The Contributors

John Gerring is an associate professor of political science at Boston University. His books include Party Ideologies in America, 1828-1996 (1998), Social Science Methodology: A Criterial Framework (2001), Case Study Research: Principles and Practices (2006), Global Justice: A Prioritarian Manifesto (under review), and Centripetalism: A Theory of Democratic Governance (with Strom Thacker, under review). His articles have appeared in numerous political science journals. He is currently working on a book on democracy and development.

Philip Bond is an assitant professor in the Wharton Finance Department of the University of Pennsylvania. His articles have appeared in various economics journals.

William T. Barndt is a graduate fellow of the Fellowship of Woodrow Wilson Scholars at Princeton University. His dissertation analyzes attempts by elected presidents to suspend the basic political liberties of certain individuals and groups at particular moments.

Carola Moreno is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Economics at Boston University.

Jakub Zielinski is a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. He has published his work in World Politics.

Kazimierz M. Slomczynski is a professor of sociology and political science at The Ohio State University and is affiliated with the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is the coauthor (with Elizabeth Osborn) of Open for Business: The Persistent Entrepreneurial Class in Poland (2005). He specializes in cross-national research on social structure and mobility and on the social and political transformation of postcommunist societies.

Goldie Shabad is an associate professor of political science at The Ohio State University. She is the coauthor (with Richard Gunther and Giacomo Sani) of Spain after Franco: The Making of a Competitive Party System (1986). She is currently conducting comparative research on electoral accountability and þuid party systems in Central and Eastern Europe.

George Tsebelis is a professor of political science at UCLA. He is author of Nested Games (1990), Bicameralism (1997), and Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work (2002). His current work focuses on the institutions of the European Union, as well as on comparisons across political systems.

Eduardo Alemán is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Houston. He is currently working on a book on the effects of legislative institutions across Latin American legislatures. His research focuses on the comparative analysis of executive-legislative relations, party unity, and agenda-setting procedures.

Benjamin Smith is an assistant professor of political science and Asian studies at the University of Florida. He is currently completing his first book, entitled Hard Times in the Land of Plenty: Oil, Opposition, and Late Development. Other work has appeared in various journals. He is currently working on a book-length study of durable authoritarianism (with Jason Brownlee) and on a study of the conditions under which democracy can consolidate in oil-rich countries (with Joseph Kraus).