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Ballots, Bullets, and the Bottom Billion

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Ballots, Bullets, and the Bottom Billion %DOORWV%XOOHWVDQGWKH%RWWRP%LOOLRQ Arthur A. Goldsmith Journal of Democracy, Volume 23, Number 2, April 2012, pp. 119-132 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/jod.2012.0023 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jod/summary/v023/23.2.goldsmith.html Access provided by username 'cohenf' (22 Aug 2014 17:26 GMT) Goldsmith.NEW saved by BK on 1/3/12; 5,364 words including notes. Older versions have been renamed; TXT created from NEW by PJC, 2/29/12 (5,631 words). TXT saved by BK on 3/1/12; MP edits to TXT by PJC, 3/2/12 (5,626 words). AAS saved by BK on 3/5/12; FIN created from AAS by PJC, 3/5/12 (5,636 words). PGS created by BK on 3/5/12. ballots, bullets, and the bottom billion Arthur A. Goldsmith Arthur A. Goldsmith is associate dean and professor in the College of Management at the University of Massachusetts–Boston. He publishes frequently on international development, international business, and the politics and economics of Africa. In late 2010, the small West African republic of Côte d’Ivoire held troubled presidential elections that seemed to typify a broad difficulty with democracy in low-income countries. Instead of peacefully recon- ciling political differences, the balloting boiled over into unstructured conflict and renewed strife in a country that was just emerging from a civil war dating back to 2005. The 28 November 2010 runoff brought the problems to a head. It pitted longtime incumbent Laurent Gbagbo from the Christian south against equally longtime opposition leader Alassane Ouattara from the Muslim north. Côte d’Ivoire’s election commission and the United Na- tions declared Ouattara the winner, but Gbagbo claimed fraud, had votes from Ouattara’s base region disqualified, and insisted that he and not Ouattara had won the contest. The stalemate degenerated into a new civ- il war, complete with atrocities committed by both sides. Four months later, Ouattara’s militia prevailed and, with the help of UN and French forces, arrested Gbagbo before extraditing him to face trial before the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Chaotic power struggles such as this raise a difficult issue for the international community, whose policy has been to encourage elections as a way of resolving internal disputes and promoting good governance. One theory, favored by policy makers and based on the concept of do- mestic democratic peace, expects representative institutions to produce accommodation and compromise. A contrary view says that in order for elections to help rather than harm, a society must first be ready for democracy. According to modernization theory, the main factor determining Journal of Democracy Volume 23, Number 2 April 2012 © 2012 National Endowment for Democracy and The Johns Hopkins University Press 120 Journal of Democracy any particular regime type’s feasibility or performance is economic development: Countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, standing as they do on the lower rungs of the international economic ladder, will experi- ence democracy as an unstable and conflict-prone form of govern- ment—just the opposite of what happens in economically advanced countries. Much has been written trying to quantify the link between econom- ic development and political regimes. My present point of departure is recent work by Paul Collier and his colleagues. Collier focuses on the “bottom billion,” meaning the portion of humanity that lives in the world’s poorest countries. “Prior to the end of the Cold War,” Collier observes, “most leaders of the bottom billion had come to power through violence. Now most are in power through winning elections.” 1 But elections in these nations are a sham or, worse, destabilizing due to a lack of institutionalized checks and balances. “To date,” Collier asserts, “democracy in the societies of the bottom billion has increased political violence instead of reducing it.” 2 He labels this defective form of gov- ernment “democrazy.” Which countries are in jeopardy? Collier records some sixty coun- tries in the bottom-billion group today. His list overlaps with similar lists of fragile or vulnerable states from the OECD, the World Bank, and others.3 But no such list is fixed over time. Collier’s research suggests that the cutoff point below which democracy turns into democrazy is an annual per capita income of US$2,700—although depending on the year the aggregate number of people in that category may number well more than a billion.4 Below that level of income, Collier says, democratic political systems are more likely than dictatorships to expose citizens to coups, assassinations, and outbreaks of guerrilla warfare. In order to have an extended period over which to analyze the extent of democrazy, let us isolate all countries (with populations exceeding a half-million) where annual Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPpc) is $2,700 or less (in 2005 prices using Purchasing Power Parity esti- mates) in any