The Origins Of Political Order Part 14

The central insight of Samuel Huntington's 1968 book Political Order in Changing Societies Political Order in Changing Societies was that political development had its own logic, which was related to but different from the logic of the economic and social dimensions of development. Political decay, he argued, occurred when economic and social modernization outran political development, with the mobilization of new social groups that could not be accommodated within the existing political system. This, he maintained, was what was causing instability among the newly independent countries of the developing world during the 1950s and '60s, with their incessant coups, revolutions, and civil wars. was that political development had its own logic, which was related to but different from the logic of the economic and social dimensions of development. Political decay, he argued, occurred when economic and social modernization outran political development, with the mobilization of new social groups that could not be accommodated within the existing political system. This, he maintained, was what was causing instability among the newly independent countries of the developing world during the 1950s and '60s, with their incessant coups, revolutions, and civil wars.

The argument that political development follows its own logic and is not necessarily part of an integrated process of development needs to be seen against the backdrop of cla.s.sic modernization theory. This theory had its origin in nineteenth-century thinkers like Karl Marx, emile Durkheim, Ferdinand Tonnies, and Max Weber, who sought to a.n.a.lyze the momentous changes occurring in European society as a result of industrialization. Though there were significant differences among them, they tended to argue that modernization was of one piece: it included development of a capitalist market economy and a consequent large-scale division of labor; the emergence of strong, centralized, bureaucratic states; the s.h.i.+ft from tightly knit village communities to impersonal urban ones; and the transition from communal to individualistic social relations.h.i.+ps. All of these elements come together in Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto Communist Manifesto, where the "rise of the bourgeoisie" affects everything from labor conditions to global compet.i.tion to the most intimate family relations.h.i.+ps. Cla.s.sic modernization theory tended to date these changes from approximately the time of the Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century; they unfolded with incredible rapidity in the three centuries following.

Modernization theory migrated to the United States in the years before World War II, taking up residence in places like Harvard's Department of Comparative Politics, the MIT Center for International Studies, and the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Comparative Politics. The Harvard department, led by Weber's protege Talcott Parsons, hoped to create an integrated, interdisciplinary social science that would combine economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology.1 Modernization theorists placed a strong normative value on being modern, and, in their view, the good things of modernity tended to go together. Economic development, changing social relations.h.i.+ps like the breakdown of extended kins.h.i.+p groups and the growth of individualism, higher and more inclusive levels of education, normative s.h.i.+fts toward values like "achievement" and rationality, secularization, and the development of democratic political inst.i.tutions were all seen as an interdependent whole. Economic development would fuel better education, which would lead to value change, which would promote modern politics, and so on in a virtuous circle. Modernization theorists placed a strong normative value on being modern, and, in their view, the good things of modernity tended to go together. Economic development, changing social relations.h.i.+ps like the breakdown of extended kins.h.i.+p groups and the growth of individualism, higher and more inclusive levels of education, normative s.h.i.+fts toward values like "achievement" and rationality, secularization, and the development of democratic political inst.i.tutions were all seen as an interdependent whole. Economic development would fuel better education, which would lead to value change, which would promote modern politics, and so on in a virtuous circle.2 Huntington's Political Order in Changing Societies Political Order in Changing Societies played an important role in killing off modernization theory by arguing that the good things of modernity did not necessarily go together. Democracy, in particular, was not always conducive to political stability. Huntington's definition of political order corresponds to our category of state building, and his book became well known for its argument that political order ought to receive priority over democratization, a development strategy that came to be known as the "authoritarian transition." played an important role in killing off modernization theory by arguing that the good things of modernity did not necessarily go together. Democracy, in particular, was not always conducive to political stability. Huntington's definition of political order corresponds to our category of state building, and his book became well known for its argument that political order ought to receive priority over democratization, a development strategy that came to be known as the "authoritarian transition."3 This was the path followed by Turkey, South Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia, which modernized economically under authoritarian rulers and only later opened up their political systems to democratic contestation. This was the path followed by Turkey, South Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia, which modernized economically under authoritarian rulers and only later opened up their political systems to democratic contestation.

The historical material presented in this volume confirms Huntington's basic insight that the different dimensions of development need to be separated from one another. As we have seen, the Chinese developed a modern state in the Weberian sense more than two millennia ago, without this being accompanied by either rule of law or democracy, not to speak of social individualism or modern capitalism.

European development, moreover, occurred in a manner very different from the accounts presented by Marx and Weber. The roots of European modernity stretch much farther back in time than the Protestant Reformation. As we saw in chapter 16 16, the exit out of kins.h.i.+p-based social organization had started already during the Dark Ages, with the conversion of Germanic barbarians to Christianity. The right of individuals, including women, to freely buy and sell property was already well established in England in the thirteenth century. The modern legal order had its roots in the fight waged by the Catholic church against the emperor in the late eleventh century, and the first European bureaucratic organizations were created by the church to manage its own internal affairs. The Catholic church, long vilified as an obstacle to modernization, was in this longer-term perspective at least as important as the Reformation as the driving force behind key aspects of modernity.

Thus the European path to modernization was not a spasmodic burst of change across all dimensions of development but rather a series of piecemeal s.h.i.+fts over a period of nearly fifteen hundred years. In this peculiar sequence, individualism on a social level could precede capitalism; rule of law could precede the formation of a modern state; and feudalism, in the form of strong pockets of local resistance to central authority, could be the foundation of modern democracy. Contrary to the Marxist view that feudalism was a universal stage of development preceding the rise of the bourgeoisie, it was in fact an inst.i.tution that was largely unique to Europe. It cannot be explained as the outgrowth of a general process of economic development, and we should not necessarily expect to see non-Western societies following a similar sequence.

We need, then, to disaggregate the political, economic, and social dimensions of development, and understand how they relate to one another as separate phenomena that periodically interact. We need to do this, not least because the nature of these relations.h.i.+ps is very different now than it was under the historical conditions of a Malthusian world.

THOMAS MALTHUS.

