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Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places

av Paul Collier

MedlemmarRecensionerPopularitetGenomsnittligt betygOmnämnanden
1918141,210 (3.73)2
"Collier has made a substantial contribution to current discussions. His evidence-based approach is a worthwhile corrective to the assumptions about democracy that too often tend to dominate when Western policy makers talk about the bottom billion." --The New York Times Book Review "Before President Obama makes a move he would do well to read Professor Paul Collier's Wars, Guns, and Votes. . . Unlike many academics Collier comes up with very concrete proposals and some ingenious solutions." -- The Times (London) In Wars, Guns, and Votes, esteemed author Paul Collier offers a groundbreaking, radical look at the world's most violent, corrupt societies, how they got that way, and what can be done to break the cycle. George Soros calls Paul Collier "one of the most original minds in the world today," and Wars, Guns, and Votes, like Collier's previous award-winning book The Bottom Billion, is essential reading for anyone interested in current events, war, poverty, economics, or international business.… (mer)
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This text argues that the spread of elections in the world's poorest countries could lead to a more democratic world. This examines ethnic conflict in the world's poorest countries and looks at the policy failures of the developed world vis-à-vis the least developed countries over the past couple of decades. All in all, a useful book for the advanced student.
  Fledgist | Apr 11, 2013 |
Paul Collier asserts the 21st century being the era of civil wars. If the claim is practically solidified, the peaceful restoration of a world community will be a far-fetched dream. Civil wars are detrimental to political and state progression, let alone humanity. A volatile umbrella sheltering ethnic discrepancies, power-related violence, abusive exploitation of developmental funds, brutality, genocide and the biggest scare of all thriving of terrorists pockets. Collier, an expert in developmental predicaments of impoverished economies focuses on the African panorama of political violence and power struggle under the façade of democracy submitting numerous ingenious resolutions of policy changes, military budgets cuts to minimize the conflict risk, holding fair and free elections, reforming economic policies and providing governmental aid supervised by designated financial peacemaker.

I have always maintained the fact of democracy being a farce in a place where power and money rules above the nominal populace enhancement. How can one exercise free will when egalitarianism is either strictly communal or a moneyed privilege? Why is nation-building essential yet highly impossible in various third-world countries?

Democracy the magical word for a sovereign nation; amusing how it differs in the bottom billion (countries accounting for more than a billion of the world’s poorest populace).So, how can one dissect democracy or rather what does it stand for in the bottom billion.
D - Dais for several deluded notions of freedom and justice
propagandas.
E - Electoral sham, exhibiting every aspect of dreadful hostility ranging from bribery, intimidation, manipulating ballots and deceitful garnering of votes.
M - Mishandling of international and developmental funds fulfilling egotistical power-hungry motives and illegal arms dealings.
O - Omitting the prospect of Human Rights and at times overlooking educational and health upgrading. In some rural pockets illiteracy is preferred as no questions will be raised against criminal political and insurgent activities.
C - Chucking the concept of national identity whilst enhancing the prospects of varied ethnic liberalizations demarcating class, religious segregations and social order in state communities.
R – Rebellious onset of civil wars surfacing volatile situations between the governing assemblies and private rebel armies.
A -Accountability and security of public good for state development are offered minimalist efforts.
C -Corruption thriving within the walls of nationalized infrastructure, disposing patronage and ultimately becoming a benign part of a dysfunctional organization.
Y -Yielding a landscape fertile for proliferating embryonic terror cults and collective bedlam.

Assemble an autonomous nation-state on this pandemonium! And, to think elections and liberty of exercising the right to vote sums up the foundation to constructing a sovereign third world nation-state. Is it a fundamental naivety or a deficient study of a greatly diverse unrevealed world? A nation can be busted within a span of days or even hours but to construct a secure democratic sanctuary it takes decades of combating revolutionary upheavals and understanding the extant intricacies.

Michael Clemems rightly estimates the epochal tasks of development in the billion-bottom countries stating,"Helping the bottom billion will be a very slow job for generations, not the product of media- or summit-friendly plans to end poverty in ten or 20 years. It will require long-term, opportunistic, and humble engagement, much of it through public action -- built on a willingness to let ineffective interventions die and on a sophisticated appreciation of the stupendous complexity of functioning economies. The grievous truth is that although a range of public actions can and should help many people, most of the bottom billion will not -- and cannot -- be freed from poverty in our lifetimes."(Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct.2007)

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/62849/michael-a-clemens/smart-samaritans?

