Book excerpt: Development and Democracy confirms the robust relationship between levels of economic development and democracy, but suggests that globalization is a key variable in determining the tenuous nature of this relationship in the periphery of the world economy. It raises new questions about the role of social classes in democratization, and points to the importance of including the nature of the state as a factor in the study of democratization. A further important finding is that countries with mixed legal systems correlate less positively with democracy than do countries with more homogenous legal systems. Moreover, Development and Democracy shows conclusively that the way researchers design their studies has a major impact on their findings.