Authoritarian Healthcare - Marginalized Concept

Traditionally welfare, and healthcare in particular, has been studied as one of the attributes of democracy. There has been a consensus among political scientists that authoritarian countries due to their specific political institutions have much less reason to redistribute public goods (Acemoglu & Robinson 2006). However, at the moment such a statement cannot be verified with the help of comparative political science, since existing data about social spending according to types of political regime point in different directions (Geddence, 2010). Some studies even show that among developing countries, authoritarian governments show a greater commitment towards investing in healthcare programs than democracies (Mares & Carnes, 2009; Eibl, 2020).    However, when it comes to case studies focused on only one country, it turns out that healthcare can function and develop even under the rule of an autocratic government; for instance, in Russia, drivers of state expenditures stay undetermined according to the standard view (Forrant, 2012). Studies focused on authoritarian countries based in Middle East have demonstrated that some improvements in healthcare can happen for electoral reasons. This supports the hypothesis that there exists a progressive and positive correlation between the level of democratization of a country and its healthcare expenditure. On the other hand, growing investment into social programs is in some cases treated as an effort to depoliticize society, in order to dampen popular pressure for democratization (Bazresch & Levy 1991). Finally, the expansion of a national healthcare system can be seen as an “oil-led social policy,” in other words, be explained by a favorable economic situation (Huber & Stephens, 2001).   Such a variety of factors influencing state spending on healthcare could help to establish a new additional classification of authoritarian regimes, since at the moment it is agreed that this category unites many different subcategories of states and that it is therefore not flexible enough. For example, this could deepen the notion of hybrid regimes (Levitsky &Way, 2010).