quantitative models. By "logical quantitative" I mean models that can be constructed without data input, on logical grounds, and then can be quantitatively tested. Here I try to make my approaches and results more understandable so as to enable others to apply this particular set of methods to further problems in political science and related fields. My topics can be divided into the following four categories:

a) The size of countries, assemblies and electoral districts matters for their functioning. Exactly how does country size affect the size of its legislative assembly, its foreign trade/GNP ratio, and the sizes of cities?

b) Sizes of populations, countries and defense budgets change over time–growing, declining, interacting. How do more universal patterns of growth and duration enter those empires and cabinet coalitions? How do social phenomena such as population explosion and hyperinflation proceed?

c) The number and size distribution of political parties is affected by institutional frameworks. According to which logical models?

d) Finally, conversion from people to representatives takes place in several forms. Popular votes translate into assembly seats for different parties. Populations of countries affect their seat shares in supranational assemblies. The conversion is usually less than proportional, under-representing the smaller parties, yet over-representating the smaller nations. What are the hidden rules of conversion?

Formed in 2001, Res Publica won the Estonian parliamentary elections in 2003, and its leader became prime minister. It lost the elections for the European Parliament in 2004 and was down to 5 % in opinion polls. The founding chair of the party analyzes here the causes for Res Publica's rapid rise and fall, reviewing the sociopolitical background of its rise and drawing comparisons with other new parties. Res Publica was a genuinely new party that involved no previous major players and might be characterized as a "purifying bridge party" that filled an empty niche at center right. Its rise was among the fastest in Europe. For success of a new party three factors must be present to a sufficient degree, as expressed by the following multiplication: Prospect of success = Membership x Financial Support x Visibility. Res Publica had all three. Overly rapid success spoiled the party leadership. Their governing style became arrogant and they veered to the right, alienating their centrist core constituency. Reformists proved fickle opportunists. It no longer mattered for the quality of Estonian politics whether Res Publica vanished or survived.