THE PROMISE OF CHANGE. Key Aspects of Democracy and Quality of Government Against Infant Mortality

Abstract

This thesis investigates which aspects of democracy and quality of government (QoG) drive the inverse relationship democracy and the quality of government has with infant mortality. Though studies exist on democracy as well as QoG and infant mortality, the literature does not provide findings on the aspects of these broad concepts of democracy and QoG driving the democracy – QoG and infant mortality relationship. Using panel data covering 182 countries from 1960 to 2019, I conduct a comparative analysis with several model specifications to investigate the aspects of democracy and QoG driving this relationship. The analysis shows that clean elections, freedom of expression and alternative sources of information, suffrage and the legislative constraints on the executive drive the inverse relationship between democracy and infant mortality, but this effect is supported by other electoral and liberal components while, for QoG, impartiality seems to drive the inverse relationship QoG has with infant mortality with support from bureaucratic quality. The results also suggest that the effects of both democracy and QoG on infant mortality are stronger in democratic regimes than in autocracies.