The world changed very dramatically after approximately the year 1800, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Before then, economic growth in the form of continuously increasing productivity based on technological change could not be taken for granted. Indeed, it barely existed at all.

This is not to say that there weren't important increases in productivity taking place before 1800. Agriculture, the use of irrigation, the metal plow, the printing press, and long-distance sailing s.h.i.+ps all increased output per person.4 For example, the introduction of new varieties of corn tripled the productivity of agriculture in Teotihuacan (Mexico) between the third and second millennia B.C. For example, the introduction of new varieties of corn tripled the productivity of agriculture in Teotihuacan (Mexico) between the third and second millennia B.C.5 The difference between then and now was that steady, year-on-year increases in productivity, and thus in GDP per person, did not occur. We a.s.sume today that computers and the Internet will be much improved a mere five years down the road, and we are probably right. By contrast, agricultural techniques in China were not that much different in the former Han Dynasty shortly after the birth of Christ than they were in the late Qing Dynasty, prior to China's colonization in the nineteenth century. The difference between then and now was that steady, year-on-year increases in productivity, and thus in GDP per person, did not occur. We a.s.sume today that computers and the Internet will be much improved a mere five years down the road, and we are probably right. By contrast, agricultural techniques in China were not that much different in the former Han Dynasty shortly after the birth of Christ than they were in the late Qing Dynasty, prior to China's colonization in the nineteenth century.

Figure 7 shows estimates of per capita GDP for Western Europe and China between 400 and 2001. It indicates that incomes were rising gradually in the eight-hundred-year period between 1000 and 1800 but suddenly accelerated thereafter. Chinese per capita income was largely flat over this same period, but when it began to increase after 1978, it took off at an even faster rate than Europe's. shows estimates of per capita GDP for Western Europe and China between 400 and 2001. It indicates that incomes were rising gradually in the eight-hundred-year period between 1000 and 1800 but suddenly accelerated thereafter. Chinese per capita income was largely flat over this same period, but when it began to increase after 1978, it took off at an even faster rate than Europe's.

FIGURE 7.

The reasons for the ma.s.sive increase in post-1800 productivity have always been at the core of studies of growth. They have to do with changes in the intellectual environment that promoted the emergence of modern natural science, the application of science and technology to production, development of techniques like double-entry bookkeeping, and supportive microeconomic inst.i.tutions like patent law and copyright that permitted and encouraged continuous innovation.6 7 7 But the understandable focus on developments of the last two hundred or so years has obscured our ability to comprehend the nature of political economy in premodern societies. The presumption that a high rate of continuous economic growth is possible puts a premium on investment in the sorts of inst.i.tutions and conditions that facilitate such growth, like political stability, property rights, technology, and scientific research. On the other hand, if we a.s.sume that there are only limited possibilities for productivity improvements, then societies are thrown into a zero-sum world in which predation, or the taking of resources from someone else, is often a far more plausible route to power and wealth. But the understandable focus on developments of the last two hundred or so years has obscured our ability to comprehend the nature of political economy in premodern societies. The presumption that a high rate of continuous economic growth is possible puts a premium on investment in the sorts of inst.i.tutions and conditions that facilitate such growth, like political stability, property rights, technology, and scientific research. On the other hand, if we a.s.sume that there are only limited possibilities for productivity improvements, then societies are thrown into a zero-sum world in which predation, or the taking of resources from someone else, is often a far more plausible route to power and wealth.

This low-productivity world was most notably a.n.a.lyzed by the English clergyman Thomas Malthus, whose Essay on the Principle of Population Essay on the Principle of Population was first published in 1798 when the author was only thirty-two. Malthus, himself one of eight children, argued that while population grows at a geometrical rate (a.s.suming a "natural" total fertility rate of fifteen children per woman), food production increased at only an arithmetic rate, meaning that food output per person tended to decline. Malthus accepted the possibility that there would be increases in agricultural productivity, but he did not think that they would ever be sufficient to keep up with the rate of population growth in the long run. There were some "virtuous" checks on population growth like marital "constraint" (this in a world before widespread birth control), but in the end the problem of human overpopulation would be solved only through the mechanisms of famine, disease, and war. was first published in 1798 when the author was only thirty-two. Malthus, himself one of eight children, argued that while population grows at a geometrical rate (a.s.suming a "natural" total fertility rate of fifteen children per woman), food production increased at only an arithmetic rate, meaning that food output per person tended to decline. Malthus accepted the possibility that there would be increases in agricultural productivity, but he did not think that they would ever be sufficient to keep up with the rate of population growth in the long run. There were some "virtuous" checks on population growth like marital "constraint" (this in a world before widespread birth control), but in the end the problem of human overpopulation would be solved only through the mechanisms of famine, disease, and war.8 Malthus's essay was published right on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, which led to the remarkable post-1800 increases in productivity noted above, particularly with regard to the unlocking of energy contained in fossil fuels like coal and oil. Worldwide energy availability increased sixfold between 1820 and 1950, while population "only" doubled.9 With the emergence of the modern economic world, it has been common to disparage "Malthusian" economics as shortsighted and unduly pessimistic about the prospects for technological change. With the emergence of the modern economic world, it has been common to disparage "Malthusian" economics as shortsighted and unduly pessimistic about the prospects for technological change.10 But if Malthus's model did not work very well for the period 18002000, it is more plausible as a basis for understanding the political economy of the world prior to that period. But if Malthus's model did not work very well for the period 18002000, it is more plausible as a basis for understanding the political economy of the world prior to that period.

