Democracy and politics generally have been a topic of discussion for a long time in my family. When I am in Iran, the regime is the main topic of discussions, whether with taxi drivers (cliché I know), on illegal TV shows broadcast from abroad or during family gatherings. I am writing this article for a few personal reasons: firstly, to finally put some of my messy thoughts in writing, and to make sense of them all. Secondly, to have a short summary of the main ideas I hold with regards to democracy’s place in the world, and thirdly, it will seek to answer, in broad and general terms, various critiques and objections I hear from friends, acquaintances, the internet etc. A lot of linked terms are important to fully understand the arguments I try to present. Lastly, I apologise in advance for the extensive quoting, but I thought it would be pointless to reinvent the wheel and spend time reformulating ideas that are already so well presented by respected authors.

I don’t think it’s necessary to spend a lot of time defining what I mean by democracy; whilst an interesting academic exercise in itself, I don’t think this is a major point of contention. Elections are naturally crucial, and should of course be free and fair. But whilst important, they only represent a procedural aspect: what many seem to forget is the limit of what people can demand through elections, as well as the scope of power they ought to confer to those elected. Erdogan likes to legitimise many of his policies by repeating that he was elected three times — yet that should not allow him to rule without limits. Indeed, “winning an election does not entitle a leader to disregard all checks on his power”. This leads us to the other requirements of a healthy democratic society: in a nutshell, the rule of law, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of expression, basic universal rights, property rights, tolerance of opposition and criticism as well as a strong separation of powers (executive, legislative and judiciary). The best form of government that can achieve this is liberal democracy: not Chinese-style authoritarianism, not Russian sponsored oligarchy, not Iranian theocratic dictatorship, not Turkish majoritarianism and not Mugabe-inspired kleptocratic authoritarianism.

Nathan Sharansky, a Soviet dissident that was tortured and jailed for many years, wrote in his bestselling book that “for many years, I have been asking myself why so many of those who have always lived in liberty do not appreciate the enormous power of freedom.” Indeed, it seems that many of those who live comfortably in free societies are the first to claim that ‘economic development’, or sometimes ‘stability’, are more important in developing countries than secondary concepts such as human rights or democracy. As the Indian economist Amartya Sen puts it, “the subject of human rights has ended up being a veritable battleground of political debates and ethical disputes, particularly in their application to non-Western societies. Why so?” This sentiment is echoed by many of the victims of tyrannical regimes, such as an Iranian hunger striker that I met a few weeks ago.

Sharansky also wrote extensively about how commentators in the 1980s believed that Russians were not “ready” for democracy — to many, the ‘homo sovieticus’ had little interest in rights, let alone democracy. They were of course later proven wrong when the USSR fell.

It’s evident that it is not only history, but also attitudes that seem to repeat themselves: today, many argue that Iraqis, Afghans, Chinese, Libyans, Syrians, North Koreans, Zimbabweans, Burmese, or Eritreans are not ‘ready’ for democracy either. And conveniently, there seem to be many reasons for why that is: the Confucian influence in certain Asian cultures means they apparently are culturally more compatible with authoritative governments. China’s enormous population means democracy is not even technically feasible. The poverty and need for development in Africa means that human rights are not a priority. Excuses for the Middle East are creative too: some countries are too ‘divided’, ‘tribal’ or ‘sectarian’. Others have Islamic cultures that don’t allow people to choose a government by themselves: put differently, they are still too primitive and need a strong, authoritarian figure to guide them.

Yet it doesn’t seem to matter that despite their “Asian” values, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan are thriving democracies. In fact, a recent study by Nhu-Ngoc T. Ong and Russell Dalton finds that “the results contradict the core tenets of the ‘culture is destiny’ argument in the Asian values literature, and offer a more positive view of the prospects for political development in the region”. By analysing a variety of polls and studies, it was clear that this stereotypical view of South-East Asian countries was flawed: for example, agreement with the statement that one should follow a superior’s instructions at work even if one disagrees averages slightly higher among the established Western democracies. Further, beliefs that society should give greater respect to authority are generally much higher among the established Western democracies than in the East Asian nations. The authors also find that citizens in Singapore, China, and Vietnam are often critical of oligarchic and autocratic principles. As they conclude, Amartya Sen has reached a similar conclusion: ‘to see Asian history in terms of a narrow category of authoritarian values does little justice to the rich varieties of thought in Asian intellectual traditions. Dubious history does nothing to vindicate dubious politics.’

