ABSTRACT
As long as there have been democracies, people have discussed whether popular sovereignty is merely a guarantee for political freedom or whether it also promotes freedom from want and from disaster. Citizens often have high expectations and many have lamented the broken promises of democracy. This chapter discusses the relationship between regime type and desirable outcomes such as economic growth and equality, environment-friendly policies, and disaster management. Our review indicates that democracies, on average and in most of these areas, tend to outperform their alternatives – particularly when they are of high quality, have endured for a long time, and are combined with high levels of state capacity. The same is not the case with new democracies of low quality, and there is also substantial variation among different types of autocracy, with personalist dictatorships doing worst. This chapter ends by emphasizing the normative value of democracy, irrespective of its corollaries.
