Political Democracy and Human Development

Ming -Chang Tsai

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2006, vol. 65, issue 2, pages 233-268

Abstract: Despite the considerable progress of human development (HD) in developing countries (DCs) during recent decades, vast differences still remain among such countries. The question thus arises of why these divergences persist. This cross-national study uses a larger sample of DCs to offer necessary testing of the impact of democracy on HD. This study adopts new measures of democracy featuring majority rule and political contention to estimate their correlation with three physical well-being indicators as well as with three school enrollment indicators. After controlling for several macro-level political and economic characteristics (state revenue and economic growth), the regression modeling for recent data from the 1980s and 1990s showed that democracies indeed achieved "higher levels" on the HD indicators used here. However, democracy was not a powerful predictor of "changes" in HD scores during the analysis period. Neither central government health or educational spending significantly altered HD. The conclusions offer a plausible explanation of why democracy in DCs failed to sustain its momentum in improving HD. Copyright 2006 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc..

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