Governmental Performance and Political Regimes Latin America in Comparative Perspective, 1990-2004

Peter H. Smith ； Melissa R. Ziegler

《Taiwan Journal of Democracy》 3卷2期 (2008/01) Pp. 101-117

https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200801.0006

並列摘要

This essay seeks to evaluate the governmental performance of democratic (and nondemocratic) political regimes in contemporary Latin America through statistical comparison with ”peer countries”-nations in the lower-middle and upper-middle income brackets as defined by the World Bank. Assessment criteria (dependent variables) include annual rates of economic growth, infant mortality, and primary-school attendance. Pooled time-series regression reveals that (1) democracies perform at least as well as nondemocracies in promoting economic growth, (2) democracies consistently outperform nondemocracies with regard to infant mortality and school attendance, and (3) the deeper the level of democracy, the greater the provision of social benefits. Despite these relative gains, popular disenchantment with democracy still persists in Latin America, largely because absolute levels of social welfare continue to be unacceptably low.

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