Nor does it seem to be worthy of attention that India, with its 1.25bn inhabitants, manages to be the world’s largest democracy — size therefore not being a necessary hindrance. Brazil, Ghana, Namibia, Estonia or Botswana, with their tumultuous histories of poverty and / or colonization, are all classified as “Free” by Freedom House. If anything, size can be a benefit; a number of studies (some discussed here) seem to support the notion that a larger district encourages greater competition. The linked study, whilst limited in various respects including experimental methodology, argues that in modern times, larger populations foster greater electoral democracy, understood across a number of empirical dimensions.

“Readiness” implies democracy is akin to the Olympics, where a certain standard needs to be met before being allowed to participate; but democracy is not that. Democracy represents the training, the warm up and the failures, rather than the competition itself. Some seem to doubt the universality of the idea; does everyone necessarily want democracy? Phrased differently, do people really want to be able to voice their opinions? Do they want to be able to keep their property to themselves? Do people want to be tried equally and fairly? Do they want to replace incompetent leaders with others they prefer? Do they want a say in laws enacted and the future of their country?

Surprisingly, many still doubt this. I would argue that it is self-evident that people want the ability to hold their government accountable. Most want to elect their leaders, and influence the decision making process. Who doubts that minorities, critics and dissidents wouldn’t benefit from being able to voice their concerns without the fear of being imprisoned? African countries haven’t fought against colonial powers to then have their liberties taken away by other madmen. Iraqis weren’t very fond of the “Butcher of Baghdad” (the Kurds, Yazidis and Marsh Arabs in particular) — and nor were their neighbours. Ukrainians haven’t gathered at Maidan Square out of nostalgia for the good old Soviet times. Mandela fought the heinous apartheid regimes to allow blacks to benefit from freedom and rights.

The evidence is clear from a wide variety polls around the world: see for example this Pew poll for several countries, or this one for Libya, or this one for Iraq, or this one for Burma, or this one for China, or this one for African nations. This excellent blog post also regroups many other results. Despite irregularities in the elections, and despite Talibans cutting voters’ fingers off, the turnout for Afghan elections was phenomenal. Another poll for Africa: “Seven out of ten Africans prefer democracy to other political regimes, and the proportion of deeply committed democrats (that is, those who also reject authoritarian alternatives) has risen steadily over the past decade.” The general trend is therefore clear (and hardly surprising) — most people around the world favour democracy. Fukuyama guessed right: the world is rapidly going towards liberal democracy. Simply pointing out to certain regressions (2013 for example hasn’t been a particularly good year democracy wise) does not change much to the general trend — and of course, no one claimed the path to freedom would be easy and problem-free. It’s the bigger picture that needs to be analysed, and it’s clear that authoritarian regimes are feeling increasingly nervous.

The reason why the above is important is because not only does it show popular support for the concept of democracy, but it also destroys the notion that allowing democracy to flourish is a form of ‘neo-colonialism’ or an ‘imposition’ from the West. On the contrary: if anything, it’s authoritarianism that should be labelled as colonialism from within. And in any event, democracy is not just a Western idea.

In Iraq, far from being a favourite of the US administration, Al Maliki was the direct outcome of Iraqi elections. The same can be said about Karzai in Afghanistan. Of course, both of these individuals do not mean Iraq or Afghanistan is now a fully-fledged democracy: these two countries are still considered not free by Freedom House. Does that mean democracy failed? It does not; anyone who expected Iraq to be the Sweden of the Middle East by now is delusional. The point was never that these countries would now be perfect examples of freedom and LGBT rights in such a short timeframe. Democracy is what will allow them to evolve; it is both an aim and a means.

One of the numerous appeals of democracy is that it allows change to happen at a much faster pace. Most Western European countries in the 1960s were democracies — and that certainly did not mean that all of their policies were perfect. Homosexuality or sadomasochism was an offense in the UK (and was until very recently). France still had xenophobic policies. And I can surely find many other examples of illiberal, shameful laws, policies and attitudes. But the appeal of a free press, the possibility of regrouping and lobbying, the liberty to challenge such concepts, and the freedom to rebuke the official narrative were crucial in the development of ideas countering these lines of thought. Democracy helps society form values, discuss and exchange opinions. Amartya Sen, once again, puts it quite well: “In this sense, democracy has constructive importance, in addition to its intrinsic value for the lives of the citizens and its instrumental importance in political decisions”.

Better still, here’s Samantha Power: “Democracy wins out in the long run because it offers a chance to fix its own mistakes. It is the only system built on the premise that if something is not working, people can actually correct it, from the bottom up. Democracy works best when people are given the opportunity to constantly monitor and repair the kinks in the machinery. And given the choice, nearly everybody would welcome the chance to rein in abusive police; to stop paying bribes to get social services; and to ensure that their children have access to quality education. Self-correction is not destabilizing. It is stabilizing.”

