So this post was triggered by a book that I recently came across. It was written nearly a decade ago, in the months between the arrival of American troops in Iraq, and the symbolic return by the President on an aircraft carrier with a banner that read "Mission Accomplished." Around this time many people were frustrated with what they viewed as adverse effects of globalization, but I think we now know that we're better off, even if the post-Cold War era hasn't been the "end of history." The book I'm referring to is this one:
http://books.google.com/books?id=KSp1okOggpkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=a+world+on+fire:+how+exporting&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Y2GMT7vvKofn0gGR7-SZBg&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=a%20world%20on%20fire%3A%20how%20exporting&f=false
It almost seems pointless commenting on it nine years later, but I want to just for practice.
I would agree with the core argument of this book, but I think that the benefits of democracy outweigh the risks dozens of times over. It's known that transitioning to democracy is very dangerous, and in absence of certain conditions, there are a broad variety of problems that can arise. But democracy prevents a lot more conflicts than it causes, and the wars that occur in absence of democracy tend to be on a far greater scale. We know, for instance, that things were a LOT worse before the Cold War, even in the decades immediately before. And, as I will discuss further down, wars are a small part of the problems that have shrunk exponentially as a result of four global trends: democracy, the sale of state assets, the removal of trade barriers, and the separation of church and state. I want to emphasize that these improvements would not be occurring otherwise. And, not only are things getting better for people in these countries; because of the improvements in other parts of the world, there are plenty of nasty social issues in the US that are also improving.
We have plenty of evidence that in the 1970s and 1980s, there were more conflicts and they were more deadly. For starters, let's look at this graph:
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/atrox.htm
and how about we look at the number of democracies over the past 200 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Number_of_nations_1800-2003_scoring_8_or_higher_on_Polity_IV_scale.png
Things seem to have cooled down since the 1970s, and to have slowly continued receding since then[1]. During that time period we also saw the nascent stages of what would become effective democracies in South America, East Asia, and the Mediterranean. Later we would see the end of the Cold War, which would be a cause of some high-profile conflicts. However, even after the Cold War, the conflicts resulting from it were not nearly as bad as those in non-democratic countries, such as the Congo, that can hardly be attributed to democratization. And we have not seen a return to the level of bloodshed in the 1970s.
Additionally, we have the role of politicized religion. Personally I think we cannot have peace world peace without the obsolescence of religion altogether (feel free to disagree with me). In the short term, though, we should at least ask that countries secularize their governments. To demonstrate why, let’s look at the first two verses of the national anthem of a country with no formal separation of church and state:
God Save our gracious Queen
Long live our noble Queen
God Save the Queen.
Send Her victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign over us
God Save the Queen.
O Lord our God arise,
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall;
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
Oh, save us all!
This country seems to be staying out of trouble these days, and I would guess that’s because most of the people are atheists, including most of their national clergy, and because this country is a fully-functional democracy.
And war is hardly the worst of problems that have diminished over the past few decades. Consider the problems relating to underdevelopment, which I doubt would have been solved without increased international trade. What do you think is the cause of these statistics about the global GDP?
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=global+gdp
Or, rather, just the GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=global+gdp#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=region:SSA&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en
Part of this wealth is caused by the Green Revolution, but the Green Revolution had finished in the 1970s. But is this money going to oligarchs? If so, then what should we make of this trend in global life expectancy:
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=global+life+expectancy#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=region:SSA&ifdim=region&tdim=true&hl=en_US&dl=en
Or how about the opposite trend in fertility rate:
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=global+fertility+rate
I learned in EC101 that a country’s fertility rate decreases when the standard of living improves because children become less profitable. There are other reasons why the two trends usually go together, such as increased access to contraception and greater rights for women. Either way, the trend seems pretty consistent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TFR_vs_PPP_2009.svg
And what are the implications of a lower fertility rate? Well, for one thing, few children means fewer children dying, so we shouldn’t be surprised that infant mortality rates have been plummeting across the globe. Now that we’re on this subject, I think it helps that governments in Sub-Saharan Africa are democratizing and secularizing their governments, since that will make it easier to shed restrictions on condoms. Many of these countries need to catch up with the Catholic Church, which travels at light speed, and two years ago it proclaimed that condom use is better than the transmission of HIV; or, rather, since abortion is off the table, condom use is better than giving a woman HIV then forcing her to give birth to a child with HIV. It would also help to make quality healthcare facilities available, which development is helpful for. It also helps to allow in foreign aid workers, and democratic countries usually grant visas more readily. Many women might be glad that the infant mortality rate is falling, especially since there are 92 million women in Africa who have undergone female genital mutilation.