As a historical description of pre-1800 economic life, the Malthusian model would have to be revised in certain important ways. Ester Boserup, for example, has argued that population increase and high population densities have been responsible not for starvation but on occasion for productivity-enhancing technological innovation. Thus, for example, the dense populations around river systems in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China sp.a.w.ned intensive modes of agriculture involving large-scale irrigation, new higher-yielding crops, and other tools.11 Hence population growth per se is not necessarily a bad thing. Moreover, there is no direct correlation between levels of food availability and mortality, except in periods of extreme famine; disease has historically been far more important than hunger as a check on population. Hence population growth per se is not necessarily a bad thing. Moreover, there is no direct correlation between levels of food availability and mortality, except in periods of extreme famine; disease has historically been far more important than hunger as a check on population.12 Populations can also respond to the declining availability of food not by dying off but by individuals becoming smaller in stature and therefore requiring fewer calories. Populations can also respond to the declining availability of food not by dying off but by individuals becoming smaller in stature and therefore requiring fewer calories.13 Something like this appears to have happened in North Korea over the past generation in response to widespread famine. Something like this appears to have happened in North Korea over the past generation in response to widespread famine.14 Finally, local environmental exhaustion needs to be added to overpopulation as a source of declining per capita food output. Environmental damage is not something new in human societies (though its present scale is unprecedented); past societies killed off megafauna, eroded topsoils, and changed local microclimates. Finally, local environmental exhaustion needs to be added to overpopulation as a source of declining per capita food output. Environmental damage is not something new in human societies (though its present scale is unprecedented); past societies killed off megafauna, eroded topsoils, and changed local microclimates.15 With these modifications, the Malthusian model provides a good framework for understanding economic development prior to the Industrial Revolution. Global population has expanded dramatically over the past ten thousand years, from perhaps six million individuals worldwide at the beginning of the Neolithic period to over six billion in 2001, a thousandfold increase.16 But the bulk of that population increase took place in the twentieth century; indeed, much of it occurred in the last decades of that century. A great deal of economic growth prior to 1820 was extensive, that is, the result of human beings settling new lands, draining swamps, clearing forests, reclaiming land from the sea, and so on. Once new lands were settled and exploited up to the limits of available technology, life a.s.sumed a zero-sum character in which increasing resources for one person had to come at the expense of someone else. There were no continuous increases in per capita output; absolute growth would be followed by stagnation and absolute decline, both for the world as a whole and for local populations. Globally, world population experienced ma.s.sive decreases as a result of disease. One such decline took place toward the end of the Roman Empire when it was swept by barbarian invasions, famine, and plague. Another happened as the Mongol invasions of Europe, the Middle East, and China in the thirteenth century brought the plague to new parts of the world. Between 1200 and 1400, the population of Asia declined from around 258 million to 201 million; between 1340 and 1400, Europe's population fell from 74 to 52 million. But the bulk of that population increase took place in the twentieth century; indeed, much of it occurred in the last decades of that century. A great deal of economic growth prior to 1820 was extensive, that is, the result of human beings settling new lands, draining swamps, clearing forests, reclaiming land from the sea, and so on. Once new lands were settled and exploited up to the limits of available technology, life a.s.sumed a zero-sum character in which increasing resources for one person had to come at the expense of someone else. There were no continuous increases in per capita output; absolute growth would be followed by stagnation and absolute decline, both for the world as a whole and for local populations. Globally, world population experienced ma.s.sive decreases as a result of disease. One such decline took place toward the end of the Roman Empire when it was swept by barbarian invasions, famine, and plague. Another happened as the Mongol invasions of Europe, the Middle East, and China in the thirteenth century brought the plague to new parts of the world. Between 1200 and 1400, the population of Asia declined from around 258 million to 201 million; between 1340 and 1400, Europe's population fell from 74 to 52 million.17 When technological advance comes this slowly, it has a two-edged character. In the short run, it improves living standards and benefits the innovators. But greater resources promote increases in population, which then reduce per capita output and leave human beings on average no better off than before the technological change occurred. This is why many historians have argued that the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies left people worse off in many ways. Although the potential for food production was much greater, human beings consumed a narrower range of foods, which adversely affected their health; they expended a greater amount of effort to produce food; and they lived in densely populated areas and were thus more subject to disease, and so on.18 POLITICS IN A MALTHUSIAN WORLD.

Life in a zero-sum, Malthusian world has enormous implications for political development and looks very different from development today. In a Malthusian world, individuals with resources have few options for investing them in things like factories, scientific research, or education that will produce long-run economic growth. If they want to increase their wealth, it often makes much more sense to take a political route and engage in predation, that is, forcibly taking resources from someone else. Predation can take two forms: those with the power to coerce can take resources from other members of their own society, through taxation or outright theft, or they can organize their society to attack and steal from neighboring societies. Organizing for predation through increased military or administrative capacity is thus oftentimes a more efficient use of resources than investment in productive capacity.

Malthus himself recognized war as a factor restraining population, but the cla.s.sic Malthusian model probably understates war's significance as a means of limiting overpopulation. It interacts strongly with famine and disease as population control mechanisms, since the latter usually follow conflict. But unlike famine and disease, predation is the one way of dealing with Malthusian pressures that is under deliberate human control. As the archaeologist Steven LeBlanc points out, the prevalence of warfare and violence in prehistoric societies can be explained by the perpetual problem of populations outrunning the economic carrying capacity of the local environment. Most human beings, in other words, would rather fight than starve.19 An expanded Malthusian model would thus look something like Figure 8 Figure 8. Any technological advance like a new crop or harvesting tool would temporarily increase output per person, but this increased output would in time be offset by either population growth or degradation of the local environment. Output per person would then decrease. Growing poverty could be offset by one of four major mechanisms: people could starve or grow physically smaller, they could die of disease, they could engage in internal predation, or they could go to war with other communities (external predation). Output per person would then increase, either as land and food became more readily available, or as the predators got richer at the expense of other individuals.

It is important not to overstate the degree to which zero-sum thinking predominates in a broadly Malthusian world where continuous technological improvement does not take place. There are many opportunities to gain from cooperation rather than from predation. Farmers and town dwellers can raise their joint welfare by trading with one another; governments that promote broad public goods like public order and mutual defense will benefit both themselves and and their subjects. Indeed, predation itself requires a substantial degree of cooperation; this very fact is one of the most important motives for political organization. their subjects. Indeed, predation itself requires a substantial degree of cooperation; this very fact is one of the most important motives for political organization.