It’s no wonder that 1 website out of 10 is blocked in China, that Iran regularly jails, tortures and executes bloggers and that Putin’s state controlled media tries so hard to bury the truth: all these regimes know too well the power of ideas. They understand what Napoleon meant when he said “four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”

I have no doubt that the future birth of democracies in the Middle East and Africa will also bring its fair share of illiberal laws and debates — perhaps on the role of Sharia in society, possibly on alcohol prohibition, or maybe on the status of LGBT men and women — which the West should rightly condemn, like it did with Uganda’s anti-gay laws. But importantly, democracy will also bring debates, criticism, opposition, NGOs, lobbies, newspapers, websites, universities, translation of books and the birth of a stronger, influential and more active civil society — in other words, the very ingredients the West benefitted from to rid itself of (part of) its own (numerous) prejudices and xenophobic policies. Democracy will continue to bring change in Western countries in the coming years — and hopefully, the same will happen in other parts of the world, too. Mentalities evolve faster when individuals are subject to differing ideas and views — not when a paternalistic state decides what they can and cannot watch or say.

The self-correcting nature of democracy can be seen over the long term in most Western nations. In many respects, younger generations are for the most part often better than the preceding generations: for example in terms of racism, homosexuality, prejudice, general behaviour, support for aid, economics, violence and many other things. The same can be said of the generation preceding millennials: their views on many topics (war, slaves, colonies, women, child labour etc.) were arguably not as bad as the generations before them, and so on. And consequently, future generations will correct the mistake of the present ones (e.g. drug liberalisation, animal rights etc.). The lack of self-correction in autocracies is even more obvious. When Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000 (amidst much criticized ‘elections’), reform of the rule of law was one of top priorities. We know how that worked out.

The self-correcting mechanism of democracy can be also be witnessed even in short timeframes. In Afghanistan, Karzai repeatedly insisted on the removal of coalition troops from Afghanistan. Commentators and critics, both inside and outside the country, repeatedly voiced their concerns: such a move would be foolish, and the recent events in Iraq only confirm the perils of a hasty retreat. Voters, understandably concerned for their own security, overwhelmingly voted for two candidates, Abdullah and Ghani — both who agreed to pursue a long term security agreement with the United States. The policy shift is not insignificant, and other issues will hopefully be targeted too.

Of course, that is not to say that everything is therefore going perfectly well: I will use everyone’s favourite example, Iraq to illustrate this. A lot of people like to point to Iraq and claim that it’s a proof of the failure of democracy promotion. In Iraq, Maliki’s sectarianism and anti-freedom policies were far from the democracy Iraqis yearn to see. In fact, with the Islamic State terrorising citizens from all over the country, one could be tempted to look back at the Saddam years and think that authoritarianism wasn’t so bad after all. But to blame democracy is a misunderstanding of the issues on the ground and a blatant disregard of causation more generally. Before making such accusations, one should replace the word ‘democracy’ with ‘allowing citizens their right to self-determination’ whenever such a critique is made: does it really make sense to say “if ISIS conquered Mosul and others parts of Iraq, it’s because of Iraqi citizens being allowed their right to self-determination”? Of course not. The question is not whether Iraqis were better off under Saddam (they weren’t), but rather whether they would be better off now had Saddam stayed in power (try to imagine the Arab Spring in Iraq and how he would have reacted to it — Assad being a good parallel here). Saddam did not have any special abilities to hold the Middle East together. Could he have controlled the current chaos in Syria and prevented the formation of Al Qaeda affiliated groups? Do authoritarian regimes know something about stability that democratic regimes ignore? I rarely get precise answers to these questions. The reason for the Islamic State resurgence in Iraq are mainly military — amongst other things, a result of Baathist elements that were removed from the regime by coalition forces, Maliki’s replacement of good Sunni generals with incompetent Shia stooges, the early and hasty removal of US troops, the lack of action in Syria and so on. Colin Freeman, a journalist and on time Somali pirate hostage, made an interesting point in a recent article of his: ‘but one point that is not in debate is that Saddam Hussein was just as brutal a killer as ISIS’s thugs are, and had Saddam’s men had iPhones around to record their atrocities, the results would have been just as horrific.’ The regime of Saddam Hussein was known to be particularly secretive — as a state actor, international law and the United Nations were enough to reasons to be discrete about the atrocities committed in Iraq. This is why we continue to discover mass graves from the Saddam area, as we did in 2004 and in 2011. This is why Eason Jordan’s 2003 article ‘The News We Kept To Ourselves’ makes it clear why Western media had to limit reporting such atrocities in order to prevent the execution of even more innocent Iraqi lives. Claiming democracy causes the ISIS crisis is the same as claiming that Nigerian independence caused Boko Haram’s growth — nonsense.