A low fertility rate has other perks as well. It means fewer people dying whenever a war or natural disaster interferes. Fewer people also means the consumption of fewer resources, and generally less wear and tear on the environment. I think there’s nothing else we can do to prevent climate change that’s more important than this. And regarding development more generally, we can probably think of plenty of ways that development improves people’s lives – especially for the few remaining countries where the life expectancy is below 40.
And democratization has all kinds of other benefits, not only to the initiates, but also to us. First of all, consider these maps on the trade in cocaine and heroin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drugroutemap.gif
We see these drugs being exported to developed democracies, from poor countries that are either dictatorships or flimsy democracies. Most of our methamphetamines come from Mexico, which is an up-and-coming democracy. There are very few successful democracies that even appear as throughways on this map. If we are to solve the drug problem in the US, then ideally we should start by helping in the creation of effective democratic institutions in both the countries originating these drugs – Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, Bolivia, Afghanistan, Myanmar – and in the transit countries through which the drugs reach us. Some of these countries are democratic, and their institutions are continually improving, and I think the drug trade will be reduced dramatically when these countries are fully democratic. Democracy exists on a continuum, and political scientists measure a country’s “level of democracy” based on the quality of their institutions and on more general criteria such as freedom of speech. The institutions need time to develop so that a tug-of-war exists between the people and politicians where no one cheats.
How would democracy affect the drug trade? Essentially, the people can keep a watch on the government to make sure it does its job, and they can prevent it from doing anything completely stupid. There’s a reason why democratic countries are usually more orderly than authoritarian ones: the people do a better job than the government in making sure everyone follows the rules. I would guess most people in Columbia don’t want cocaine grown there, not do they want it being exported to the US. This cocaine can be consumed by their own people, it funds violence, and it breeds contempt from the US government. Furthermore, the people can prevent the government from getting involved in the drug trade, which is often the case.
And more generally, democracies usually have more control of what goes through their borders. Border control is an institution that the people want. To start with, the number of people apprehended crossing the Mexican-American border illegally has been steadily declining since the end of the 1990s:
http://www.economist.com/node/12332971
The article gives several reasons for this decline. One that I consider relevant, but that is not mentioned, is the beginning of democracy in earnest. In 2000, for the first time, an election was won by an opposition party – the Institutional Revolutionary Party had “won” every previous election for 71 years.
Personally I think we should allow as many immigrant as possible, as long as they come legally. If they don’t come legally, then the shear fact of their illegal status means they are likely to rely on crime instead of a legitimate work and housing. Likewise, if they come legally, then they will not be bringing illegal drugs or weapons or sex slaves with them.
When I was in college I wrote my senior thesis on the international trade in sex slaves. This topic is enormously important to many countries, including the US: an estimated 14,000-17,500 people are trafficked into the US each year, most of whom are prostitutes. These victims, who typically have been compelled to have sex thousands of times, usually have multiple STDs that will infect Americans, and they are likely to become patrons of the illegal drug trade. Here’s a map indicating the major exporters and importers of trafficked workers (mostly sex slaves):
http://rightsandwrongs.pbworks.com/w/page/8788554/Human%20Trafficking
This webpage does not look very professional, but I can confirm the statistics with my own findings. Of the 36 countries depticted on this graph as countries of origin for slaves, only 12 can plausibly claim to be democratic; they are Thailand, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Brazil and Mexico. Among these eight countries, only one (Czech Republic) seems to make it as a fully functional democracy by our standards. Look at their measures of democracy according to the All Powerful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
There are many reasons why non-democratic regimes are the ones originating slaves, for prostitution or for other purposes. As I explained earlier, the people provide surveillance that the government could not provide on its own, so democracies tend to be more orderly with more reliable legal system. Most people probably do not want children being involuntarily sold into the sex trade, nor do they want these children being slipped across the border into other countries. They might opt for legal prostitution, but not for adolescent girls being locked in the basement of a massage parlor for days on end. Nor are they likely to opt for restrictions on condom distribution – or for mere failure to act when HIV is rampant. In 1991 when Thailand was temporarily a military dictatorship, an estimated 143,000 people were newly infected with HIV. According to the same study, by USAID, this number steadily declined while democracy was establishing itself, and by 2003 the number of new infections was 19,000. There is a raging controversy over whether we should make put more effort into prosecuting people involved in sex trafficking, or whether we should endorse “harm reduction” programs that make sex trafficking less harmful to the victims and their clients. Both approaches have their benefits, and both could, theoretically, end sex trafficking (the latter because it would negate the need for forced entry). The second claim is mostly speculation. But either way, neither of these approaches can be successfully carried out without the people’s help.
