ABSTRACT
I think that statistical methods provide the best strategy to test the evolutionary theory of democratization outlined above. We can derive testable hypotheses from the theory and test them by empirical evidence. For this purpose, we have to define empirical variables to measure hypothetical concepts, to formulate research hypotheses on the relationships between variables, to collect empirical evidence on variables, and then to test hypotheses by statistical methods. This kind of comparative method in which the same variables are used for all countries makes the results comparable from one country to another and allows us to test hypotheses by statistical analysis techniques, although it leaves out a part of variation that is due to other factors. The results show to what extent the variation in democratization can be explained by one theoretically grounded explanatory factor-the degree of resource distribution.
