Dissecting the Cross-National Relationship between Political Regime Types and Homicide

• In Event: Cross-National Research on Correlates and Causes of Homicide

Abstract

Previous cross-national research that has examined which types of political regimes have higher homicide rates than others has generally treated regime types as dichotomies (e.g., democratic vs. authoritarian) and has often conflated regime change with regime types (e.g., transitional governments). The general consensus from this literature is that stable regimes, whether democratic or authoritarian, tend to have less homicide than transitional regimes, supporting a Durkheimian view of normative breakdown during social upheavals. This paper takes this line of research in a different direction by dissecting the characteristics of political regimes that either help suppress or inflate homicide rates. Using homicide data from the World Health Organization and political indicators from the Worldwide Governance Indicators, this cross-national analysis examines how factors such as government effectiveness, corruption, rule of law, and accountability explain differences in homicide rates, controlling for other known cross-national predictors.

Author

• Janet P. Stamatel, University of Kentucky