(By Merkeb Negash)
“[i]f all comparative studies are viewed together, the hypothesis that there is no clear relationship between economic development and democracy in either direction remains extremely plausible.” – Amartya Sen (1999) “Development as Freedom”
Some recent articles on Ethiopian blogs and Newspapers/Magazines are portraying the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi as if he was of the conviction that there is no relationship between democracy and development and by extension of a ‘no need of democracy’ in poor societies.
Bisrat Teshome in his article, titled “Making Sense of Development through Freedom” published in Addisstandard (Jan 04, 2013), even went further and adamantly declared that “Meles Zenawi died convinced of a no relationship between democracy and development”. He didn’t even hesitate nor tried to read Meles’ works before he dared to arrogantly declare “[Meles] was wrong”! I specifically chose this article because I found it being a textbook example of Ethiopian opposition’s pathological nature of ‘shooting first and aiming latter’.
While the writer chose to conceptualize development as freedom (Amartya Sen’s famous dictum), he provided Meles’ World Economic Forum speech “there is no direct relationship between growth and democracy historically and theoretically” as an evidence for his pseudo-analysis – that Meles Zenawi was/died wrong. His whole analysis depends on these two assumptions. Bisrat Teshome was/is wrong!
Meles never argued- be it implicitly or explicitly- that there is no relationship between democracy and, development in the way Sen defined. As the writer himself wrote- albeit unconsciously- Meles was of the conviction that “there is no direct relationship between growth and democracy”. Growth and development (whether one defines development as freedom or in its conventional way) are not synonyms. There is a substantial difference between economic growth and development in general. The difference becomes huge if one uses Amartya Sen so as to conceptualize development. Therefore, one cannot use Sen’s definition of development and attempt to invalidate Meles’ conviction of “no direct relationship between growth and democracy”. The writer didn’t know or didn’t want us to know the fact that there is a huge difference between growth and development (be it in its conventional sense or as freedom). Logicians call such arguments “The straw man fallacy” where an arguer distorts an opponent’s argument for the purpose of more easily attacking it, demolishes the distorted argument, and then concludes that the opponent’s real argument has been demolished. By making growth and development identical, the writer attacked Meles’ speech at the World Economic Forum, and then concluded that Meles’ overall conviction has been demolished. Here is where the writer got his ‘analysis’ wrong!
In a stark contrast to the distorted version of the writer, Meles was of the assumption that democracy is both an end in and by itself, and the only means to bringing about a sustainable development. In his “African Development: Dead Ends and New Beginnings” Meles argues “while there has been accelerated development without democratization, democratization has been an essential element of the African renaissance”. Meles further argues, “[i]n poor developing countries, a developmental state, accelerated development and stable democracies appear to be parts of the same package”. The writer doesn’t seem to have read this or has intentionally overlooked this fact so as to help him easily attack Meles. He didn’t even care to mention Meles’ assertion (in the same speech the writer quoted) that democracy is the only option of keeping diverse African nations united. Once again, the writer committed the fallacy of suppressed evidence when he presumed that no important evidence has been overlooked or suppressed by the premises when in fact it has!
Of course, Meles didn’t believe in “bedtime stories, contrived arguments linking economic growth with democracy”. Both historical evidences and development theories prove him right. The unprecedented economic performance of the East Asian Tigers and some Latin American countries where development was achieved under the tutelage of authoritarianism is typical empirical evidence. Theories of development are not any different. To the dismay of the writer, Amartya Sen (1999) himself in his “Development as Freedom” argues, “[i]f all comparative studies are viewed together, the hypothesis that there is no clear relationship between economic development and democracy in either direction remains extremely plausible”. These are the same words Bisrat is trying to deconstruct by using the same author! How could one and the same argument be an ‘unwaveringly perfect’ when it is of a Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen and, ‘wrong’ when it comes to Meles? This is why I am arguing that Bisrat et al have a pathological problem of ‘shooting first and aiming latter’.