FIGURE 8. THE MALTHUSIAN TRAP.

Figure 9 ill.u.s.trates the relations.h.i.+p between political inst.i.tutions and economic development in a preindustrial, Malthusian world. Intensive economic growth is marooned by itself in the upper left. There are no arrows pointing to it. Intensive growth happened as a result of periodic technological advances, but these advances occurred unpredictably and were often s.p.a.ced at great intervals in time from one another. Technological innovation back then was what economists label exogenous to the system: it occurred independently of any of the other aspects of development. (Ester Boserup's hypothesis that increasing population density periodically spurred innovation and technological change makes the latter endogenous, but it was not related to growing population in a predictable or linear fas.h.i.+on.) The economic growth that took place was largely extensive rather than intensive, meaning that total population and resources increased over time, but not on a per capita basis. ill.u.s.trates the relations.h.i.+p between political inst.i.tutions and economic development in a preindustrial, Malthusian world. Intensive economic growth is marooned by itself in the upper left. There are no arrows pointing to it. Intensive growth happened as a result of periodic technological advances, but these advances occurred unpredictably and were often s.p.a.ced at great intervals in time from one another. Technological innovation back then was what economists label exogenous to the system: it occurred independently of any of the other aspects of development. (Ester Boserup's hypothesis that increasing population density periodically spurred innovation and technological change makes the latter endogenous, but it was not related to growing population in a predictable or linear fas.h.i.+on.) The economic growth that took place was largely extensive rather than intensive, meaning that total population and resources increased over time, but not on a per capita basis.

FIGURE 9. DEVELOPMENT UNDER MALTHUSIAN CONDITIONS.

The critical political inst.i.tution in a Malthusian world was the state, because it was the primary route to achieving extensive economic growth. Coercive capacity-armies and police-could be turned into resources through external predation-war and conquest. Coercion could also be used against domestic populations to maintain the ruler's hold on power. Conversely, resources collected through conquest or taxation could be converted into coercive capacity, so the lines of causation run in both directions. The state could improve economic productivity on a one-time basis by providing basic public goods like security and property rights-Olson's s.h.i.+ft from the roving to the stationary bandit-but it had no way of promoting continuous improvements in productivity.

The power of states was in turn very much affected by legitimacy, which is the transmission belt by which rule of law and social mobilization affect politics. In most Malthusian societies, legitimacy took a religious form. China, the Byzantine Empire, and other caesaropapist states were directly legitimated by the religious authorities that they controlled. In societies where religiously based rule of law existed, religion legitimated an independently const.i.tuted legal order, which could then grant or withhold legal sanction to the state.

The possibilities for the mobilization of new social groups within an existing society were much more limited than in the contemporary world. Religious legitimacy played a very large role in mobilizing formerly inert social actors, like the Arab tribes of seventh-century Arabia and Buddhist and Daoist sects of Tang Dynasty China. Christianity played a similar role in mobilizing new elites during the Roman Empire. In agrarian societies, religion often served as a vehicle for social protest against the established political order and therefore const.i.tuted not just a legitimating but also a destabilizing force.

In a Malthusian world, the possibilities for political development existed in two primary channels. One revolved around the internal logic of state building and extensive economic growth. Political power generated economic resources, which in turn generated greater political power. This process fed upon itself, up to the point that the expanding polity ran into a physical limit like geography or available technology, or b.u.mped up against another polity, or a combination of the two factors. This is the logic of state building and war that unfolded in China and Europe.

The other channel of political change has to do with legitimacy, which then affects the power of states either by establishment of a rule of law or through the empowerment of new social actors. The source of what I have called the Indian detour was the rise of a new Brahmanic religion that compromised the ability of Indian rulers to acc.u.mulate state power in the manner of their Chinese counterparts. New social actors empowered by religion could either contribute to the power of the state, as in the case of the Arabs, or constrain the sovereign's attempts to centralize power, as in the case of the English Parliament.

In a Malthusian world, the dynamic sources of change were relatively limited. The process of state building was very slow and took place, in both China and Europe, over a period of many centuries. It was also subject to periods of political decay in which polities returned to lower levels of development and had to begin the process over again nearly from scratch. New religions or ideologies appeared from time to time, but just like technological innovation they could not be counted on to provide continual dynamic inputs to the system. In addition, technology constrained the ability of people and ideas to move from one part of the world to another. News of Qin s.h.i.+ Huangdi's invention of the Chinese state never reached the ears of the leaders of the Roman Republic. While Buddhism succeeded in making its way across the Himalayas to China and elsewhere in East Asia, other inst.i.tutions remained bottled up in their countries of origin. The separate traditions of law in Christian Europe, the Middle East, and India all developed without influencing one another to any large degree.

DEVELOPMENT UNDER CONTEMPORARY CONDITIONS.

Let us consider now how the dimensions of development have interacted since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. The most important change is the emergence of continuous intensive economic growth, which shapes virtually all the other dimensions of development. Extensive economic growth continues to occur, but it is much less important as a driver of political change than is increasing per capita output. In addition, democracy has joined state building and the rule of law as a component of political development. These dimensions are ill.u.s.trated in Figure 10 Figure 10.

There has been substantial research on the empirical linkages among these different dimensions in the contemporary world, which can be summarized in a series of relations.h.i.+ps.

FIGURE 10. DIMENSIONS OF DEVELOPMENT.