given year back to 1960, as reported in the Penn World Table.5 Seventy-one countries held at least one competitive election for the national leader while in this recorded income range for the election year during the period from 1960 to 2006. Let us also leave out elec- tion years when any of these countries may have risen above the $2,700 GDPpc level.6 At first glance, there are reasons to question the democrazy argu- ment. One cause for doubt is the dwindling use of the bullet around the world to transfer power, whether by coup d’état, assassination, or civil war. If the democrazy thesis is correct—if democracy in very poor countries feeds conflict—one would expect to see the opposite tenden- cy. Another reason for skepticism about democrazy is the growing sig- nificance of the ballot globally. Although Collier and others are correct Arthur A. Goldsmith 121 that post–Cold War elections have often had a make-believe quality, it would be a mistake to dismiss the significance of every election in very poor countries, even when incumbents try hard to manipulate the results. Many studies of democratization are hampered by methodology and data problems regarding the measurement of regime types. It is hard to measure a concept as broad as democracy, and it is hard to say pre- cisely where democratic regimes end and other forms of government begin. In order to avoid these difficulties and minimize measurement error, let us ask more simply whether a country has experienced an at- tempt or attempts at changing leaders by extralegal means as opposed to lawful elections. While narrower in scope than a country’s overall level of democracy or autocracy, this “bullets-or-ballots” variable has the advantage of considering explicit events that lend themselves to di- rect measurement, and spares us the need to assess broad hypothetical constructs such as regime type. Transfers of Power: Regular or Irregular? Max Weber defines politics as the realm of human endeavor regard- ing the leadership of the state. Any political decision, he writes, always means “that interests in the distribution, maintenance, or transfer of power are decisive.”7 The struggle for national power or leadership may occur through recognized state institutions, or it may take place with- out consideration of the rules (and therefore illegitimately, in Weber’s sense), outside the system of “organized domination” and “continuous administration” that constitutes the state. “The decisive means for politics is violence,” Weber continues, but in states where people accept governments with which they disagree, neither the state nor its citizens need turn to forceful methods to gain or hold political power. The gloves come off more frequently in regimes with uncertain legitimacy, which of course include many of the bottom- billion states. Rival groups are apt to destroy property and inflict bodily harm as means to affect the composition or behavior of government. The state may well respond in kind, although this article does not address the question of state-sponsored oppression directed against members of society.8 In a little-noticed trend, however, overtly violent manifestations of political rivalry and power-seeking are on the wane. Across the whole set of nations where GDPpc is less than $2,700, we see far fewer coups d’état, attempts to assassinate the top ruler, and (though here the falloff has been less dramatic) onsets of civil wars fought over the question of who shall control the national government. These noninstitutionalized methods of taking power are at or near historically low levels, as Figure 1 on page 122 shows. Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne have recently compiled a dataset 12 New civil wars for central control Assassinations and e) g 10 assassination attempts ra e av Successful and unsuccesful g n coups vi 8 o 122 m Journal of NewDemocracy civil wars for central 12 r a control e 12-y 6 New civil wars for central igure xtralegal5 FForts to eplace atioNAssassinationsal and control e)F 1—e ( e r N g ts assassination attempts a 10eadership iN ottomn illioN ouNtries rl B ) e -B c , 1960–2007 Assassinations and e e v v g 10e 4 Successful and unsuccesful assassination attempts a a f New civil wars for central 1212 g r o New civilcoups wars for n e r centralcontrol control* vi 8 v e Successful and unsuccesful o a b g m Assassinations and coups ) m in 8u 2 assassinationAssassinations attempts** and e ar v g 1010 e o N assassination attempts a y m er - 6 r Successful and v (5 a unsuccessfulSuccessful and coups*** unsuccesful a s e g t -y 6 0 coups in n 5 v 88 ve ( o e ts 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 f 4 n r m o e a r v e e e 4 -y 66 b f 5 m o ( u 2 r s N be nt e um 2 ev N f 44 o 0 er b 1960 1965 19700 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 um 22 N 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Number of Events (5-Month Moving Average) 00 19601960 1965 1970 1975 19801985 1990 1990 19952000 2005 Note: Country coverage excludes nations with fewer than 500,000 citizens and countries with per capita GDP over $2,700 in 2005 PPP dollars.
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