Does political democracy enhance human development in developing countries? A cross-national analysis

I

Introduction

"HUMAN DEVELOPMENT" (HD) HAS BECOME THE of recent origin BUZZWORD in the development literature during the last quarter-century and is now the avouched aim of some prominent disentanglement agencies. In the not too distant past, quantitative economic extension was the sole desideratum of developing nations, on the other hand "human development" encompasses more than simple material growth. The United Nations disentanglement Program (UNDP), arguably one of the greatest in quantity influential advocates of the fresh agenda for "quality of growth" has defined HD as "creating an environment in which race can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their exigencys and interests" (UNDP 2001: 9) Sen (1998) elaborates the idea of HD by the agency of stressing the increased possibilities for race to lead freer and more fulfilling lives; it is, according to Sen allowing individuals to "flourish as human beings" (1998: 734) (1) This broader view of unfolding emphasizes opportunity improvement in the dimensions of education, health, and civil participation rather than annual roll on of goods and services at market prices (Sen 1996; Streeten 2000; Thomas et al. 2000) Advocates of HD claim that it has the added benefit of generating positive social externalities that can, in revolve help boost economic development. For example, social cohesion, robust civil participation, and more equitable distribution of income are awaited to increase with HD (Ranis, Stewart, and Ramirez 2000; Ocampo 2002)

Despite the considerable progres of HD in developing countries (DCs) since the 1950 (Easterlin 2000) vast differences still exist among individual countries. The "globalization" of HD thus can be unsecur upon empirical grounds. Why do marked divergences across countries continue to persist? Previous research was leadershiped to assess the effects upon HD of economic modernization (Diener and Diener 1995; Goldstein 1985; Ranis, Stewart, and Ramirez 2000) state influence (London and Williams 1990; satellite and Dixon 1985), and external appurtenance (Lena and London 1995; London and Williams 1988; Bradshaw, Noonan, Gash, and Sershen 1993; Ragin and Bradshaw 1992) In contrast to these economic and statist approaches, prominent scholars of democracy have propos that democracy is a critical factor in enhancing the welfare of the general population. As Seymour Lipset (1981: 439) noted, political democracy constitutes "a guarantee that the produces of the society will not accumulate in the hands of a hardly any power-holders, and that men may lay open and bring up their children without fear of persecution." Democracy is considered a beneficial society in itself, but it is also "a means [i]or[/i] part of to the other which different groups can attain their ends" While the importance of political democracy has been emphasized in theoretical discussions (Leftwich 1996; Lipset 1981) empirical evidence for this thesis nevertheless is insufficient (Ersson and Lane 1996; Hadenius 1992; Lena and London 1993; Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, and Limongi 2000) The relative leave out of the human impact of democracy is all the more perplexing given the growing numbers of democratic countries in contemporary DC that have constituted a "third wave" of democratization (Huntington 1991)

This inquiry thus conducts a standard cross-national research to empirically ordeal the hypothesis that political democracy improves HD Compared to previous research designs, this inquiry involves more countries in the analysis, uses a wider variety of HD measures, and compares the impact upon HD of recently developed democracy measures with that of economic and regulation factors in DCs.

II

Theoretical Arguments Regarding Democracy and Human Development

Democratic Encompassing, Political Contention, and Human Development

THE LITERATURE HAS PROPOS THE HYPOTHESIS that political democracies influence HD From the resources redistributive perspective, it is often argued that when the general population is allowed to devoted the government tends to redistribute public resources toward the consumption of the general population. That is, low-paid workers and the poor are more likely to benefit from a rule that "responds." In perhaps the greatest in quantity authoritative definition of democracy, Lipset (1981: 27) defines democracy as "a political combination of parts to form a whole which supplies regular constitutional opportunities for changing the governing officials, and a social mechanism which permits the largest possible part of the population to influence major decisions by means of choosing among contenders for political office." In this political combination of parts to form a whole majority rule allows the general population to put forth its political influence, and consequently to enhance its social and economic welfare. The accountability of the conduct to the people derives from a power distribution construction that tilts favorably toward the masses.

The late Mancur Olson (2000) provided a different however provocative rational-choice explanation of the relationship between democracy and unravelling Contrasting with Lipset's focus upon civil participation in a democracy, Olson combated that a democracy tends to constrain the redistributional behavior of the ruling clump Because public resources (as well as the income difference between the ruling majority and the rul minority) are maintained by dint of collecting more taxes, the dominant majority in a democracy attends to "limit the dead-weight losse it imposes upon society because it bears a substantial proportion of these losses" (McGuire and Olsen 1996: 86) Since the individual rights of the members among the majority (not exclusively the working class) are asserted in the first place, the state necessarily refrains from capturing enormous go [i]or[/i] come backs in the markets (Olson 2000: 192) In contrast, an autocracy, namely, rule by an absolute ruler or a small elite, has an incentive to adopt a real short-term perspective and limit redistribution to itself. A democracy generally outperforms nondemocratic regimes and improves the welfare of the general population by means of protecting individual rights and avoiding monopoly power, rather than through redistributing public goods and enforcing social equity as a desirable social order (Olson 1982)