Democracy and infant mortality within India: from whether to why

Abstract

How does democratic politics affect infant mortality? The bulk of existing research has debated whether democracies have lower levels of infant mortality than non-democracies. Yet, infant mortality varies as much within countries as it does between countries, suggesting that the political processes affecting infant mortality operate at the subnational level. To shed new light on the debate, this paper examines how three core democratic attributes affect infant mortality within a single democracy: India. I argue that higher levels of political representation, citizens' participation, and electoral competition provide political incentives for elected representatives to reduce infant mortality. The theory is tested on a times-series data set from 15 major Indian states between 1980 and 2011. Overall, the results demonstrate the significance of democratic politics, particularly political representation, in influencing infant mortality.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Service Delivery: Delivery of Government Provided Goods and Services in India

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Do More Female Politicians Translate Into Better Health Outcomes? Gender Representation and Infant Mortality in Argentine Provinces

“…There is an increasing consensus on the positive relationship between competitive regimes—usually framed in terms of democratic versus non‐democratic regimes—and health outcomes (Besley & Kudamatsu, 2006; McGuire, 2010; Vollmer & Ziegler, 2009; Wang, Mechkova, & Andersson, 2018). Political competition has been thought to encourage population health by incentivizing politicians to provide public goods and services (Gerring, Thacker, & Alfaro, 2012, p. 2), and exercising the necessary pressure on them to be proactive (Bellinger, 2018, p. 13). Hence, the electoral aspect of democracy is thought to have a substantial impact on human development (Gerring et al, 2012, p. 2).…”

The Moderating Effect of Democracy on Climate-Induced Social Conflict: Evidence from Indian Districts

“…Scholars studying the role of electoral competition (primarily) in liberal democracies find that the quest for political survival leads to efficient results as candidates seek to maximize their chances of election and reelection for office (Wittman 1995). There is ample evidence to suggest political competition improves government performance based on a range of measures, including improved economic output (Besley, Persson, and Sturm 2005), reduced public debt (Feld and Kirchgässner 2001), better provision of public goods (Bellinger 2018; Hecock 2006), and lower corruption (Bhattacharyya and Hodler 2010; Kolstad and Wiig 2016). Therefore, electoral competition has the potential to moderate environmental shocks’ impact by inducing constraints on corruption and increasing government responsiveness and efficiency.…”