Wealth alone does not buy health: Political capacity,democracy, and the spread of AIDS

Although there have been have numerous studies on AIDS documenting its mortality, its epidemiological features, and its relationship to poverty and development, few studies have systematically analyzed how political factors and policies may help curtail the spread of AIDS. In this paper I consider how a variety of domestic factors influence HIV infection rates across countries. I argue that states with higher state capacity are better able to reduce the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Moreover, I argue that while strong autocracies can implement efficient policies with fewer constraints, democracies tend to be more responsive to the needs of the population and can be more efficient in curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS. I empirically evaluate the hypotheses using a cross-sectional time-series sample of 117 countries. The empirical results indicate that greater state capacity indeed appears to help curtail HIV/AIDS infection rates.     

Water resources, institutions, & intrastate conflict

Although linkages between water scarcity and conflict have received a great deal of attention, both in qualitative case studies as well as quantitative studies, the relationship remains unclear since the literature has generally not considered the effectiveness of governance. We distinguish between direct effects and indirect effects linking water resource scarcity and conflict by systematically examining how intervening factors, such as political institutions, might influence the impact of water scarcity on the probability of conflict. We find support for our hypotheses postulating both direct and indirect relationships between water scarcity, governance, and conflict.