Thomson had already generalized this analysis in his August 2011 paper "The Witches’ Hats Theory of Government: How increasing population is making the task of government harder". Here Thomson suggested that one reason many politicians around the world imposed policies to promote population growth was that they did not realize how likely it was to shorten their own political longevity. He assembled evidence suggesting that worldwide there is an inverse statistical connection between population growth and how long a given government is likely to last.