ABSTRACT
This chapter provides empirical support for the argument that small state size should be associated with the formation and maintenance of political democracy and with a lack of political protest, irrespective of income. The analysis attempts to provide empirical support for the argument that small state size should be associated with the formation and maintenance of political democracy and with a lack of political protest, irrespective of income. G. Bingham Powell uses population size, in his analysis of democratic states, finding that population size is a significant predictor of riots. However, Powell tests only democratic countries and therefore has a small number of total cases. Statistical confirmation of the relationship between state size and political democracy was complicated by a problem encountered in the data analysis: namely the use of statistical measures of association such as correlations between state size and political democracy variables when the variables are all measured on an ordinal scale.