But I digress and all this is another question — one can very well accept democracy in Iraq and disagree about the causes of the current crisis. My point is not to say that the intervention is blameless, or that there was nothing wrong in the way it was carried out. There were indeed numerous failures that occurred post-2003. But to link everything to a single event (the intervention, or democracy, or removing Saddam) is intellectually lazy — and worse, to claim that this is a failure of democracy, or an argument in favour of the previous regime, is not only wrong but dangerous (and frankly, insulting to the millions who died because of Saddam). There have been many internal problems and political issues in Iraq since 2003 that should be analysed to fully understand what’s happening there and what have caused the various problems. And of course! Of course Iraq’s political actors made mistakes and stupid decisions — just like Congress, like the British or French Parliaments, and like the Knesset — but no one blames ‘democracy’ when it’s the West that fails. Perhaps the same standards should apply to Iraq as well then. In the same way as no one blames Uganda’s independence for its anti-gay laws, democracy should not be pointed at when politics fail in Iraq or any other country. It’s important to establish causation carefully and to analyse the problems and potential solutions carefully: “what the figures show is a country facing many problems, but not for the assumed reasons. Rather than the invasion or war being the root cause, today the fast growing population and the flawed economy are the leading issues”. The problem is that many pundits see no history in Iraq either before 2003, or between then and now — but Iraq cannot be analysed in a vacuum.

So we’ve seen above that populations around the world generally want democracy. We know that democracy is also capable of generating change and evolution within a society at a faster pace than traditional authoritarian regimes. We know that effortlessly blaming democracy for any ills a country suffers from is no solution.

But there are other critiques of democracy: some tend to argue that ‘Chinese style’ authoritarianism leads to better economic results (sometimes conveniently ignoring the fact that it was China’s shift to capitalism and its acceptance of globalisation that brought millions out of poverty and starvation, not its statist policies). They say ‘let’s get the poor out of poverty first, and only then we will talk about rights and elections’. A fine representative of this camp is former Goldman Sachs banker Dambisa Moyo, who insists that African nations deserve not liberal democracy, but instead something like the Chinese authoritarian state-controlled capitalism model. The idea is surprisingly popular amongst some technocratic elements of the profession. Whilst appealing at first, on closer inspection the elitism and patronising overtones of such theories become more apparent.

A bit like pacifists who creatively praise ‘peace’ as a solution to all conflicts, Moyo recommends ‘food, shelter, education and healthcare’ to solve Africa’s problems; portrayed like this, the implication is that the choice is either between these priorities or human rights / democracy. This is a false question. The underlying assumption is also that rights and democracy have no role (or a negative role) in bringing these goods to populations. Unfortunately Moyo won’t exactly explain why it is state capitalism and / or authoritarianism that’s required for food and healthcare to thrive.

On the subject of food, I will have to once again bring up Mr Sen, who conveniently demonstrated that no country with a free press ever experienced a famine. The reason for this is that candidates in democracies have to win elections and face public criticism, and therefore are strongly incentivised to undertake policies and measures to avert famines and other catastrophes. Whilst there are some flaws in the idea, it is as a whole quite persuasive. Either way, I can hardly think of any reason why an authoritarian government would be better at feeding its population than a democratic government.

On education, democracies generally do a better job at educating their children. And this reinforces democracy itself, by allowing more literacy and consequently more participation in politics. Naturally, a certain level of education is an important pre-requisite for a strong democracy: but in no way should that be a reason to postpone democracy, or one to think that the development of education cannot happen hand in hand with democratization. India, a thriving democracy, serves as an interesting example: after its independence, critics would voice their concerns about the class divides, about the poverty and lack of education as barriers to democracy. Yet the country’s schools developed rapidly and nowadays its private schools also lead to less discrimination. It makes sense — parents want their children to prosper, and with democracy they can demand that through political participation. It has to be said that of course, democracy alone cannot account for all these advances: this is also an economics question, one of trade liberalization. T. N. Srinivasan, a professor of economics at Yale University, argues that political freedoms, to work, need to be complemented by economic freedoms. This echoes the much publicized feud between Sen and Baghwati, another brilliant economist (see this article). Whilst these are fascinating debates on the role of governments and markets, none of these authors argue that authoritarianism or state capitalism are pre-requisites or necessities for education to thrive. Arguing that “country X needs more education before democracy” is precisely why colonialists believed India wasn’t ready for independence, or why European colonial powers thought human rights were only limited to white ‘civilised people’. And to conclude, an interesting study by David S. Brown on the question of education concludes that “the statistical analysis establishes that poor democracies enrol a larger percentage of the school-age population than do their authoritarian counterparts”. Another study by Stasavage for the London School of Economics and New York University analyses the effect of primary school attendance in various African countries to see if, put simply, education leads to democracy or democracy leads to education. The results again are to me unsurprising: there is clear evidence that democratically elected African governments have greater incentives than their authoritarian counterparts to provide primary education for their citizens. On the other hand, Stasavage found much less evidence that recent changes in education provision in African countries have in turn reinforced democracy by fostering “democratic attitudes”. On a personal level, I did not start supporting democracy by going to a French lycée, but rather by witnessing how much the Iranian theocratic dictatorship affected the prospects of my family members and others.

