Quotes of the Day 02/17/2010
“The regime in Beijing is more stable than any alternative government that can be formed in China. Let us assume that the students had carried the day in Tiananmen [Square] and they had formed a government . . . What kind of China would they have today? Something worse than the Soviet Union. China is a vast disparate country;there is no alternative to strong central power.” – Lee Kuan Yew, First Prime Minister of Singapore The Asian economies are moving from a capital and labor intensive industrial phase into an information and technology intensive one. Many experts have acknowledged that this new economic world requires guaranteed freedom of information and creativity. These things are possible only in a democratic society. Thus Asia has no practical alternative to democracy; it is a matter of survival in an age of intensifying competition. The world economy’s changes have already meant a greater and easier flow of information, which has helped Asia’s democratization process.” - Kim Dae Jung, former President of South Korea Corruption by the Numbers 11/17/2009
 Transparency International recently released its annual Corruption Perception Index. You can access the full report here and an interactive corruption map here. The Bottom Five Most Corrupt Countries: 176 (tie). Iraq 176 (tie). Sudan 178. Myanmar 179. Afghanistan 180. Somalia The Top Five Least Corrupt Countries: 1. New Zealand 2. Denmark 3 (tie). Singapore 3 (tie). Sweden 5. Switzerland Update: The BBC recently published an extremely interesting article on corruption in Afghanistan. Money quote: "The Bertelsmann Foundation, one of the sources for the conclusions of Transparency International, said: 'Corruption is endemic to all state functions (police, judiciary) and is seen as a usual form of business transaction; even ministers were involved in land grabs. Corruption is additionally interlinked with the opium business. Thus, bribery is invested on a massive scale to undermine efforts against the drug economy.'" Read the full article here.  Titu Maiorescu It is clear that the recent Afghanistan election was marred by rampant fraud. The entire purpose of having an election in Afghanistan was to reestablish the government's legitimacy in advance of a renewed counter-insurgency campaign. Instead, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, aware that his support was dwindling, stuffed ballot boxes in order to guarantee victory. Instead of renewing the current regime's legitimacy, he undercut it further. Thus, for American interests, the election was a complete failure. In many ways, this is symptomatic of a larger problem. It is ridiculous to have a national election where the central authority only has control over the northern section of the country. The rest of Afghanistan is controlled by the a mixture of the Taliban and assorted warlords (with no clear line separating these two "groups"). In such a situation, what else can a leader do but cut deals with local warlords? Without functioning tools of government, Karzai has to rely on the most base institution: patronage. And it is a short and easy descent from buying warlords to stuffing ballot boxes (if it is a descent at all). Titu Maiorescu, the brilliant Romanian statesman and literary critic, described a similar situation in his home country at the turn of the 20th century. Click "Read More" To Continue ----> Are Democracies Better for Development? 08/19/2009
 The Asian Tiger Siegle et al contend that democracies do a better job of development than autocracies- except for the case of East Asia. They summarily dismiss this unwelcome fact: "Although exceptional cases exist [East Asia], it is the preponderance of experience that should guide development policy [and democracies have a better record]." I'm afraid that Siegle et al are missing the forest for the trees. The issue is not what kind of government these countries had, but the type of economy that the government supported. The Asian tigers committed themselves to introducing capitalism. India, a democracy, suffered from the "Hindu rate of growth" until the 1990s, when Monmohan Singh's reforms turned India capitalist. China, an autocracy, did not experience exponential growth until after Deng Xaioping's capitalist reforms. Certainly I am cherry-picking examples. But I believe it's clear that countries with properly functioning capitalist systems develop fastest, regardless of the form of government. This is what really separates the former dictatorships of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore (still a one-party state), and Indonesia, from the regimes in North Korea, Laos, and Burma in terms of development. - Jon Currently Reading 08/19/2009
"Why Democracies Excel" by Joseph Siegle, Michael Weinstein, and Morton Halperin Money quote: "Economic development makes democracy possible," asserts the U.S. State Department’s Web site, subscribing to a highly influential argument: that poor countries must develop economically before they can democratize. But the historical data prove otherwise. Poor democracies have grown at least as fast as poor autocracies and have significantly outperformed the latter on most indicators of social well-being. They have also done much better at avoiding catastrophes. Dispelling the “development first, democracy later” argument is critical not only because it is wrong but also because it has led to atrocious policies—indeed, policies that have undermined international efforts to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the developing world." | By Evan Tachovsky and Jon Friedman
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