Yet one should not assume Meles believed democracy was a barrier to socio-economic development nor a luxury poor states could not afford. In lieu, he had an unwavering belief of democracy as a sin-qua-non for socioeconomic development on the one hand and an end in and by itself on the other. Arguing that there is no direct relationship between democracy and socio-economic development is one thing; asserting that development should be conceptualized as freedom is another. For anyone who objectively compares Meles and Sen, they are of one and the same conviction. Period! However, discerning (admitting is the right word) this fact requires leaving one’s idiosyncrasies aside and looking at the facts objectively. Unfortunately, this is a rare gift only few are blessed with.
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Please check the archives for more on the issues raised above.
* This article is part of the “Post-Meles 2012″ Special Edition of this blog.
የእርዳታ ጉዳይም ከልማት ጋር ተያይዞ ሊነሳ ይችላል ።እርዳታ ምእራባውያን ለአፍሪካ አገራት የሚሰጡት ዲሞክራሲን ለማፈጠን ወይስ የራሳቸውን ፖሊሲዎችን ለማስፈፀም የሚለውም እንዲሁ አነጋጋሪ ነው ።
Democracy and Development are either directly related or not related at all. Development can be achieved at the cost of democracy , for example China , a slow development can happen and yet with a flourishing democracy like India . No democracy and no development like some African countries and failed states.
Development first!! then we will spoil with economic growth and talk about democracy latter .or in other way we have to eat bread first that our stomach do not hurt and talk the rest of abstract concepts
Merkbe, you can add him on facebook (his name is Berihu Assefa). And, I have copy and paste what he said. Find it below.
There are a lot of points I agree with Bisrat Teshome (read his article here first: http://addisstandard.com/?p=1660) which I don’t want to list them here to avoid duplication. I would like to concentrate only on some points which I think need more conceptual clarity and evidence. I will start with some questions and then give some alternative conception.
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1) The statistics for industrial competitiveness, high inflation and other macroeconomic problems you provided are helpful to have a good picture of the Ethiopian political economy. There is plenty of data to show that Ethiopia is laggard in terms of industrial competitiveness. What needs more conceptual clarity and evidence is your conjecture to link industrial competitiveness problems to lack of freedom. You argued: “lack of economic freedom severely affects competitiveness.” Can you establish the argument that Ethiopia lacks economic freedom first and then show us how this affects Ethiopia’s competiveness? In fact, this requires empirical evidence. What is the reason for the lack of competition in Ethiopia’s private sector?
2) You have used economic growth and development interchangeably. The two are completely different but you can tell us your assumptions although this will have a big implication on the analysis you make and the conclusion you arrive. Moreover, you seem to attach a great deal of significance to the instrumentalist argument for freedom; the view that freedom is an instrument of economic advancement. This conception itself seems to have given you some trouble when you tried to refute Meles’ position.
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1) What do we know so far from the development literature? One can at least theoretically argue that democracies encourage individual creativity and entrepreneurship in the long-run which are good for stable growth; but the hypothesis that authoritarianism may offer better economic growth prospects than democracies in low income countries for the former helps governments make swift decisions (without battling in the parliament to pass a bill) on investments in education, public goods, infrastructure and state-guided industrial incubations is equally valid. However, no empirical or historical evidence that can robustly show that democracies grow more or less than authoritarians has been established. What Meles expressed in the WEF in May 2012 is just this empirical (historical) regularity. Sen, the main citation and yardstick in your article, unequivocally states “it is an unsettled empirical question whether or not authoritarian regimes produce greater economic growth.” Secondly, you seem to misinterpret Meles’ position by using economic growth and development interchangeably. Let me get what Meles said straight: Meles Zenawi died convinced of a “no direct relationship between democracy and economic growth”, not a “no direct relationship between democracy and development.” The problem in your conception arises from your instrumentalist understanding of freedom (democracy). Freedom (democracy) is not only an instrument of economic advancement, it is also an important constituent of development. Hence, unless you are equating economic growth with development, which does not make sense for the latter constitutes economic, social and political transformation, there is no such thing as a relationship between Freedom and development. Sen (I am using Sen repeatedly here just to use the material) conceptualizes freedom as development.
