Contents -- 1 Introduction / Democracy, Parties, and Performance -- The Contemporary Democracies -- Political Parties and the Democratic Order -- Standards of Political Performance -- 2 Political Performance / The Initial Comparison -- Citizen Voting Participation -- Stable and Effective Government -- Maintaining Political Order -- Compatibility of the Performance Dimensions -- 3 The Social and Economic Environment -- Population Size -- Modernization and Economic Development -- Social Cleavages -- Economic Divisions -- A Brief Multivariate Consideration -- 4 The Constitutional Setting -- Constitutional Design -- Constitutional Design and Political Performance -- Constitution and Culture -- Socioeconomic and Constitutional Effects -- 5 Party Systems and Election Outcomes -- Attributes of Party Systems -- Fractionalization -- Parties and Social Groups -- Extremist Parties -- Volatility of Party Strength -- Party-System Dynamics -- Party Systems and Democratic Performance -- 6 Citizen Involvement / Participation or Turmoil -- Getting Citizens to the Polls -- A Causal Model of Voting Participation -- Turmoil and Its Containment -- 7 Government Performance / Executive Stability -- Parliamentary Systems: Government Formation -- Parliamentary Systems: Durability of Governments -- Presidential Government -- 8 Managing Violence and Sustaining Democracy -- Elite Bases of Deadly Violence -- Organized Violence: Strategic Objectives and Consequences -- How Democracies Are Replaced: Military and Executive Coups -- 9 Democratic Performance / Liberty, Competition, Responsiveness -- Civil Liberties -- Political Competition -- Policy Responsiveness -- 10 Conclusion / Constraint and Creativity in Democracies -- Relationships among the Dimensions of Performance -- Executive Control and Economic Manipulation -- Institutionalizing Compromise: Consociational Practices.

Requirements for Performance and Survival -- Comparative Analysis: Limits and Directions -- Appendix -- Notes -- Index.