Regime Responsiveness to Basic Needs: A Dimensional Approach

The shift towards democracy globally under the "third wave" of democratization has stirred the conviction that democracy is not only a good thing in itself but also a promoter of general welfare. A considerable amount of research has been conducted to explore the effects of democracy on social outcomes. However, unequivocal conclusions regarding democracy's impact on health, education, life expectancy and other aspects of human well-being have not been achieved. Many democracies do not perform as good as they are expected to and are often outperformed by non-democratic regimes. Questions appear: How does political regime affect social performance? Is there a trade-off between democratization, on the one hand, and social development, on the other? If there is, how should democratization be carried out so as not to inhibit human well-being?;This dissertation attempts to enhance our understanding of the impact of political regime on social outcomes by applying a dimensional approach. Instead of asking whether democracy is good or bad, it asks: which dimensions of political regime are good for which kinds of outcomes? What kinds of policies are promoted and what are inhibited by different dimensions of democracy? On the causal side are such regime dimensions as competition and participation; on the outcome side are two kinds of government action: responsiveness to people's objective needs, which conceptually stands for improvement of social outcomes, and responsiveness to subjective wants and demands, which conceptually stands for giving people what they want regardless what is objectively good for them. The relations between these causal and outcome dimensions are explored both theoretically and empirically applying quantitative as well as qualitative methods.;The dissertation demonstrates that not all dimensions of democracy that induce governments to satisfy public wants and demands also work in case of basic needs satisfaction. Public needs and wants, as targets of policymaking, are different. Within a principal-agent framework, responsiveness to needs, compared to responsiveness to wants, implies different strategies of policymaking and has different political implications. Due to these differences, of the two regime dimensions only participation has systemic positive effect on social outcomes. Competition, more often than not, inhibits regime responsiveness to basic needs. In competitive settings, vote-maximizing politicians tend to opt for short-term wants-oriented policies, often at the expense of responding to objective needs. To make democratization less costly, therefore, participation should be encouraged, and competition should be tamed.