Political regime and social performance

Abstract

The association between political regime form and social performance, measured by the infant mortality rate, is explored using time-series cross-sectional regression analysis of 155–180 countries observed annually from 1972 to 2007. Controlling for other factors likely to affect infant mortality, democracies are found to have lower infant mortality than authoritarian regimes, and long-term democratic experience is found to matter more than short-term democratic practice. Among authoritarian regime types, one-party regimes have lower infant mortality than military or limited multiparty regimes, which have lower infant mortality than monarchies.