2) What is empirically (historically) true is that growth tends to show high fluctuation among authoritarians than among democracies. The worst and best performers in terms of economic growth are found in the authoritarian camp. Economic historians have shown that, on average, authoritarian governments have grown no more or less than the average democracy. The average for authoritarians would be higher if we remove bad dictators such as North Korea.
3) So, the key question is: why should we embrace democracy? The instrumentalist argument (i.e., democracy serves as a key instrument for economic advancement) or the intrinsic virtue argument (i.e., democracy can stand on its own for its intrinsic values)? The instrumentalist argument is contested and empirically unestablished. Hence, democracy has emerged as the only socially and morally acceptable model of governance not because democracies grow more than authoritarians, but because its intrinsic values and virtues are socially defensible across all human beings. If the instrumentalist argument was to serve as a guide, then both authoritarianism and democracy would have emerged as competing models, which is not historically the case.
4) One evidence that democracy is socially virtuous in and of itself is that as countries become rich they tend to democratize. This can be historically verified. But this does not mean that early democratization of low-income countries is infeasible.
in my opinion, economic growth can only be realised when citizens are engaged in creating wealth rather than ripping away what already exists. inorder to do this govts are required to steer their citizens towards wealth creation by introducing various financing and support programs. ultimate realization of democracy can only be realized when our country is independent of the so called foreign aid that the west uses for arm twisting african govts to sucumb to their policy prescriptions, and we are walking on our own feet. this is not to mean that govts shud be decttorial, but just to note that as a resident of addis, i dont see the endangered democracy in the country that our mostly diaspora opposition are out to in my opinion, economic growth can only be realised when citizens are engaged in creating wealth rather than ripping away what already exists. inorder to do this govts are required to steer their citizens towards wealth creation by introducing various financing and support programs. ultimate realization of democracy can only be realized when our country is independent of the so called foreign aid that the west uses for arm twisting african govts to sucumb to their policy prescriptions, and we are walking on our own feet. this is not to mean that govts shud be decttorial, but just to note that as a resident of addis, i dont see the endangered democracy in the country that our mostly diaspora opposition are out to in my opinion, economic growth can only be realised when citizens are engaged in creating wealth rather than ripping away what already exists. inorder to do this govts are required to steer their citizens towards wealth creation by introducing various financing and support programs. ultimate realization of democracy can only be realized when our country is independent of the so called foreign aid that the west uses for arm twisting african govts to sucumb to their policy prescriptions, and we are walking on our own feet. this is not to mean that govts shud be decttorial, but just to note that as a resident of addis, i dont see the endangered democracy in the country that our mostly diaspora opposition are out to in my opinion, economic growth can only be realised when citizens are engaged in creating wealth rather than ripping away what already exists. inorder to do this govts are required to steer their citizens towards wealth creation by introducing various financing and support programs. ultimate realization of democracy can only be realized when our country is independent of the so called foreign aid that the west uses for arm twisting african govts to sucumb to their policy prescriptions, and we are walking on our own feet. this is not to mean that govts shud be decttorial, but just to note that as a resident of addis, i dont see the endangered democracy in the country that our mostly diaspora opposition are out to save.
Magu, I didn’t read that and I can’t access the link you posted since the guy is not my friend on FB. Thanks for the comment, though!
Thank you for this descriptive argument Merkeb Negash. Some people don’t really care about the truth as far as they think they are attacking someone who they oppose. Bisrate is a typical example.
In a different not, did you read what Berihu Assefa write as a response to Bisrat Teshome? I found Berihu Asefa’s and Merkeb Negash’s responses similar. Merkeb, check Berihu’s response if you haven’t read it yet.
Visit this facebook page of Berihu Assefa, and you will find it.
https://www.facebook.com/berihuua?ref=ts&fref=ts
Meles died saying ”No direct relation b/n Democracy and ECONOMIC Growth”, not development per se!