Bettina Gutiérrez interviews eminent development economist Paul Collier
Paul Collier is a Professor of Economics, Director for the Centre for the Study of African Economies at The University of Oxford and Fellow of St Antony's College. He was Director of the Development Research group at the World Bank from April 1998 to April 2003. His most recent book, entitled 'Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places', was published in March 2009.
His previous book, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (ISBN 0195311450), has been compared to Jeffrey Sachs's The End of Poverty and William Easterly's The White Man's Burden, two influential books, which like Collier's book, discuss the pros and cons of developmental aid to developing countries.
Question: In 'Wars, Guns and Votes. Democracy in Dangerous Places' you say that the institution of so-called democratic elections in the 'bottom billion' - the world’s 58 most impoverished countries – has encouraged the incidence of violence. What kind of a link do you see between democratisation and political violence?
Paul Collier: Part of the problem is that the conduct of elections is often deeply flawed because of the weakness of the institutions that normally support democracy. Where election results are widely regarded as fraudulent, those who lose may be provoked into violence. A further problem is that in societies that are polarized by distinct identities, such as ethnicity, winner-take-all democracy is probably inappropriate. It is better to have more inclusive governance. A related problem is that for minorities to feel secure in a democracy, they need to be protected by robust institutionalized rights, and this is simply infeasible unless supported by strong institutions. Such institutions take time to get established whereas elections can be held virtually anywhere.
Q:You are addressing among others the elections and electoral strategies in Congo in 2006, in Nigeria in 2007 and in the recent elections in Zimbabwe. What impact have elections had on those countries ?
PC: In the Congo and Zimbabwe elections directly led to large scale violence. In Zimbabwe, once President Mugabe realized that he could not win an honest election he systematically tore up the country’s institutions and in the process destroyed its economy. In Nigeria the polity ist now best understood as a long-term deal between the major ethnic groups to share power by rotation rather than as an electoral democracy.
Q: You describe the election of President Raila Odinga in Kenya as some sort of an 'identity poll' because he obtained most of the votes from Luo, the ethnic group to which he belongs. Does ethnic allegiance play an important role in elections in some countries? How far?
PC: First, let me note that Raila Odinga is the Prime Minister of Kenya, not the President. Yes, in Africa ethnicity is usually the strongest single influence on voting, although people usually deny it.
Q:The so-called rich liberal democrats, you assert, wish to reconfigure the 'bottom billion' using themselves as role models? How would the imposition of a European or an American role model look like in the impoverished countries?
For fifty years Europe has encouraged the countries of the bottom billion to imitate the Europe of the 1950s. It is not just a matter of elections. Monopoly ministries of this and that are responsible for the delivery of public services. Law courts are responsible for settling disputes. In many of these countries such an approach to government is inappropriate. For example, at the present rate of resolution of land disputes in the courts in one Southern African country it will take five hundred years to clear the backlog
Q:You point out in your book that in many former conflict areas too much money is spent on arms build-up and military. The funds originate in part from development assistance budgets. What conclusions could we draw from that?
PC: Aid donors have a responsibility to ensure that budget systems are sufficiently transparent and watertight that money cannot be diverted into armaments. This is not an infringement of national sovereignty, but rather a necessary struggle to make governments more accountable to their own citizens.
Q:Which alternatives do you envisage to commonly accepted democratisation efforts?
PC: I think that efforts need to adopt a different sequence. National elections are the final stage in a long process of democratization, not the first. The prior steps are gradually building robust institutions that people come to trust, and also building societies that are better informed about economic and political choices so that electorates are less susceptible to populism. In the meantime, power sharing with as much transparency as possible would be better than absolute power wielded by the victors of fraudulent elections.
Paul Collier, Wars, Guns and Votes:Democracy in Dangerous Places, pp 272, The Bodley Head, London 2009, 18,00 GBP
German Edition: Gefährliche Wahl. Wie Demokratisierung in den ärmsten Ländern der Erde gelingen kann, 272 S., Siedler Verlag, München 2009, 19,95 € |
