The impact of regime-type on health: does redistribution explain everything?
Date
2011-09-22Source Title
World Politics
Print ISSN
0043-8871
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Volume
63
Issue
4
Pages
647 - 677
Language
English
Type
ArticleItem Usage Stats
132
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views
171
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downloads
Abstract
Many scholars claim that democracy improves population health. The prevailing explanation for this is that democratic regimes distribute health-promoting resources more widely than autocratic regimes. The central contention of this article is that democracies also have a significant pro-health effect regardless of public redistributive policies. After establishing the theoretical plausibility of the nondistributive effect, a panel of 153 countries for the years 1972 to 2000 is used to examine the relationship between extent of democratic experience and life expectancy. The authors find that democratic governance continues to have a salutary effect on population health even when controls are introduced for the distribution of health-enhancing resources. Data for fifty autocratic countries for the years 1994 to 2007 are then used to examine whether media freedom-independent of government responsiveness-has a positive impact on life expectancy.
Keywords
DemocracyHealth Impact
Public Health
Economics
Education
Ethnic And Racial Groups
Ethnology
Health Care Policy
Health Promotion
History
Human
Legal Aspect
Life Expectancy
Political System
Psychological Aspect
Public Health
Democracy
Health Policy
Health Promotion
History
20th Century
History
21st Century
Humans
Life Expectancy
Political Systems
Population Groups
Public Health
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/11693/13352Published Version (Please cite this version)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0043887111000177Collections
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