Furthermore, with regards to health, an analysis by Dr J. P. Ruger from Yale University School of Medicine seeks to understand why societies with similar levels of economic development, such as Afghanistan and the Indian state of Kerala, can have radically different levels of health and health system development. Once again, the conclusion leans in favours democracy: “by contrast, the absence of representative democracy provides few incentives for political elites to compete for votes, resulting in less political responsiveness and fewer incentives to spread benefits universally or to the poor. Authoritarian regimes suppress political competition and tend to have an interest in preventing human development, because improved health, education, and economic security mobilizes citizens to advocate for greater participation and more resources.” Other reasons and links are given in the article as well. The same conclusion was found by Álvaro Franco, Carlos Álvarez-Dardet and Maria Teresa Ruiz in a British Medical Journal study, which found that “democracy shows an independent positive association with health, which remains after adjustment for a country’s wealth, its level of inequality, and the size of its public sector.” The reason hypothesised being that democracies allow for more space for social capital (for example, social networks, pressure groups), opportunities for empowerment, better access to information, and better recognition by government of people’s needs. Other studies find similar results. Timothy Besley and Masayuki Kudamatsu for example analyse the institutional aspect and also find that “results suggest that there is a robust correlation between democratic institutions and health, resulting in greater life expectancy in democracies.” Alvaro Franco et al. (2004) also report a positive correlation between life expectancy and democracy. Indeed, greater attention will be paid to health issues in democracies since failure to do so should result in leaders being removed from office — this link being weaker in autocracies. Another reason concerns the process of political selection, with democracies having stronger mechanisms for selecting competent and honest leaders to implement policy.

Moreover, the effect of corruption and the authoritarian nature of governments have been extensively studied. This study by Cooray and Schneider concludes that “government actions should focus on controlling corruption, which in turn would lead to funds being channelled more productively into education and also lead to a fall in inequality which would reduce emigration” — and there is a wealth of evidence, books and papers on why democracies have much lower levels of corruption than authoritarian regimes. Shrabani Saha, in a 2007 paper, also finds that “the role of sound democratic institutions, including an independent judiciary and an independent media along with active political participation is crucial to combat corruption”. In the same year, Michael T. Rock also argued that democratisation brings change quite quickly: “these conclusions suggest that at least some low income countries have been able to reduce corruption in the early years of their democratic transitions”. A good recent example is the case of Russia: this well written article by Matt O’Brien shows how corruption and economic manipulation by authoritarian governments can last a long time without necessarily affecting growth in the short term, but ultimately resulting with catastrophic consequences — in other words, a time bomb.

So it isn’t surprising that most Chinese want an end to corruption (or in other words, more accountability from their rulers) — the response to that, by the state-controlled People Daily newspaper, was rather humorous: “officials should keep firm belief in Marxism to avoid being lost in the clamor for western democracy”. A better answer would have been following the recommendations of Kanybek Nur-tegin and Hans J. Czap: “Is it worth, in terms of corruption, for a country to trade stability with autocratic rule for political freedoms but with transitional instability? We find that the answer to this question is in the affirmative — the level of corruption is indeed lower in unstable democracies than in stable dictatorships.”

For Africa, the effect of democracy itself has been studied more than once. For example, in a 2014 study, Takaaki Masaki and Nicolas van de Walle studied the impact of democracy on economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa from 1982 to 2012; their conclusion is clear: “Through the analysis of the latest economic and political data, which include up to 43 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period of 1982–2012, we find strong evidence that democracy is positively associated with economic growth, and that this ‘democratic advantage’ is more pronounced for those African countries that have remained democratic for longer periods of time.” The paper also cites some reasoning used in other studies that are very relevant too: they cite numerous authors that suggested that democratic regimes actually promote property rights better than authoritarian governments, in which there is no institutional guarantees protecting property owners from the depradations of the state elite itself (van de Walle 2001; Przeworski and Limongi 1993). This is also echoed by Easterly. Finally, many scholars have found that the greater accountability of democratic governments, whose poor performance can be sanctioned at the ballot box on a regular basis, were “more likely to outperform most authoritarian leaders who were able to stay in power regardless of their performance” (Schedler et al. 1999).

