Sea of Japan—highlighted the need for consulting faction leaders. When the ter- stronger central authority. Further reforms rorists struck America on 9/11, Koizumi’s strengthened the prime minister, stream- government was ready to act decisively. lined the cabinet, and curbed bureaucrats’ Though he failed to win legislation pro- influence over Diet politicians. viding for a strong response to any future The current prime minister, the LDP’s military attack, he won a hard-fought par- Junichiro Koizumi, elected in a landslide liamentary vote last July to send a military in April 2001, was the first “to be selected force to Iraq. While Koizumi—who’s like- outside of the traditional factional power ly to win reelection this fall—has been un- struggles,” says Shinoda. He had the support able thus far to lead Japan out of its eco- of younger party members in the Diet and nomic morass, Shinoda believes that the local party members outside Tokyo, and stage at least has been set for a revitalized he was able to pick his cabinet without politics and effective national leadership. Asia’s Economic Tortoise “Can Overtake ?” by and Tarun Khanna, in Foreign Policy (July–Aug. 2003), 1779 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.

Though India, like China, has more than economy has taken off in recent decades, “few one billion inhabitants, it is no match for its local firms have followed.” fellow Asian giant in terms of gross domestic In India, by contrast, foreign direct invest- product ($477 billion in 2001, compared ment has been paltry (only $3.4 billion in with China’s $1.2 tril- lion) and other high- profile economic indi- cators. Even so, argue the authors, in the long run of economic devel- opment, India may have the last laugh. “China’s export-led manufacturing boom is largely a creation of for- eign direct investment” ($44.2 billion in 2001), with much of that money coming from the 55 mil- lion Chinese living abroad, note Huang and Khanna, professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and , respectively. But Beijing has imposed re- strictions on indigenous private firms to keep them from challenging its state-owned enterpris- To overtake China, India needs more home-grown entrepreneurs like es. Though the Chinese Infosys founder Narayana Murthy, here greeting Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

Autumn 2003 109 The Periodical Observer

2001), in part because the Indian diaspora is enterprise to flourish,” write the authors. much smaller (20 million), and, resented for And entrepreneurs there—such as Narayana its success, it has been much less willing to Murthy, the founder of Infosys, who is often send money home. But New Delhi, which compared to Microsoft’s Bill Gates—have has backed away from micromanaging the become folk heroes. economy in recent years, has provided “a “India soon may have the best of both more nurturing environment for domestic en- worlds,” say Huang and Khanna, for it is trepreneurs,” say Huang and Khanna. Indian poised to reap significantly more foreign di- companies such as software giants Infosys and rect investment in the coming years. After Wipro and pharmaceutical and biotechnolo- decades of standoffishness, New Delhi is gy powerhouses Ranbaxy and Dr. Reddy’s embracing the Indian diaspora. Not only are Labs “now compete internationally with the expatriates being encouraged to open their best that Europe and the United States have to wallets, but many engineers and scientists offer.” The Forbes 200 ranking of the world’s best are being lured home. small companies last year included 13 Indian “With the help of its diaspora, China has firms but only four from mainland China. won the race to be the world’s factory,” the au- “Democracy, a tradition of entrepreneur- thors conclude. “With the help of its dias- ship, and a decent legal system have given pora, India could become the world’s tech- India the underpinnings necessary for free nology lab.” The Arab Democracy Deficit “An ‘Arab’ More Than a ‘Muslim’ Democracy Gap” by Alfred Stepan with Graeme B. Robertson, in Journal of Democracy (July 2003), 1101 15th St., N.W., Ste. 800, Washington, D.C. 20005.

Not one of the world’s 16 Arab countries fore the 1975–90 civil war), and it failed to is a democracy, and many Western analysts reach the five-year mark. say it’s because Islam is inherently antithet- It’s conventional wisdom among social ical to democratic forms. Stepan, a political scientists that prosperity makes nations more scientist at Columbia University, and inclined to hold meaningful free elections, yet Robertson, a graduate student, beg to differ. seven wealthy Arab nations did not pass the They looked at the Arab countries—in- rights test, while seven non-Arab, Muslim- cluding Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Saudi majority countries with low gross domestic Arabia—and at the 31 non-Arab nations in product per capita did. These political “over- the world with Muslim-majority popula- achievers” were Albania, Bangladesh, the tions. Using data for 1972–2000 from Gambia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Freedom House’s annual survey of political The Arab “democracy gap” obviously can’t rights around the globe, and from a similar un- be blamed simply on Islam, the authors point dertaking called the Polity Project, Stepan out. But if “Arab political culture” is at fault, and Robertson tried to identify the “elec- it’s not because of anything intrinsic to it, they torally competitive” countries, those whose believe. People in Arab countries have not de- governments derived from “reasonably fair” veloped the strong attachment to their nation- elections. state that usually fosters democracy. Many Twelve of the non-Arab countries with Arab states, carved out of the defunct Muslim majorities sustained “relatively high Ottoman Empire after World War I, have “rel- levels of political rights for at least three con- atively new and arbitrary boundaries.” Efforts secutive years,” the authors found. Eight of to promote pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism, as these—including Bangladesh, the Gambia, well as the fact that Arabic is spoken in many Malaysia, Mali, Nigeria, and Turkey—did so different lands, have further weakened the na- for at least five consecutive years. Of the tion-state’s appeal. Yet the authors believe that Arab nations, in contrast, only Lebanon “internal pressures and initiatives” will even- passed the three-year test (in the period be- tually produce democracies in the Arab world.

110 Wilson Quarterly