What are the effects of democracy and authoritarianism on development? Paper Study
This Essay paper is
submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master of Arts Governance and
leadership.
Abdiqani Mohamed Egeh
Introduction:
Development is a hot
issue in the academic debates, Scholars rise many academic questions relating to
developments including the meaning of development? and why some countries developed and other
underdeveloped? Does the political system like democracy and authoritarian
bring in development? Does Democracy lead a development or does economic development
first before democracy? These questions and many other academic questions
surrounding the development issue are on the debate. Therefore this paper does
not answer many of these questions but here I would like to present the effects
caused by two prominent political systems of the world, Democracy and Authoritarianism.
In this short easy we would like to focus
on ways of effects they had in development, how do democracy effect the
economic development of a country or what are the effects of authoritarianism
regime in economic development.
In general there is no
universal agreed principle to measure in developments, but human beings are
gradually concerned with sustainable development.[1]
Economic development may be the gradual process of improvements in citizens’
well-being. Developments of economic growth are shaped by the type of institutional
regimes operating under them; they describe the choices of citizens and
determine the production costs in order to engage an economic activity, also institutions
are created to bring order and stability, they had an influence the type of
development engaged in the society. North
Argues that Institutions influence the way that economic activity is structured
and the way they provide an economic structure that shapes the direction of economic
growth or development.[2]
Democracy allows
citizens to participate equally while authoritarianism sets limits to the
individuals freedom, people cannot able to produce what they want to the
market, but the regime regulates the market and decides which sector to invest
and those who have a high priorities. These set of limits affect the
individuals to bring their money and ideas in the market. Developments are what
every society seeks to achieve in order to live in a better life, every human
expects and seeks a better day then today, hence the way to achieve such
developments or mechanisms to reach that better life are different in the
countries, as their thoughts and intelligence differ from one another.
Therefore, throughout
the rest of paper we will closely look the correlation between development and
democracy and authoritarianism and development, we will look the effects of democracy
on developments and then authoritarians and its effect on development. In
conclusions I will try to bring some arguments and take short case studies as
an example and then directly answer the above question.
Effect of democracy and authoritarian on developments
Democracy effect:
Democracy and
development may correlate each other, when ever democracy changed a political
system of a particular society, people may expect an economic development, as Huntington argues that economic growth
in the developing countries creates a precondition and opportunities toward
democracy.[3] Huntington’s
argument could be only a factor in the developing countries, but Evans argues that economic development
and democracy influence each other.[4]
Different countries have different policies and mechanisms to achieve their
particular goals, the development is not some think that is achieved in one
year but it may be and may be not a planned well structured system that had clearly
mentioned specific goals to achieve like for example Malaysia 2020.
Democracy allows
citizens to participate equally in the political platform, they are free to
their voices and contribute to the positive growth of economic developments,
the political stability that democracy brings could be a critical factor for
the growth of developments but some scholars argue that economic growth and
social background conditions like the level of Literacy, the demographic state of
the country affects the stability of the democracy in a certain way.[5] But
when democracy is applied to the economic system of a country everything is
possible, which is to bring economic boost or gradually make economic backward.
This may occur in the transitional period of democratization.
The initial
democratization process may lead a political disorder of the country and the
economic development declines in the early democratization stages because the
government is weak and cannot afford the strikes and demonstrations, these political
tensions negatively effects the developments, foreign investments diminishes as
the political tension increases, the level of unemployment increase as the
economic conditions deteriorate, this may be the early democratizations stages
but later stages when governments become strong and rule of law works in a
proper way that fits the peoples demands, the economic trend increases
gradually.
It is much important
to highlight and not to guarantee or to be successful when the country moves to
democratic transition. The development of democracy is nothing without
sustainable economic development. Hence the sustainable economic development as
the classic definition of world commission on environment and development states
is sustainable development is reached if it “meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.[6] Thus the effect of
democracy on development involves a political and economical transformation of
the society.
The effect of
democracy on development path cannot be maintained unless policies affecting
developments is settled in democratic way that all people are equal to the
resource, these must be give In much consideration like the distribution of
benefits and costs that related to the access of the resources. In short democratic developments are affected
by the way people understand and implement the democracy.