Between state building and economic growth Having a state is a basic precondition for intensive economic growth. The economist Paul Collier has demonstrated the converse of this proposition, namely, that state breakdown, civil war, and interstate conflict have very negative consequences for growth.20 A great deal of Africa's poverty in the late twentieth century was related to the fact that states there were very weak and subject to constant breakdown and instability. Beyond the establishment of a state that can provide for basic order, greater administrative capacity is also strongly correlated with economic growth. This is particularly true at low absolute levels of per capita GDP (less than $1,000); while it remains important at higher levels of income, the impact may not be proportionate. There is also a large literature linking good governance to economic growth, though the definition of "good governance" is not well established and, depending on the author, sometimes includes all three components of political development. A great deal of Africa's poverty in the late twentieth century was related to the fact that states there were very weak and subject to constant breakdown and instability. Beyond the establishment of a state that can provide for basic order, greater administrative capacity is also strongly correlated with economic growth. This is particularly true at low absolute levels of per capita GDP (less than $1,000); while it remains important at higher levels of income, the impact may not be proportionate. There is also a large literature linking good governance to economic growth, though the definition of "good governance" is not well established and, depending on the author, sometimes includes all three components of political development.21 While the correlation between a strong, coherent state and economic growth is well established, the direction of causality is not always clear. The economist Jeffrey Sachs has maintained that good governance is endogenous: it is the product of economic growth rather than a cause of it.22 There is a good logic to this: government costs money. One of the reasons why there is so much corruption in poor countries is that they cannot afford to pay their civil servants adequate salaries to feed their families, so they are inclined to take bribes. Per capita spending on all government services, from armies and roads to schools and police on the street, was about $17,000 in the United States in 2008 but only $19 in Afghanistan. There is a good logic to this: government costs money. One of the reasons why there is so much corruption in poor countries is that they cannot afford to pay their civil servants adequate salaries to feed their families, so they are inclined to take bribes. Per capita spending on all government services, from armies and roads to schools and police on the street, was about $17,000 in the United States in 2008 but only $19 in Afghanistan.23 It is therefore not a surprise that the Afghan state is much weaker than the American one, or that large flows of aid money generate corruption. It is therefore not a surprise that the Afghan state is much weaker than the American one, or that large flows of aid money generate corruption.

On the other hand, there are a number of cases where economic growth did not produce better governance, but where, to the contrary, it was good governance that was responsible for growth. Consider South Korea and Nigeria. In 1954, following the Korean War, South Korea's per capita GDP was lower than that of Nigeria, which was to win its independence from Britain in 1960. Over the following fifty years, Nigeria took in more than $300 billion in oil revenues, and yet its per capita income declined in the years between 1975 and 1995. In contrast, South Korea grew at rates ranging from 7 to 9 percent per year over this same period, to the point that it became the world's twelfth-largest economy by the time of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. The reason for this difference in performance is almost entirely attributable to the far superior government that presided over South Korea compared to Nigeria.

Between rule of law and growth In the academic literature, the rule of law is sometimes considered a component of governance and sometimes considered a separate dimension of development (as I am doing here). As noted in chapter 17 17, the key aspects of rule of law that are linked to growth are property rights and contract enforcement. There is a large literature demonstrating that this correlation exists. Most economists take this relations.h.i.+p for granted, though it is not clear that universal and equal property rights are necessary for this to happen. In many societies, stable property rights exist only for certain elites, and this is sufficient to produce growth for at least certain periods of time.24 Furthermore, societies like contemporary China with "good enough" property rights that yet lack traditional rule of law can nonetheless achieve very high levels of growth. Furthermore, societies like contemporary China with "good enough" property rights that yet lack traditional rule of law can nonetheless achieve very high levels of growth.

Between economic growth and stable democracy The correlation between development and democracy was first noted by the sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset in the late 1950s, and ever since then there have been many studies linking development to democracy.25 The relations.h.i.+p between growth and democracy may not be linear-that is, more growth does not necessarily always produce more democracy. The economist Robert Barro has shown that the correlation is stronger at lower levels of income and weaker at middle levels. The relations.h.i.+p between growth and democracy may not be linear-that is, more growth does not necessarily always produce more democracy. The economist Robert Barro has shown that the correlation is stronger at lower levels of income and weaker at middle levels.26 One of the most comprehensive studies of the relations.h.i.+p between development and democracy shows that transitions into democracy from autocracy can occur at any level of development but are much less likely to be reversed at higher levels of per capita GDP. One of the most comprehensive studies of the relations.h.i.+p between development and democracy shows that transitions into democracy from autocracy can occur at any level of development but are much less likely to be reversed at higher levels of per capita GDP.27 Whereas growth appears to favor stable democracy, the reverse causal connection between democracy and growth is much less clear. This stands to reason if we simply consider the number of authoritarian countries that have piled up impressive growth records over recent years-South Korea and Taiwan while they were ruled dictatorially, the People's Republic of China, Singapore, Indonesia under Suharto, and Chile under Augusto Pinochet. Thus, while having a coherent state and reasonably good governance is a condition for growth, it is not clear that democracy plays the same positive role.

Between economic growth and social development, or the development of civil society A lot of cla.s.sic social theory links the emergence of modern civil society to economic development.28 Adam Smith in Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations The Wealth of Nations noted that the growth of markets was related to the division of labor in society: as markets expand and firms take advantage of economies of scale, social specialization increases and new social groups (for example, the industrial working cla.s.s) emerge. The fluidity and open access demanded by modern market economies undermine many traditional forms of social authority and force their replacement with more flexible, voluntary forms of a.s.sociation. The theme of the transformative effects of the expanding division of labor was central to the writings of nineteenth-century thinkers like Karl Marx, Max Weber, and emile Durkheim. noted that the growth of markets was related to the division of labor in society: as markets expand and firms take advantage of economies of scale, social specialization increases and new social groups (for example, the industrial working cla.s.s) emerge. The fluidity and open access demanded by modern market economies undermine many traditional forms of social authority and force their replacement with more flexible, voluntary forms of a.s.sociation. The theme of the transformative effects of the expanding division of labor was central to the writings of nineteenth-century thinkers like Karl Marx, Max Weber, and emile Durkheim.

