Government AIDS Policies and Public Opinion in Africa

Abstract

The AIDS epidemic has exacted a terrible toll on the African continent, but little research has examined how Africans themselves feel about their governments' responses to this health crisis. Using Afrobarometer survey data from 15 different sub-Saharan African states collected between 2002 and 2004, I examine the factors that lead to higher support for an individual government's AIDS control efforts. The results suggest that, in some instances, support for a government's AIDS policies may simply be a proxy for more generalized support for the government. They also suggest that governments that can demonstrate competency in one area (like economic management) may have more leeway from the public to address an issue like AIDS. While HIV/AIDS certainly still carries a stigma in certain communities throughout the continent, the survey results may suggest that AIDS policies are, for better or worse, entering the realm of ‘normal’ politics.

Notes

In May 2009, Afrobarometer began releasing Round 4 survey results. Round 4 includes all Round 3 countries plus Burkina Faso and Liberia. As of July 2009, though, survey data itself was only available for Ghana and Nigeria. Future research will use these new data to investigate any changes in public opinion on government AIDS policies.

The full data set for Round 3 Afrobaromter surveys also included data from Cape Verde. Due to its small population size, I decided to exclude it from the analysis presented here.

The exact wording for all questions appears in the Appendix.

For this and all other questions, respondents who failed to give a response, had not heard of the issue at hand, did not know, or whose data was otherwise missing were excluded from the analysis.

Crosstabs for variables are available from the author.

Complete results for the individual country regressions are available from the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeremy Youde

∗Political Science, University of Minnesota Duluth, MN 55812, USA. Email: [email protected]