I agree.




( )
  Praj05 | Apr 5, 2013 |
When Collier is explaining the process of how he collected his data and came to his conclusions, he almost turns this text into a biography of how to be a social scientist. He pretty much comes close to describing the trials and tribulations of an academic, where data can be puzzling, challenges are met and hurdles overcome.

This tone ensures this is not a dry text, but he manages to keep it scholarly. Ultimately it is a polemic and he wants you to be convinced. If he had just stuck to the data this aim would have been harder to achieve for a mass readership.

Having said that, it is well written and not totally unconvincing. ( )
  rory1000 | Jul 21, 2011 |
Why are the African countries failing after achieving freedom from Western countries ? Why are elected leaders consistantly staying in power year after year. In the Middle East we are seeing the effect right now, summer 2011. An excellent book ( )
  carterchristian1 | May 24, 2011 |
Paul Collier has previously written a host of academic papers on the subject, but this is a much more informal (occasionally quite chatty) monologue, where he explains why democracy doesn't work in poor countries and finally proposes a solution to the 'Africa problem'.

His premise is simple: Democracy is good - but only if the elected government is accountable to the electors. In poor ethnically diverse countries this doesn't work, and therefore elected presidents see office as an opportunity to enrich themselves (and especially their cronies, upon whom they rely to stay in power). For a president in a poor country elections are great - they are easy to manipulate¹, and give the winner respectability in the eyes of the 'international community'.

For the people, on the other hand, elections mean worse conditions, as the leader concentrates his energy on being re-elected rather than doing any public good.

The main risk of losing power in a poor country is not loss at the election polls, but rather a coup by your erstwhile cronies in the army. Since decolonisation in the 1960's there have been 80 successful coups in Africa alone, but only a handful of president who have left office after losing an election. And coups are intrinsically dangerous, as they also increase the risks of new coups and civil war.

His proposed solution is too complex to put forwards in great detail, but in short it's the following:

- The main threat to a ruler is the constant risks of coups.

- The 'international community' can pledge to thwart any attempt at a coup if and only if the ruler was elected in a free and fair election.

He claims that this would be enough of a guarantee to secure reasonably fair elections², and he also suggests similar schemes to cut down on gun-running and corruption

He also makes an interesting historical parallel between the decolonization of Africa and the de-romanization of Europe. During the Dark Ages Europe descended into chaos, and regional warlords battled it out for several centuries before homogeneous nation-states started to coalesce around the stronger armies. In Africa the borders have been frozen in a post-colonial stasis, with 53 countries (54 with South Sudan), where half a dozen would be better. The current African states are too large to be homogeneous (they invariably contain several ethnic groups), but too small to be efficiently run - there's economy of scale in many parts of government - especially security³.

The text is also interspersed with a very dry wit. He talks about the danger of doing research in some of these very violent surroundings, where people are being tortured and killed - because his grant might run out.

Rating: Four stars: ★★★★☆

¹He gives a long list. From simple media domination, via more targeted propaganda to bribery, ethnic conflicts, violence, and declaring your opponents illegible.

²The one scenario that he doesn't consider, though is the following: What happens if an openly unfair government gets elected? I'm thinking along he lines of the Hutu government of Rwanda, or if the Muslim Brotherhood were to gain power in Egypt

³The obvious counter-examples of Luxembourg and Lichtenstein have both given up a certain degree of national sovereignty. ( )
  Popup-ch | May 3, 2011 |
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"Collier has made a substantial contribution to current discussions. His evidence-based approach is a worthwhile corrective to the assumptions about democracy that too often tend to dominate when Western policy makers talk about the bottom billion." --The New York Times Book Review "Before President Obama makes a move he would do well to read Professor Paul Collier's Wars, Guns, and Votes. . . Unlike many academics Collier comes up with very concrete proposals and some ingenious solutions." -- The Times (London) In Wars, Guns, and Votes, esteemed author Paul Collier offers a groundbreaking, radical look at the world's most violent, corrupt societies, how they got that way, and what can be done to break the cycle. George Soros calls Paul Collier "one of the most original minds in the world today," and Wars, Guns, and Votes, like Collier's previous award-winning book The Bottom Billion, is essential reading for anyone interested in current events, war, poverty, economics, or international business.

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