And that’s not speculation. There is a phrase that is an object of immense stigma among those doing research on the illegal sex trade: 100% Condom Use Programme. The Programme began as a set of policies in Ratchatburi Province in Thailand, and was emulated by the national government when it proved to be successful. At the national level, CUP was less successful, but still saved maybe million lives. However, when the Programme was adopted by surrounding countries – Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, China, Phillipines, Mongolia – the Programme was a farce. For example, mandatory condom use often translated into brothel owners beating their employees more because they want to ensure silence about noncompliance, just in case they encounter a do-gooder police officer. So not surprisingly, the rates of HIV remained more consistent across the other seven countries. I have statistics to prove it:
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/aids/Countries/index.html
There are other ways that democracy factors in. For example, many young girls choose (ambivalently) to enter the sex trade because the prospect of constant, forced sex does not frighten them, and that is because they were sexually abused during their childhood. I doubt most Southeast Asians think little girls deserve to be molested. I think that if their vagina could be protected with child abuse laws that are effectively and consistently implemented in this region, then the people approve almost unanimously. But without public accountability, these laws are rarely implemented well.
And returning to the issue of conflict, let’s look at conflicts within a country’s borders. This Wikipedia entry lists the murder rates of a slew of countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
It seems the successful democracies don’t score so high. The most dangerous – that data is available for – are those with ineffective institutions of democracy that are used haphazardly. What should be done? Well, in my opinion, we need the four things I listed in the previous paragraph – or at least three of them. These countries should find the opportunity and the resources to build reliable democratic institutions. I do not advocate the use of force in building these institutions, unless we know for certain that the people will trust our cause and will feel confident and secure about the institutions we create.
Democracy will inevitably allow for improved law enforcement. With better legal institutions, these countries can not only discourage crime, they can also crack down on illegal drugs and other things that are often a cause of murder. In addition to democracy, development will be critical. Foreign aid can be very helpful, but these countries cannot climb out of poverty without international trade. For this the sale of state assets might not be necessary, but the removal of some trade barriers is. Foreign trade is always a mixed blessing, more or less so depending what commodity is being exported. However, we are hard-pressed to find any country that is worse off because they opened themselves to trade – even the oil oligarchies were pulled out of desperate poverty.
Sure, most of the countries are the small, tropical countries in the Western Hemisphere that we tend to think of as "banana republics," whose economies are stunted by dependence on a single export. In fact, according to the statistics from Wikipedia, in several of the most violent countries the murder rates have increased over the past two years. Some of these countries, such as St. Kitts and Nevis, have experienced crippling natural disasters during this time. All of them are in the western hemisphere, which means they were probably hit by the recession, since their economies probably depend inordinately on trade with the US.
How will development help? I admit the link is tenuous. Fortunately, most readers will not have read down to this paragraph. I have a hodgepodge of reasons: people of means will be less likely to steal, or to abuse drugs or alcohol, or to join gangs or become homeless, or to sell themselves or their daughters into prostitution, or to work for anyone illegally; and all of these situations usually imply that violence will be necessary for enforcing informal rules, for violating the informal rules, or for self-defense.
Another thing is worth noting: almost invariably, countries are more violent the more religious they are.
And lastly, let's look at the epochal attacks on the US in 2001. These attacks were committed by a loose coalition of terrorists scattered across a number predominantly of Sunni countries. What conditions allowed for these terrorists? Well, one was the trade drug trade, which was permitted for the same reasons. These countries had porous borders and a faulty legal system. If Saudi Arabia, for example, had reliable democratic institutions, then its royal family would probably not be funding Al Qaeda. I doubt the people want to live in a country that harbors terrorists or that grows heroin.
