Democracy, Dictatorship, and Infant Mortality

Zweifel, Thomas D.; Navia, Patricio

doi:10.1353/jod.2000.0047

Cited by 120 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Many studies report a causal connection between democracy and improved quality of life (Altman & Castiglioni 2009;Besley & Kudamatsu 2006;Blaydes & Kayser 2011;Brown 1999;Brown & Hunter 1999Deacon 2009;Eterovic & Sweet 2014;Gerring et al 2012;Ghobarah, Huth & Russett 2004;Haggard & Kaufman 2008;Hanson 2015;Kaufman & Segura-Ubiergo 2001;Lake & Baum 2001;Lindert 2004: chs 15-17;McGuire 2013;Muntaner et al 2011;Przeworski et al 2000;Stasavage 2005;Zweifel & Navia 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electoral Democracy and Human Development

et al. 2015

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Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a new approach to the conceptualization and measurement of democracy. It is co-hosted by the University of Gothenburg and University of Notre Dame. With a V-Dem Institute at University of Gothenburg that comprises almost ten staff members, and a project team across the world with four Principal Investigators, fifteen Project Managers, 30+ Regional Managers, 170 Country Coordinators, Research Assistants, and 2,500 Country Experts, the V-Dem project is one of the largest-ever social science research-oriented data collection programs.Please address comments and/or queries for information to: We draw on the new Varieties of Democracy dataset, which provides a highly differentiated set of democracy indicators, and a new collection of mortality data compiled by the Gapminder project. With these tools, we are able to conduct panel analyses that include most (semi-)sovereign countries from 1900 to the present -a much more extensive sample than has ever been mustered for this particular research question. We find that composite indices such as Polity have a tenuous relationship to human development, while indices focused on the electoral component of democracy yield a highly robust relationship.3

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electoral Democracy and Human Development

et al. 2015

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“…Davis/Kuritsky (2002) report that severe military conflict in sub-Saharan Africa cut life expectancy by more than 2 years and raised infant mortality by 12 per thousand. In a global sample, Zweifel/ Navia (2000) find democracies have an infant mortality rate about 10 per thousand below that of comparable non-democracies. Przeworski et al (2000: 241) report the same difference in infant mortality rates, and a gap of about 5 years in life expectancy.…”

Section: What Is To Be Explained?mentioning

confidence: 87%

Comparative Public Health: The Political Economy of Human Misery and Well-Being

Ghobarah¹,

Huth²,

Russett³

2015

SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice

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Nearly 10 percent of the world's economic resources are devoted to health care.1 But why do certain countries devote more resources to public health? Why are some countries better than others at achieving tangible health outcomes using the same level of economic resources? Surprisingly, political scientists and public health scholars have done only limited systematic research on these important questions. We address them by developing and testing an analytical framework of domestic and international political influences on public health. We use new data from the World Health Organization to examine cross-national variation first in the level of public expenditures on health, and then in the level of achievement of health outcomes. We measure these influences and their relative impact in terms of dollars and years of health, respectively. Dictatorship, severe income inequality, ethnic heterogeneity, and persistent international hostilities substantially depress the amount of public resources allocated to health care. Moreover, we analyze the extent to which, given the same level of resources allocated to public health, overall national health performance suffers further from unequal provision of services, rapid urbanization, and civil conflict.

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“…They compare the infant mortality rates in countries of democracy versus dictatorships and fi nd that there are fewer child deaths in democracies. Zweifel and Navia (2000) have chosen to examine infant mortality because it is the indicator of chronic hunger used by international organizations. One critique is that there are many factors which play a role in infant mortality, such as health care and disease control, and so this method may not directly measure chronic hunger.…”

Section: Origins Of Hunger's Link To Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%