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""Contents""; ""1. Background to the Study of Political Capacity""; ""2. What Is Political Capacity?""; ""3. Recent Analyses of the State and Political Capacity""; ""4. Institutions and Political Capacity""; ""5. Legitimacy and Political Capacity""; ""6. The Measurement of National Political Capacity""; ""7. Conclusions""; ""Appendix: Country Values for the Chronological Age of National Political Institutions and the Generational Age of the Top National Political Leadership""; ""Bibliography""; ""Index

Differences in voter turnout among industrial democracies are a function of political institutions and electoral law. Specifically, the presence of nationally competitive electoral districts provides incentives for parties and candidates to mobilize voters everywhere, thereby increasing turnout. Disproportionality in the translation of votes into legislative seats provides a disincentive to voting, which lowers turnout. Multipartyism assigns elections a less decisive role in government formation, depressing turnout. By generating more decisive governments, unicameralism provides a clearer link between elections and legislation, increasing turnout. Finally, mandatory voting laws produce a disincentive to not vote. Empirical analyses of average voter-turnout levels in the 1970s and 1960s across 19 democracies are consistent with these expectations, although Switzerland and the United States appear to be outliers. The results have major implications for the way we interpret national differences in voter-turnout rates.

It is commonly believed that elections in the industrial democracies reflect a democratic class struggle, according to which lower-income voters support parties of the Left while higher-income voters protect their interest by voting for parties of the Right. This interpretation hinges critically on a series of implicit assumptions. First, the class-struggle thesis assumes that most industrial democracies have majoritarian political institutions. Second, it assumes that the typical form of political competition follows the responsible-parties model, which implies, among other things, that parties are fundamentally programmatic, adopting distinctive positions along a left-right continuum. When these assumptions are evaluated in light of the available evidence on the nature of party systems, political competition, and voting behavior, they are judged to be largely implausible. Thus, the democratic-class-struggle thesis constitutes a seriously flawed interpretation of elections.

It is often suggested that cross-national statistical research is excessively narrow & oversimplified, that it is plagued by unique measurement problems, & that it can have few causal implications. In light of these arguments, the role of such research in the comparative study of politics is evaluated here. The experimental, "comparative," & statistical modes of empirical analysis are compared, & issues in the development of generalizations, identification of variables, & interpretation of relations between variables considered. Problems associated with making causal inferences in cross-national research are addressed, involving a comparison of cross-sectional & longitudinal designs, a discussion of measurement validity, & a consideration of the fact that empirical research seldom offers a full, direct test of a theory. It is concluded that the comparative & statistical methods share a common logic of analysis, & that the latter can be a powerful tool in the comparative study of politics. 63 References. HA.