Democracy, Natural Resources, and Infectious Diseases: The Case of Malaria, 1990–2016

Abstract

Recently, work on the natural resource curse thesis has extended to testing the effects of natural resources on public health. Focusing on the case of malaria, this paper examines the effects of the interaction between resource dependence and political institutions on malaria management. To be more specific, this work argues that in a resource-abundant state, democracy plays an active role in providing health goods to the general public and allocating government funds to public health. Democracies also combat corruption behaviors and diversify economies in a more effective way than their autocratic counterparts. By testing a series of interaction effects between natural resources and democracy, this paper finds a positive and robust effect of democracy on the reduction of malaria death rates in resource-rich states, based on data on malaria deaths during the period of 1990–2016. Resource-rich dictatorships demonstrated the worst performance in malaria control compared with resource-rich democracies and resource-poor democracies and dictatorships. This empirical evidence has policy implications for resource management, public health, and infectious disease control and prevention.