Kay Lawson is professor emeritus, San Francisco State University, and taught at the University of Paris (Sorbonne) from 1992 to 2000. Her degrees are from the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D. 1971). Her primary research interest is the comparative study of political parties. Her publications include The Comparative Study of Political Parties (1976), Political Parties and Linkage (1980), When Parties Fail (co-ed with Peter Merkl, 1988), How Parties Work (ed, 1994), Cleavages, Parties and Voters (coed with Andrea Rommele and Georgi Karasimoneov), and five editions of The Human Polity: A Comparative Introduction to Political Science (fifth forthcoming for 2002), as well as numerous articles in English and in French. She is President of the Research Committee on Political Sociology.