More generally, Acemoglu and Robinson reviewed and convincingly critiqued numerous papers that previously showed a neutral or negative correlation between democracy and growth: “our baseline estimates suggest that a country that democratizes increases its GDP per capita by about 20% in the next 20–30 years”. From the abstract: “Our results suggest that democracy increases future GDP by encouraging investment, increasing schooling, inducing economic reforms, improving public good provision, and reducing social unrest. We find little support for the view that democracy is a constraint on economic growth for less developed economies.”

Unfortunately for Moyo, the choice is not between “democracy and no house” or “authoritarian with a house”. The choice is between “authoritarian with a house you can lose at any moment” (something I’ve been noticing first hand during my trip to China) and “democracy with a house, accountability and more”.

I apologise for the long quote, but William Easterly explains this point particularly well: “the international professionals perpetrate an illusion that poverty is purely a technical problem, distracting attention away from the real cause: the unchecked power of the state against poor people without rights. The dictators whom experts are advising are not the solution — they are the problem. The individual economic and political rights crucial to development include all those we take for granted at home, such as the right to your own property, the right to trade with whomever you wish, the right to protest bad government actions (don’t burn down our houses!), and the right to vote for politicians who do beneficial actions (clean our water!). Technical experts in development sometimes concede some rights and deny others, which disrespects rights for what they are: unalienable. The Uganda story shows the Mubende farmers’ lack of both economic rights (rights to their own property) and political rights (prevented at gunpoint from protesting).”

Similarly to Easterly, Acemoglu and Robinson coin the “ignorance” hypothesis: to many, failures in development is simply the result of not knowing what good policies are or how to create good institutions — leading to the belief that if only they had teams of well-meaning technocratic ‘experts’ and listened to them, all would be well. It’s a rather naïve way to think about the authoritarians in power. Bad institutions exist precisely because it is in the interests of powerful political elites within the poor country to keep things the way they are. Paul Biya understands perfectly well how clean government is supposed to work; whether that’s his ultimate aim is another question.

So in order to remain in power, such governments need to ensure that no person (whether natural such as opposition leaders or artificial such as unions or companies) can become powerful enough to overthrow them — hence the many economic freedom restricting policies so prevalent. Yet in order to remain in power, there also needs to be limited concessions and a minimum of wealth creation; so they create what the authors of Why Nations Fail call “extractive institutions”, or in other words exploitative monopolies. History is full of “extractive” or “absolutist” institutions that economically and politically benefit a restricted group of elites at the expense of the population, an obvious example being Putin’s gas empire. One of the many problems with such institutions is that they completely distort the incentives necessary for a healthy economy. Like Matt O’Brien’s article cited above states, “the one thing Russia doesn’t have a shortage of, after all, are brilliant scientists, programmers, and mathematicians. By all rights, it should have a booming high-tech economy. A Silicon Valley-on-the-steppes. But that would require giving people the freedom to challenge authority, which is far too much for Putin when he thinks that any opposition amounts to a “fifth column.” It’s safer just to dole out the old Soviet monopolies to his cronies, and let the plebes shop in the meantime.”

“Institutional differences play the critical role in explaining economic growth through the ages. But if most societies in history are based on extractive political and economic institutions, does this imply that growth never takes place? Obviously not. Extractive institutions…must create wealth so that it can be extracted. But growth under extractive institutions differs in nature from growth brought forth by inclusive institutions. Most important it will not be sustained growth that requires technological change, but rather growth based on existing technologies. The economic trajectory of the Soviet Union provides a vivid illustration of how the authority and incentives provided by the state can spearhead rapid economic growth under extractive institutions and how this type of growth ultimately comes to an end and collapses.” (Chapter 5, Why Nations Fail)

A good example of that being the USSR: when the kolkhozes were established, production plummeted; but preserving growth was possible thanks to tweaking that lead to an ultimately unsustainable model: “the powerful Soviet state could generate large productivity increases by moving people from rural areas and putting them into factories. But the system totally failed to generate incentives for improving productivity or for innovation except in military areas where they put a huge amount of resources.”

Democracies, on the other hand, are much more efficient at securing the “inclusive” institutions that are so crucial to long term growth: “Inclusive economic institutions, are in turn supported by, and support, inclusive political institutions,” which “distribute political power widely in a pluralistic manner and are able to achieve some amount of political centralization so as to establish law and order, the foundations of secure property rights, and an inclusive market economy.”

