Jagdish Bhagwati is Arthur Lehman Professor of Economics and professor of political science at Columbia University. He is also a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
New data covering most of the 1990s reveal that democracy, even when minimally defined, has a potent independent impact that tends to reduce infant mortality and promote overall social well-being.
Do young democracies have to "deliver the goods" economically in order to win political legitimacy in their citizens' eyes? Public opinion data from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Arab…