An analysis by The Economist finds that democracies—defined here as countries with free and fair elections—tend to be better than other forms of government at c

An analysis by The Economist finds that democracies—defined here as countries with free and fair elections—tend to be better than other forms of government at containing and treating outbreaks of disease. This holds true for rich and poor countries alike. Using data from the International Disaster Database, maintained by researchers at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, we analysed all recorded epidemics since 1960, from an outbreak of smallpox in Nepal in 1963 to more recent threats such as Zika and Ebola. The results were highly dispersed but a distinct trend was apparent: for any given level of income, democracies appear to experience lower mortality rates for epidemic diseases than their non-democratic counterparts (see chart). In authoritarian countries with China’s level of income, for example, we found that past epidemics have killed about six people per 1m population. In democracies with similar incomes, they have killed just four per 1m. The difference between democracies and non-democracies is statistically highly significant. The relationship also appears to be robust: it holds when considering only large epidemics (more than 50 deaths), or only epidemics affecting populations in the same geographical region. It also holds when controlling for the year or decade in which the epidemics occurred. It may seem surprising that democracies, with their notoriously messy bottom-up processes, outperform their authoritarian alternatives on this measure. Urgent health concerns demand urgent action, something not normally associated with deliberative democracy. In Norway, one of the most democratic countries in the world, lawmakers have been debating the location of a new 200-bed hospital for seven years. In China, a new 1,000-bed hospital to treat coronavirus patients was recently built in just ten days. But authoritarian regimes, although able to co-ordinate massive construction projects, may be poorly suited to matters that require the free flow of information and open dialogue between citizens and rulers. During an outbreak, for example, constructive feedback about how government policies are working can help guide a more dynamic response. Non-democratic societies often restrict the flow of information and persecute perceived critics.