Download or read book The Performance of Nations written by Jacek Kugler and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2012-09-16 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some nations fail while others succeed? How can we compare the political capacity of a totalitarian regime to a democracy? Are democracies always more efficient? The Performance of Nations answers these key questions by providing a powerful new tool for measuring governments’ strengths and weaknesses. Allowing researchers to look inside countries down to the local level as well as to compare across societies and over time, the book demonstrates convincingly that political performance is the missing link in measuring power and military capability. This groundbreaking work will be an essential resource for scholars, policymakers, and institutions interested in measuring the political capacities of nations and in knowing where foreign aid and investment will be most effective.