Authoritarianism effect
Over The past decades academic
researchers have made many academic arguments to find the relationship between authoritarianism
and developments, in this regard there is a view that Authoritarian regimes are
able to begin and implement a huge developmental project. This is known as in
the academic arena developmental Authoritarianism.[7] The advocates of this
kind of developmental type argues in relation to democracy, that democracy
lowers or hinders the speedy of development as a result of its nature of
particularistic project. This is a good example of many Africa, Latin America
and Asian countries saw that democracy is the way of achieving foster
developments but later turned to Authoritarian regimes.
Authoritarianism is a
system of enforcing strict rules to create obedience to the people with
authority.[8] These strict rules influence the economic transactions
and effect the development, the influence of dictator’s obedience negatively
impacts the economic growth but the will of the government to implement a
developmental activity boosts the rapid growth of level of citizens, the
correlations is that Authoritarianism acts to inject the economy a desolate
effects and shifting the market forces to wants of the elites of government
officials.
The economic structure
of Authoritarians is mainly problematic, they distribute the resource of the
country in their allies and political loyalties, one general principle states
that all dictators redistribute the resources more than the democratic regimes
did.[9]
This may be what makes to implement the speedy of developments based their priorities in order to attract new loyalties.
This may be what makes to implement the speedy of developments based their priorities in order to attract new loyalties.
Authoritarianism and
democracy both effect the development of the country in way that fits the
countries background and demographic origins. Countries like Taiwan and
Singapore made a rapid economic development but also countries like china and
Russia Significantly improved their economy regardless their type of regimes,
so my arguments is that any kind of development needs a scarified people to put
their efforts and capabilities to improve their homeland from underdeveloped to
developed one, these human capital is best way that effect the development of
these two types of political systems, democracy and Authoritarian. This is why
we see many Authoritarian regimes in the world to succeed and bring a
development to their nations. These rulers are skilled human capital that wants
to achieve a rapid economic growth. also know many democratic nations that
failed to accomplish sustainable developments to their nation and vise versa in
true.
Conclusions:
Developments of
economic growth are shaped by the type of institutional regimes, these regimes
limits the choices of citizens and determine the production costs in order to
engage an economic activity, also institutions are created to bring order and
stability and they influence the type of
development engaged in that particular society.
The effects of
democracy on developments sets the freedom of choice to people, this freedom
has a significant meaning inside the democratic institutions, the people have
their own rights to organize in a groups that defend their social rights, those
rights include their right to get a basic life services, so these organized
groups seek to defend that rights, hence these effects the economic choice of
the people, therefore the government pays much attention the demands of the
people, and this results the way that democratic government executes the
developmental activities.
Therefore the
correlation effect of democracy and developments is the consideration of the
will of the people. More clearly let’s take a recent good example of Somaliland
developmental fund (SDF).[10]
The government of Somaliland wants to implement a project of animal Quarantines
in order to improve the health of animals and find a better grassing in none
raining seasons. That is a developmental activity that government wants to
enhance the life of the rural people but as results of this project the rural
people understand that their land and grassing are held in other people and
they refused to execute the developmental project, so after years of
negotiations the project is still pending. This is a good example of how the
public choice and resources sharing’s limits the democracy of developments.
In Authoritarianism
the situation if different the developmental activities affected by the rulers
will distribute the economic resource to suppress the will of people. The same
example tells us that the project of animal quarantines was done by the former
Somalia dictator, no one considered the public choice but the Authoritarian
government implements the project. The effect here is that Authoritarians can
made a rapid economic growth but less sustainable.
Authoritarian regimes create a rapid economic
growth and distribute the resources within his allies and loyalties. Therefore
the effect of development in the Authoritarian regime may not lead in a
sustainable development and latter it creates a political instability.
References:
[1] See world bank report, Tatyana P. Soubbotina The World Bank Washington, Beyond Economic Growth An Introduction to Sustainable Development Second Edition D.C http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/english/beyond/beyondco/beg_01.pd
[4] Ph.D. Student of Political Science University of California, Riverside Liang-chih Evans Chen p.4
[5] Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model Author: Dankwart A. Rustow 1970, pp.337-338, Source: Comparative Politics, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Apr., 1970),
[10] Somaliland Development Fund (SDF) project: Enhancing livestock export system with infrastructures and services 2013. http://www.somalilanddevelopmentfund.org/images/docs/Project_descriptions/14-01-MoL.JPG
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