Of course, I am not claiming that China hasn’t done anything good. But the country’s economic and political model is flawed in the long term, and for this for various reasons. Simply pointing to GDP and bridges built is no argument; the USSR too had a high GDP, yet no one (serious) praises Soviet economics for the developing world. In fact, it’s telling that the Chinese government is reducing state involvement. It’s also not a coincidence that the rural poor fare better in India than in China. Indeed, the Chinese population remains favourably inclined toward U.S. ideas about democracy and that “roughly three-in-four Chinese agree that most people are better off in a free market economy”. It’s patronising to think that the average Chinese citizen has no desire to express himself or participate in civic life, or that he should wait a dozen years before some benevolent Western technocratic pundits think he is ‘ready’. Like Friedman said: you ask yourself if you want to know how people feel — ordinary people feel — about different systems, you ask how they vote with their feet. And you ask whether it’s Hong Kong that has to put up police to keep people from Hong Kong going into China, or it’s China that has to put up police to keep people China going into Hong Kong? So look at the way people vote with their feet before you judge which society gives them better conditions.

There’s a very obvious reason why China resists rights liberalization politically: doing so would be making the same ‘mistakes’ that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union: Gorbatchev’s glasnost and perestroika. The policies adopted by the new Chinese apparatchiks are telling:

“But since ascending to power last year, President Xi Jinping has dusted off Mao’s playbook, starting with a secret document distributed among senior leaders that identified seven existential threats to the party, including “universal values” of human rights, Western-inspired notions of media independence and the advocacy of unrestrained free-market economics. “Western forces hostile to China and dissidents within the country are still constantly infiltrating the ideological sphere,” said the notice, known as Document No. 9, which began circulating last summer.” (The War of Words in China, Andrew Jacobs)

The Moyo-type development and economics pundits should look at Hong Kong, not China. Even accepting that, there is still a recent school of thought, sequentialism, which has found a vital place in this more generalized pessimism thanks to its concrete policy implications and intuitive appeal. Thomas Carothers puts it better than I can: “Traditional developmentalists, still loyal to old-school modernization theory’s notion that development must precede democracy and feeling upset by democracy promotion’s sudden rise to prominence, were delighted to have a new set of contrarian allies.” Autocrats too were pleased. It’s easy to see why a ‘developing’ autocracy will not deliver. Even a limited or gradual commitment to development will not be enough, because dictators will still have to subordinate development to other interests that not only undermine their socioeconomic policies but limit any meaningful pursuit of the rule of law. Autocrats will likely be fixated on “enriching themselves, protecting certain privileged groups or sectors in the society, and undercutting potential political rivals”. Such pursuits inevitably make a mockery of the rule of law, anti-corruption, inclusive institutions and a healthy economic climate in general, therefore blocking the more important elements required for a country to actually develop.

The problem is that developmentalists see the process backwards: more democratization is vital to strengthening the rule of law, decrease in corruption and increase in accountability, not the reverse. In fact, even wealth is no precondition to successful democracy: Panama, Suriname, Senegal, Botswana, and Lesotho are all very good examples of that.

At this stage I think it is clear that the case for democracy is strong: apart from the fact that people want it and that it offers unique self-correcting mechanisms, it seems to generally work quite well. It doesn’t stop education, food, shelter and so on – on the contrary, it helps with growth and helps populations achieve these aims. Utilitarian considerations aside, democracy is also valuable in itself – by giving a voice to those who were previously silenced, and by giving populations meaningful independence and sovereignty. My essay here tackles mainly instrumental issues, but the most important reasons for democracy are based in the universal rights that individuals have regardless of economic benefits. Whilst democracy is instrumentally valuable, more importantly it is also intrinsically valuable – and this is what makes it non-negotiable. Democracy extends the idea that each individual ought to be master of his or her life.

For John Stuart Mill, “the end that recommends democracy is the tendency to foster self-development and individuality. Representative government, in particular, he defended as that form which best encourages individuality. It leads people to take a more active and intelligent participation in society. It provides moral training and encourages the development of natural human sympathies. The result is the habit of looking at social questions from an impersonal perspective rather than that of self-interest” – a view later echoed by George Kateb: “The defining characteristic of democracy is freedom, and the oldest democratic concept of freedom is the Greek one: To be free is to live as one likes. Versions of that definition are found wherever people are or aspire to be democratic. To live as one likes means that one is allowed to try out various roles in life. Each person is more than any single role, function, or place in society. Individualism consists in that idea. Only democracy inspires it.”

