The Impact of Democracy on Poverty Levels

Kristobal Miguel Meléndez Aguilar

doi:10.5901/ajis.2016.v5n3s1p491

Abstract

Robert Dahl argued that individuals living in a democracy can find better alternatives to meet basic needs such as food, health, education and housing. However, there are two assumptions that cast doubt on this hypothesis. First, democracies are usually developed in more unequal contexts. Second, on democracy, inequality can generate higher levels of poverty. By applying multiple linear regressions and instrumental-variables regressions, it was found that, in a democracy, both the context and citizens could influence on decreasing poverty levels. Procedural elements are essential to generate better contexts and citizens, through different types of participation, can influence the government to offer better public policies, especially those related to poverty levels. Higher citizen participation levels and with better procedural elements, individuals could perceive that their democracy is of higher quality and they would support more this type of regime. In the analysis also it was found that per capita income level is an important indicator of efficiency of citizen participation because political action is only efficient in rich democracies. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2016.v5n3s1p491

Highlights

Economic, political and social performance depend on a variety of factors
The indicators that were used in the descriptive statistics are: per capita energy consumption, percentage of urban population, persons per vehicle, doctors per thousand inhabitants, economic growth rate, unemployment rate in persons aged 15 to 24 years, unemployment rate in persons aged over 15 years, food price volatility, life expectancy, schooling of persons over 25 years, public policy performance, anti-corruption, political stability, human development, gender equity, poverty, confidence in government, satisfied with their life, satisfied with their standard of living, satisfied with the quality of education, satisfied with the quality of health, satisfied with the treatment of the poor, Gini, palm ratio and quintile ratio
Taking into account the second perspective, as shown in Chart 9, procedural elements have a greater impact on poverty levels in non democratic countries

Summary

Introduction

Political and social performance depend on a variety of factors. Type of regime and per capita income are two variables that influence on the levels of performance. Compared to other types of regime, democracies, on average, have better levels of wealth, industrialization, education and urbanization[1]. For Ansell and Samuels[3], democracies often arise in more unequal environments For this reason, whenever analyzing economic, political and social performance, it is essential to analyze the distribution of this among society. Democracies have better political and social results than other types of regime. Democracies are failing to offer public policies that benefit the poorest, even though they allocate more resources to provide better services to society than non democratic countries. The most indispensable for a decent life could be food, health, education and housing In this way, poverty could be measured in a multidimensional way. Citizen participation influences governments to develop better public policies that reduce poverty levels. This type of participation does not necessarily come from the poorest[10]

Methodology

Inequality Levels

Conclusions