Between social mobilization and liberal democracy From Alexis de Tocqueville onward there has been a large body of democratic theory arguing that modern liberal democracy cannot exist without a vigorous civil society.29 The mobilization of social groups allows weak individuals to pool their interests and enter the political system; even when social groups do not seek political objectives, voluntary a.s.sociations have spillover effects in fostering the ability of individuals to work with one another in novel situations-what is termed social capital. The mobilization of social groups allows weak individuals to pool their interests and enter the political system; even when social groups do not seek political objectives, voluntary a.s.sociations have spillover effects in fostering the ability of individuals to work with one another in novel situations-what is termed social capital.

The correlation noted above linking economic growth to stable liberal democracy presumably comes about via the channel of social mobilization: growth entails the emergence of new social actors who then demand representation in a more open political system and press for a democratic transition. When the political system is well inst.i.tutionalized and can accommodate these new actors, then there is a successful transition to full democracy. This is what happened with the rise of farmers' movements and socialist parties in Britain and Sweden in the early decades of the twentieth century, and in South Korea after the fall of the military dictators.h.i.+p in 1987.

A highly developed civil society can also pose dangers for democracy and can even lead to political decay. Groups based on ethnic or racial chauvinism spread intolerance; interest groups can invest effort in zero-sum rent seeking; excessive politicization of economic and social conflicts can paralyze societies and undermine the legitimacy of democratic inst.i.tutions. 30 30 Social mobilization can lead to political decay. The Huntingtonian process whereby political inst.i.tutions failed to accommodate demands of new social actors for partic.i.p.ation arguably happened in Bolivia and Ecuador in the 1990s and 2000s with the repeated unseating of elected presidents by highly mobilized social groups. Social mobilization can lead to political decay. The Huntingtonian process whereby political inst.i.tutions failed to accommodate demands of new social actors for partic.i.p.ation arguably happened in Bolivia and Ecuador in the 1990s and 2000s with the repeated unseating of elected presidents by highly mobilized social groups.31 Between democracy and rule of law There has always been a close historical a.s.sociation between the rise of democracy and the rise of liberal rule of law.32 As we saw in chapter As we saw in chapter 27 27, the rise of accountable government in England was inseparable from the defense of the Common Law. Extension of the rule of law to apply to wider circles of citizens has always been seen as a key component of democracy itself. This a.s.sociation has continued through the third-wave democratic transitions after 1975, where the collapse of Communist dictators.h.i.+ps led to both the rise of electoral democracy and the creation of const.i.tutional governments protecting individuals' rights.

Among ideas, legitimacy, and all of the other dimensions of development Ideas concerning legitimacy develop according to their own logic, but they are also shaped by economic, political, and social development. The history of the twentieth century would have looked quite different without the writings of an obscure scribbler in the British Library, Karl Marx, who systematized a critique of early capitalism. Similarly, communism collapsed in 1989 largely because few people any longer believed in the foundational ideas of Marxism-Leninism.

Conversely, developments in economics and politics affect the kinds of ideas that people regard as legitimate. The Rights of Man seemed more plausible to French people because of the changes that had taken place in France's cla.s.s structure and the rising expectations of the new middle cla.s.ses in the later eighteenth century. The spectacular financial crises and economic setbacks of 19291931 undermined the legitimacy of certain capitalist inst.i.tutions and led the way to the legitimization of greater state control over the economy. The subsequent growth of large welfare states, and the economic stagnation and inflation that they appeared to encourage, laid the groundwork for the conservative Reagan-Thatcher revolutions of the 1980s. Similarly, the failure of socialism to deliver on its promises of modernization and equality led to its being discredited in the minds of many who lived under communism.

Economic growth can also create legitimacy for the governments that succeed in fostering it. Many fast-developing countries in East Asia, such as Singapore and Malaysia, have maintained popular support despite their lack of liberal democracy for this reason. Conversely, the reversal of economic growth through economic crisis or mismanagement can be destabilizing, as it was for the dictators.h.i.+p in Indonesia after the financial crisis of 19971998.33 Legitimacy also rests on the distribution of the benefits of growth. Growth that goes to a small oligarchy at the top of the society without being broadly shared often mobilizes social groups against the political system. This is what happened in Mexico under the dictators.h.i.+p of Porfirio Diaz, who ruled the country from 1876 to 1880 and again from 1884 to 1911. National income grew rapidly in this period, but property rights existed only for a wealthy elite, which set the stage for the Mexican Revolution of 1911 and a long period of civil war and instability as underprivileged groups fought for their share of national income. In more recent times, the legitimacy of democratic systems in Venezuela and Bolivia has been challenged by populist leaders whose political base is poor and otherwise marginalized groups.34 THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT PARADIGM.

Multiple connections among the different dimensions of development mean that there are many potential paths to modernization possible today, most of which were unavailable under Malthusian conditions. Let us take as an example South Korea, in which the development components came together in a particularly favorable way (see Figure 11 Figure 11).

FIGURE 11. SOUTH KOREA, 19541999

South Korea at the end of the Korean War possessed a relatively strong government. It inherited a Confucian state tradition from China and had put many modern inst.i.tutions in place during the period of j.a.panese colonialism from 1905 to 1945.35 This state, under the leaders.h.i.+p of General Park Chung-Hee, who came to power in a coup in 1961, used industrial policy to promote rapid economic growth (arrow 1). South Korea's industrialization transformed the country from an agrarian backwater into a major industrial power in the s.p.a.ce of a generation, setting in motion the social mobilization of new forces-trade unions, church groups, university students, and other civil society actors who had not existed in traditional Korea (arrow 2). Following the delegitimization of the military government of General Chun Doo-Hwan after the Kw.a.n.gju ma.s.sacre in 1980, these new social groups began agitating for the military to step down from power. With some gentle nudging from its ally the United States, this happened in 1987, when the first democratic elections for president were announced (arrow 3). Both the country's rapid economic growth and its transition to democracy helped strengthen the regime's legitimacy, which in turn helped, among other things, to strengthen its ability to weather the severe Asian financial crisis of 19971998 (arrows 4 and 5). Finally, both economic growth and the advent of democracy helped to strengthen South Korea's rule of law (arrows 6 and 7). This state, under the leaders.h.i.+p of General Park Chung-Hee, who came to power in a coup in 1961, used industrial policy to promote rapid economic growth (arrow 1). South Korea's industrialization transformed the country from an agrarian backwater into a major industrial power in the s.p.a.ce of a generation, setting in motion the social mobilization of new forces-trade unions, church groups, university students, and other civil society actors who had not existed in traditional Korea (arrow 2). Following the delegitimization of the military government of General Chun Doo-Hwan after the Kw.a.n.gju ma.s.sacre in 1980, these new social groups began agitating for the military to step down from power. With some gentle nudging from its ally the United States, this happened in 1987, when the first democratic elections for president were announced (arrow 3). Both the country's rapid economic growth and its transition to democracy helped strengthen the regime's legitimacy, which in turn helped, among other things, to strengthen its ability to weather the severe Asian financial crisis of 19971998 (arrows 4 and 5). Finally, both economic growth and the advent of democracy helped to strengthen South Korea's rule of law (arrows 6 and 7).

