The Health Cost of Autocratization

Byunghwan Son and Nisha Bellinger

Journal of Development Studies, 2022, vol. 58, issue 5, 873-890

Abstract: Are democratic crises also human crises? While the determinants of the erosion of democracy have been extensively scrutinised in the literature, their public policy consequences remain relatively unexplored. In a novel attempt to navigate this uncharted terrain, we analyse the effect of autocratization on health outcomes. We conceptualise autocratization as the relative decline of ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ accountability. ‘Vertical accountability’ is threatened in the absence of regular free and fair elections as well as restricted political participation. A decline in vertical accountability lowers citizens’ capacity to ensure governmental responsiveness to public demands. ‘Horizontal accountability’ is reduced when the executive branch undermines the other branches of government. Limited electoral competition further strengthens the executive branch relative to other branches. We argue that such a movement away from democracy – autocratization – has a detrimental effect on public health outcomes. We present empirical evidence supporting this argument in within- and cross-country contexts using regression discontinuity designs as well as panel data analysis.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2021.2017891 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:58:y:2022:i:5:p:873-890

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FJDS20

DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2021.2017891

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Studies is currently edited by Howard White, Oliver Morrissey and Ken Shadlen

More articles in Journal of Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().