Democracy and Infant Mortality in Less

In recent years, many studies have focused on examining the relationship between democracy and health outcomes in developing nations. However, the overwhelming majority of this research utilizes direct-effect modeling approaches, assuming that increases in democracy are going to directly translate into improvements in well-being. Drawing on a sample of 136 less-developed nations, I first conduct a basic regression, where I find no significant impact of democracy on infant mortality. I then utilize structural equation modeling (SEM) to show significant indirect effects of democracy on infant deaths through public health spending. The results help place in context previous studies that have found inconsistent effects of democracy on health outcomes. The regression and SEM analyses demonstrate how erroneous findings can result from solely utilizing direct-effect approaches, which incorrectly treat key mediating mechanisms as competing predictors