Political Decentralization, Political Regimes, and Infant Mortality

• In Event: Autocracy and Public Policy

Abstract

How do we explain variation in human well-being outcomes within political regimes? The proposal addresses this key question by focusing on the role of subnational governments in the context of political decentralization. Over the past few decades, political decentralization or the creation of subnational governments have become increasingly common worldwide. According to the Varieties of Democracy database, as of 2017, almost 98% of the countries around the world have local governments and 80% of countries have regional governments. Indeed, there is a vast body of research that focuses on the performance of local or regional governments within countries. Several subnational country studies analyze the effects of such governments on societal well-being such as health and education outcomes. This research project supplements the existing body of research by studying the broader global dynamics of the effects of subnational governments across political regimes.

Extant cross-national research on human well-being outcomes primarily focuses on the role of political regimes. Most of these studies identify the advantages of democratic attributes as compared to non-democratic regimes as playing an important role in improving well-being outcomes. More recent research focuses on the role of political institutions to explain disparities in well-being outcomes within democratic and non-democratic regimes. Overall, existing research on political regimes and institutions highlight the importance of national attributes. Indeed, national characteristics undeniably play a consequential role in citizens’ well-being. This research project engages the research on political regimes and incorporates the role of subnational governments to identify when political regimes are most effective in meeting the needs of the populace.

Presence of subnational governments relates to political decentralization where power is shared among multiple layers of government. Such governments, I argue, whether at the local or regional levels, play a crucial role in governance. Subnational government structures bring the government physically closer to their citizens and enhances governmental capacity to respond to societal needs. Free and fair elections of subnational officials who are not subordinate to unelected officials provide the incentives necessary for the government to meet societal needs and results in greater accountability of subnational elected officials to their constituents.

The role of enhanced capacity can play an important role in meeting societal needs regardless of regime type. Presence of a subnational government structure that facilitates better coordination between national and lower layers of governments to meet societal needs is possible among different political regimes. The role of political incentives to perform well is also relevant for different types of political regimes. Presence of elections for subnational governmental officials enables citizens to hold local officials accountable. Among democracies, elections are a frequent phenomenon at the national level and local or regional elections provide another layer of accountability for citizens. Among hybrid regimes or even non-democracies, even if there may not be regular free and fair elections at the national level, elections at the subnational level is still a valuable mechanism to hold officials accountable.

A plausible question that arises is why non-democratic governments may be motivated to meet the health needs of their citizens. But legitimacy concerns may very well motivate non-democratic leaders to perform well in office and instituting a subnational government could be one way of doing so. There are many non-democratic governments who do hold elections for local or regional government positions. In short, the incentive mechanism through accountability could work at the subnational governmental level in both democracies, hybrid regimes, and non-democracies. I test my argument using mixed methodology. Quantitative cross-sectional analysis on 150 countries from years 1960 - 2016 is supplemented with three brief case narratives on Indonesia, Brazil, and Rwanda to understand the role of subnational governments across political regimes.

Author

• Nisha Mukherjee Bellinger, Boise State University