ever occurred in an independent country with a democratic form of govern-
ment and a free press. A democratic government exposed to the glare of a
viable opposition and a free press will have the incentives to ensure adequate
and timely interventions to ward off any threat of famine. Rodrik (1999) shows
detailed empirical evidence that democracy also generates more predictable
long-run growth rates and greater economic stability, handles adverse shocks
better and reduces income inequality. But there is no reason to suppose that
democracy automatically produces desirable growth and developmental
outcomes and this is particularly true in the poorest developing countries.
Collier (2010) finds that in low-income countries (GDP per capita less than
$2,700) democracy increases political violence. Elections in poor ethnically
divided societies are often brutal winner-takes-all processes, the loser(s) facing
bankruptcy and persecution and the winner(s) the opportunity to enrich them-
selves and their ethnically determined followers. This dichotomy motivates the
use of any means including inflaming ethnic tensions and actual violence to
secure victory. Elections in such situations do not confer the legitimacy that
allows the incumbent government to take tough, unpopular decisions. In fact in
poor ethnically divided societies democracy is likely to weaken any discipline
on governments to perform well. Political loyalty is organized on the basis of
ethnicity, which at the extreme means that votes are ‘frozen in blocs of rival
identities’and fixed independently of government performance. What wins
votes is benefiting a narrowly and usually ethnically defined group of support-
ers at the expense of the rest of the population – remember the ‘vampire state’
example of Ghana (see Chapter 12). Democracy equalizes the right to influ-
ence the allocation of resources so may exacerbate the threat to property from
landless peasants and organized labour in particular.
The question of whether democracy is good for promoting growth and
development misses the more crucial relationship, which is that historically
democracy has been an outcome (not a cause) of development. The typical
franchise during industrialization in today’s developed countries was tiny, in
France between 1830 and 1848 only 0.6 per cent of the population, and the
1832 Reform Act in England extended voting rights from 14 to 18 per cent of
men. Economic development promotes the pre-requisites for democracy such
as literacy, urbanization, the breakdown of traditional hierarchical communi-
ties, and social mobility (Lipset, 1959; Rueschemeyer et al.1992; Huber et al.,
1993; Barro, 1999). But of course, as noted above, the relationship is not auto-
matic. Growth will not automatically bring about Western-style democracy, as
the citizens of Singapore will no doubt have noticed.
Conclusion: Eight Principles for Policy-Makers 301