The Democracy Trap: Ballot Box vs. Industrialization
What is more important for a developing country? Is it to assure that citizens can freely cast a ballot and quietly return to their shanties? Or is it to lift millions of citizens out of poverty, create a modern industrial economy, and become competitive in the world economy? Democracy and Economic Development The US and its allies would have us believe that political freedom trumps all other considerations. Give people the right to vote and establish a democratic system, and they will be well on their way to "modernity." That ideology has been applied worldwide, with mixed results, however. At one extreme, Iraq's democratic system, imposed by the US after the 2003 invasion and toppling of the dictator Saddam Hussein, is synonymous with failed state and instability. One saying reflects the rampant corruption in in the federal parliamentary republic: "We used to have one Saddam Hussein, now we have a thousand." Similarly, twenty years of airborne democracy and