In South Korea's case, all of the different dimensions of development tended to fortify one another, as modernization theory suggested, though there was a definite sequencing of stages that delayed the onset of electoral democracy and rule of law until industrialization had occurred. South Korea's pattern is not necessarily a universal one, however; there are many other possible paths to modernization. In Europe and America, rule of law existed before the state was consolidated, and in England and the United States, some form of democratic accountability predated industrialization and economic growth. China has thus far followed South Korea's path, but left out arrows 3, 4, and 7. The People's Republic of China inherited a reasonably competent state from the Maoist period when it began to liberalize its economy under Deng Xiaoping's leaders.h.i.+p in 1978. Open economic policies powered rapid economic growth for the next thirty years, leading to a major social transformation of the society as millions of peasants left the countryside for industrial employment in the cities. Growth has helped to legitimize the state and created a nascent Chinese civil society, but it has neither destabilized the political system nor put much pressure on it to democratize. In addition, growth has led to some improvement in rule of law as China seeks to bring its legal system up to the standards mandated by the World Trade Organization. The big question in China's future is whether the huge social mobilization engendered by rapid development will one day lead to irresistible demands for greater political partic.i.p.ation.

WHAT HAS CHANGED.

If we consider the prospects for political development during historical periods characterized by Malthusian economic conditions with the situation that has existed since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, we immediately see a host of differences. The key is the possibility of sustained intensive economic growth. Growth in per capita output does far more than put larger resources in the hands of states. It stimulates a broad transformation of society and mobilizes a host of new social forces that over time seek to become political actors as well. In the Malthusian world, by contrast, social mobilization was much rarer, being stimulated largely by changes in the world of legitimacy and ideas.

Social mobilization is one important key to breaking out of the dysfunctional equilibria represented by traditional elites locked in rent-seeking coalitions. The Danish king was able to undermine the power of the entrenched aristocracy in the 1780s because of the emergence of an educated, well-organized peasantry-something new in world history, which had known only anomic, disorganized peasant revolts. Being a preindustrial society, the source of this mobilization was religion, specifically in the form of the Protestant Reformation and its insistence on universal literacy. In South Korea during the 1980s, the power of the interlocked military and business elites was broken by the emergence of a host of new social actors, almost none of which had existed at the beginning of South Korea's period of postWorld War II growth. Political change thus came to both Denmark and South Korea. Denmark's mobilization, however, seemed an almost accidental fluke of history-the fact that Danish kings had opted for Lutheranism-while South Korea's was a much more predictable consequence of economic growth in a Malthusian world. In both cases, social mobilization had benign effects with regard to the spread of democracy, but in other respects it led to political instability.

The other hugely important difference between political development then and now is the degree to which international factors affect the evolution of national inst.i.tutions. Almost all of the stories told in this book involve single societies and the interplay among different domestic political actors within them. International influences appear largely as a result of war, conquest or the threat of conquest, and the occasional spreading of religious doctrines across borders. There were "transnational" inst.i.tutions at this time like the Catholic church and the Islamic caliphate, which were important in facilitating the diffusion of inst.i.tutions including the Justinian Code or sharia across political boundaries. There was in addition diachronic learning as early modern Europeans tried to recover their cla.s.sical Graeco-Roman past. But looking at the globe as a whole, development tended to be highly compartmentalized by geography and region.

The situation in this regard is very different today. The phenomenon we now label globalization is only the latest iteration of a process that has been taking place continuously over the past several centuries with the spread of technologies related to transportation, communications, and information. The possibility that any society will develop on its own with relatively little input from the outside world is highly unlikely today. This is true even of the most isolated and difficult regions of the world like Afghanistan or Papua New Guinea, where international actors in the form of foreign troops, Chinese logging companies, or the World Bank manage to show up, invited or not. Even they face an accelerating pace of change from what they have known in the past.

The greater integration of societies around the world has increased the level of compet.i.tion among them, and ipso facto produced both a higher rate of political change and convergence of political forms. Specific evolution-that is, speciation and increasing biological diversity-occurs when organisms proliferate into distinct microenvironments and lose contact with one another. Its converse, biological globalization, has been occurring as species are transported, either deliberately or accidentally in the bilge tanks of s.h.i.+ps, from one ecological zone to another. Zebra mussels and kudzu and Africanized killer bees now compete with indigenous species. These, together with the biggest compet.i.tor of all, human beings, have led to a dramatic reduction in the number of species around the globe.

