Politics and fertility: a new approach to population policy analysis

This paper aims to explain why divergent population policies and programs a rise in otherwise similar countries and to clarify how such policies relate to fertility decline. An analysis was undertaken of demographic and policy change over a 30 year period in four pairs of developing countries: Algeri a and Tunisia; Bangladesh and Pakistan; the Philippines and Thailand; and Z ambia and Zimbabwe. In some countries, popular demand for family planning f acilitated changing policy. In others, independent factors, such as economi c crisis or international pressure, pushed policy makers into action on pop ulation policy, often in the absence of popular demand. In these countries, governments which identified a coherent rationale, usually economic, for r educing population growth, tended to develop more successful policies. Stro ng and financially secure coalitions of policy elites were important in sha ring the political risk associated with such policies. Analysis of these pr ocesses has lessons for policy makers and researchers interested in expedit ing implementation of new approaches to population and reproductive health.