HIV/AIDS threatens to block and even reverse democratic   development across the region as lost incomes, increasing   health costs, shrinking tax bases, increased labour costs and decreasing productivity all conspire to threaten the economic growth necessary to sustain democratic practice in poor countries, says one of the findings of a paper by the Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR) at the  University of Cape Town, South Africa. Little is known about why or how children, citizens, elites and institutions infected, affected or threatened by HIV/AIDS change their social and political behaviour.