So too in politics. Any developing country is today free to adopt whatever development model it wishes, regardless of its indigenous traditions or culture. During the cold war, both the United States and the Soviet Union sought to export their political and economic models, something the United States still does through its democracy promotion programs. There is also an East Asian model of state-directed development and the path of authoritarian capitalism offered by China. International inst.i.tutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations have been ready with advice on inst.i.tution building as well as resources and technical support for capacity building. It is not necessary for modern late developers to reinvent the wheel with regard to inst.i.tutions or policies.36 On the other hand, bad things cross borders as well-drugs, crime, terrorism, weapons of all sorts, illicit money, and the like. Globalization has been called the "twilight of sovereignty."37 This is surely an exaggeration, but technology and increased mobility have made it much harder for states to enforce laws on their own territory, collect taxes, regulate behavior, or do many of the other things a.s.sociated with traditional political order. In the days when most wealth was held in the form of land, states could exercise considerable leverage on wealthy elites; today, that wealth can easily flee to offsh.o.r.e bank accounts. This is surely an exaggeration, but technology and increased mobility have made it much harder for states to enforce laws on their own territory, collect taxes, regulate behavior, or do many of the other things a.s.sociated with traditional political order. In the days when most wealth was held in the form of land, states could exercise considerable leverage on wealthy elites; today, that wealth can easily flee to offsh.o.r.e bank accounts.38 It is therefore no longer possible to speak simply about "national development." In political science, comparative politics and international relations have traditionally been regarded as distinct subfields, the one dealing with things that happen within states, the other with relations.h.i.+ps among states. Increasingly these fields will have to be studied as an integrated whole. How we got to this point, and how political development takes place in the contemporary world, will be the subject of the second volume of this work.

Ultimately, societies are not trapped by their historical pasts. Economic growth, the mobilization of new social actors, integration of societies across borders, and the prevalence of compet.i.tion and foreign models all provide entry points for political change that either did not exist, or existed in a much attenuated form, before the Industrial Revolution.

And yet societies are not simply free to remake themselves in any given generation. It is easy to overstate the degree to which globalization has truly integrated societies around the world. While levels of social interchange and learning are far higher than they were three hundred years ago, most people continue to live in a horizon shaped largely by their own traditional culture and habits. The inertia of societies remains very great; while foreign inst.i.tutional models are far more available than they once were, they still need to be overlaid on indigenous ones.

The present historical account of the origins of political inst.i.tutions needs to be seen in proper perspective. No one should expect that a contemporary developing country has to replicate all of the violent steps taken by China or by societies in Europe to build a modern state, or that a modern rule of law needs to be based in religion. We have seen how inst.i.tutions were the products of contingent historical circ.u.mstances and accidents that are unlikely to be duplicated by other differently situated societies. The very contingency of their origins, and the prolonged historical struggles that were required to put them in place, should imbue us with a certain degree of humility in approaching the task of inst.i.tution building in the contemporary world. Modern inst.i.tutions cannot simply be transferred to other societies without reference to existing rules and the political forces supporting them. Building an inst.i.tution is not like building a hydroelectric dam or a road network. It requires a great deal of hard work to persuade people that inst.i.tutional change is needed in the first place, build a coalition in favor of change that can overcome the resistance of existing stakeholders in the old system, and then condition people to accept the new set of behaviors as routine and expected. Oftentimes formal inst.i.tutions need to be supplemented by cultural s.h.i.+fts; electoral democracy won't work well, for example, if there isn't an independent press and a self-organizing civil society to keep governments honest.

The environmental and social conditions that gave rise to democracy were unique to Europe. However, once const.i.tutional government emerged through a seemingly accidental concatenation of events, it produced a political and economic system so powerful that it came to be widely copied around the world. The doctrine of universal recognition on which liberal democracy is based points backward to earlier stages of political development in which societies were more equal and open to broad partic.i.p.ation. I noted that hunter-gatherer and tribal societies were far more egalitarian and partic.i.p.atory than the state-level societies that replaced them. Once the principle of equal respect or dignity is articulated, it is hard to prevent human beings from demanding it for themselves. This perhaps helps to explain the seemingly inexorable spread of the notion of human equality in the modern world that was noted by Tocqueville in Democracy in America Democracy in America.

ACCOUNTABILITY TODAY.

As noted in the first chapter first chapter, the failure of democracy to consolidate itself in many parts of the world may be due less to the appeal of the idea itself than to the absence of those material and social conditions that make it possible for accountable government to emerge in the first place. That is, successful liberal democracy requires both a state that is strong, unified, and able to enforce laws on its own territory, and a society that is strong and cohesive and able to impose accountability on the state. It is the balance between a strong state and a strong society that makes democracy work, not just in seventeenth-century England but in contemporary developed democracies as well.

There are many parallels between these early modern European cases and the situation at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Since the beginning of the third wave, there have been numerous struggles between would-be authoritarian leaders who have wanted to consolidate their own power and groups in the society who have wanted a democratic system.

This was true in many successor states to the Soviet Union, where rulers in the post-Communist world-often coming out of the old party apparatus-began to rebuild the state and centralize power in their own persons. But it was also true in Venezuela, Iran, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. In some places, like Russia under Vladimir Putin after 2000, or Iran after the presidential election of 2009, this project was successful, and political opposition groups failed to coalesce to block the authoritarian state-building project. But in Georgia and Ukraine, the mobilization of political opposition succeeded, at least momentarily, in resisting state authority. And in the former Yugoslavia, the state broke down completely.

The conditions of early modern Europe were obviously very different from those of the early twenty-first century, but the same scenario of centralization and resistance played itself out. Instead of a n.o.bility, gentry, Third Estate, and peasants, today there are trade unions, business groups, students, nongovernmental organizations, religious organizations, and a host of other social actors (see Figure 12 Figure 12). A much broader and more diverse range of social actors tends to get mobilized in contemporary societies compared to the agrarian ones we have been studying. Any political a.n.a.lysis of the struggle must begin by understanding the nature of the different actors, both outside the state and within it, and their degree of cohesion. Will civil society show a strong degree of solidarity, or are there cracks in the coalition? Will the army and intelligence services remain loyal to the regime, or are there soft-liners willing to negotiate with the opposition? What is the social base of the regime, and what kind of legitimacy does it command?

FIGURE 12. POLITICAL POWER TODAY.

The international system impinges on these struggles to a much higher degree today than in the early modern cases we have studied. Opposition groups can get funding, training, and occasionally weapons from outside the country, while the regime can call on like-m