In this article we investigate the impact of selected political and economic processes on the well-being of domestic populations in samples of 41 to 110 nations. More specifically, we assess the impact on basic needs provision of regime ideology, state strength, multinational corporate investment, trade dependency, and position in the world economy. Our analysis synthesizes a literature that has focused on either international economic or intranational political processes but has not explored the relationship between them. In particular, we extend the work of Moon and Dixon (1985) by examining the impact on basic needs provision of both regime characteristics and state strength, which they did investigate, and the penetration of multinational corporations, trade dependency, and position in the world economy, which they did not.