The point is that there is not only a good case for democracy from a utilitarian results-based perspective, but also many intrinsic moral argument in favour of it. For example, in The End of History, Fukuyama gives one interpretation of the moral argument as follows: every political regime disrespects out desire to be treated with equal respect. But there are no reasons why a king, dictator, emperor or sultan should have any more right to rule than any other individual. Their rule cannot be legitimised by merit, because merit is not inherited. Nor can it be because of any supposed expertise or intelligence: humans are inherently fallible, and importantly knowledge is not held by any single individual but dispersed amongst people (hence the importance of freedom of expression to allow a strong marketplace of ideas). Equal respect to citizens should be given to citizens in terms of governing affairs that deal with them.

Some people like to link certain authoritarian regimes to stability, sometimes under the pretentious shield of ‘realism’. It’s interesting to note that when studying history, we rarely see a narrative excusing past crimes as a necessity for European countries to develop as democracies, or for the stability of the region as a whole. Ceaucescu was the problem, and not some sort of ‘lesser evil’ that Romania needed. Yet for some reason, the same Humanist reasoning fades away when the subjects are 21st century nations outside the free world.

A few final points on security then. The argument that some societies are too divided or heterogeneous for democracy is not new (think Syria, Libya etc). Albeit on different but comparable grounds, the same was said about Germany after World War 2: many were dubious about its capacity to evolve into a liberal democracy (but all were proven wrong as the country rebuilt itself). Thankfully Anna Applebaum saves me time by tackling the issue directly in a project of hers and a great article published in Slate. As she notes, “this is the conclusion of a two-year project recently carried out by four think tanks in Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, New Delhi, and London (among them the Legatum Institute, where I am a director), which explored the relationship between democracy and economic growth in those three countries. Although not all of the conclusions were straightforward, one was inescapable: In countries with high levels of poverty and inequality, democracy can help balance the demands of wildly divergent ethnic, religious, and political groups, while at the same time creating the basis for fast growth.”

Indeed, many African democracies have bypassed the divisive influence of tribalism, such as Botswana and Tanzania. As per the BBC, Tanzania is home to over 130 tribes and the various communities there live and vote peacefully alongside one another. Indeed: “election results people can trust and independent law courts which deliver honest verdicts would give people less need to rely on the protection and provision of tribe” – and I would add that guaranteeing rights to minorities and treating all individuals as equals is precisely what will build trust between different sects and ethnicities. Once again, the solution is stronger democracy, not paternalistic authoritarianism.

Moreover, in terms of security, research also shows that democracies are also less likely to be targeted by terrorism than authoritarian regimes. Stability and security are important, but again, it is simply not right to make the issue one of ‘authoritarian stability’ versus ‘democratic instability’. As put by Mundt, “We do not dispute the notion that democratic regimes are fragile. But we observe that all political regimes are fragile. Political stability is by no means the norm in human history. The question thus becomes whether democratic regimes are more fragile than authoritarian regimes. This, we believe, remains a much ignored and thus open question.” The paper makes various points, and shows why democracies are in fact more stable than authoritarian regimes.

In a nutshell (taken from the paper):

1. Democratic governments have a better mechanism for handling the transitions from one leader to another than authoritarian regimes.
2. They allow for a variety of leaders with different kinds of skills to come to power in the appropriate circumstances.
3. The freedom of speech that comes with democratic government gives political leaders early warnings of serious problems, including threats to the regime.
4. Democratic regimes allow conflicting ideas to be put forward about how to deal with public problems.
5. The political liberty of democratic regimes allow citizens to express their resentment of the demands of government.
6. Democratic regimes are likely to be freer and thus more dynamic economically.

Stability, security, growth, development, and importantly, freedom, are not only compatible, but enhanced with democracy. The aim of this article is not to show that all transitions to democracy will be flawless, but that for many reasons it remains a necessity despite it imperfections. In fact, transitions to democracy have often been tumultuous, and future ones will likely be violent and complicated too. Yet the consensus is clear, and the battle of ideas leans heavily in favour of democracy. Democracy respects individuals, it treats populations as citizens rather than subjects, and allow freedom, dissent, and discourse — elements sometimes conveniently ignored in the name of dubious technocratic solutions. It is the political system that has the most respect for the individual, and gives the same voice to all.

Democracy remains necessary now more than ever, and long term benefits will surely be worth more than any short term gains of temporary stability. “Even if the road to creating democracy is a treacherous one, as even the most optimistic supporters of the arts bring have been finding out, the ultimate prize — both for the men and women who have so far risked their lives to change the political systems in the region and for society — is well worth fighting for.” (Democracy and Its Discontents)