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From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

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FROM POVERTY TO POWERBOX 2.2ARE EFFECTIVE STATES COMPATIBLE WITHACTIVE CITIZENS?The rise of strong states over the past two centuries is litteredwith famous names such as Napoleon (France), Cavour (Italy),Bismarck (Germany), Atatürk (Turkey), Mao Tse Tung (China),Stalin (USSR), Chiang Kai-shek (Taiwan), Jawarhalal Nehru(India), Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), and Sukarno (Indonesia), as wellas some not so famous ones like Seretse Khama of Botswanaand Lázaro Cárdenas of Mexico.These leaders inspired a sense of national pride and identity,but their fame seldom stemmed from their commitment <strong>to</strong>democracy. The most no<strong>to</strong>rious among them sought <strong>to</strong> establish<strong>to</strong>tal state control by crushing any independent action by citizens.Effective states in East Asia and elsewhere have typically takenoff with little initial recognition of human rights or democracy,although this has often improved later on; in Latin America,active social movements and political organisations have rarelybeen accompanied by effective states. Are the two mutuallyexclusive? Or is this a case of ‘selection bias’ – those countriesthat have had both have already ceased <strong>to</strong> be poor, and sodisappear from the development radar? Many of the mostsuccessful transformations in the past century, such as thoseof Sweden and Finland, have been triggered by social pacts withina democracy, showing what the elusive combination of activecitizens and effective states can achieve. Data are limited andbeset with measurement problems, but seem <strong>to</strong> suggest apositive correlation between active citizenship and effectivestates. Although this does not prove which came first, it at leastsuggests that they are not mutually incompatible. 134In any case, backing authoritarianism in the hope that it coulddeliver economic growth was never a safe bet. For every LeeKuan Yew in Singapore or Chinese Communist Party, there havebeen dozens of au<strong>to</strong>crats who ignored both citizens and businessleaders and drove their economies in<strong>to</strong> the ground. Moreover,the authoritarian road <strong>to</strong> development is getting harder. Thespread of democracy makes it much harder for <strong>to</strong>day’s au<strong>to</strong>crats94

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