Last Friday, Bill gave a talk at the School for International and Public Affairs at Columbia. NYU-Wagner student Christopher Faris summarized the speech over on the Wagner blog, and gives a great run-down of the audience reaction at Columbia:
…Easterly argued that the theory of growth-boosting ‘benevolent autocrats’ (think China’s economic boom) is, at best, not proven and at worst a compelling but flawed idea to which development practitioners hopefully cling – to everyone’s detriment.
But the benevolent dictator is a powerful and compelling idea, dating back at least as far as Plato’s Republic. Despite the carefully constructed argument and engaging delivery, the audience of ambitious internationalistas seemed unconvinced, if the questions were anything to go by.
Most questioners (professors and students) wanted to believe in the abiding power and potential for a benevolent technocrat to guide countries through transition; to protect the nation’s economic well-being from the foibles of the electoral process; or in the cultural appropriateness of more autocratic leadership in some countries at certain points in their history.
All of which got me to thinking (with apologies to Carrie Bradshaw):
- Maybe international development students are committed to the idea that, through our education, ideas and energy, individuals can advocate for good policies and make the world a better place;
- Perhaps we want to believe in the power of strong, technocratic leaders, benevolently steering developing nations through the rapids of the global economy and pro-poor reform;
- Maybe, just maybe, we are all benevolent autocrat wannabes?
[Easterly's discussion of cognitive biases] added up to a pretty compelling argument against benevolent autocrat theory – or at least a strong case for us to be wary of buying it too easily…
But then came the questions. Once the SIPA professors finished, almost all were from international students (with a Latin and East Asian trend), and almost all betrayed an unshaken faith in benevolent autocrat theory.
So if Professor Easterly failed to convince, why? A few suggestions: because the biases he enumerated are indeed powerful shapers of thinking; because his audience was committed to the possibility of making a difference through their actions; because a more laissez-faire approach to international development is a tough sell to idealistic students.
But further: Easterly described what developing economies should aim for (to transition to innovation-rich modern economies, harnessing local knowledge, and with democratic political systems containing checks and balances against autocratic tendencies) but was light on details of how to do it. He offered a compass bearing but no map. Perhaps we, students and practitioners of development, want maps – especially at this thrilling time of autocrat-toppling. And we want to be able to help. We have a strong pro-action bias.
Mr. Faris generously skipped the possibility that the argument was just WRONG, but he has good insights into the resistance to the argument even if it’s correct.
11 Comments
Maybe, just maybe we hold on to the benevolent autocrat theory because the alternative models of democracy seem so slow, messy and unsatisfying. It is more appealing to think that Superman can save the day than to put one’s faith in the political process with all its corruption, compromise and conflict. One has only to look at the state of the US Congress….
Since my disagreement with Easterly isn’t within the analysis (which I think is good) but rather in the conclusions, let me put this question.
How about legitimacy and accountability for the citizens of country X while ‘local knowledge gets harnessed’?
Experience so far shows us that not only democratic accountable systems can emerge out of simple formal rules and institutions of checks and balances. Rather, the unfortunate are further marginalised.
What’s positive about stationary bandits is that they at least operate under some form of accountability to their citizens. Liberal democracy, without some level of equality, does not.
So, would it be possible to elaborate a bit on that compass bearing part?
Easterly has far, far more experience in development than I do, so maybe there IS actually a big group of dictator-loving development practitioners I just haven’t met yet. Because all the ones I have talked to aren’t all that keen on autocracy, really!
But is it also possible that he’s confusing anyone who accepts the existence of leaders with a dictatorial bent with supporters of the ‘benevolent autocrat’ theory? Like the development practitioners who work with unpleasantly autocratic leaders like Kagame because they feel that they can still do some good for the people in those countries? Or people who understand the well-supported empirical finding that it is difficult for very poor countries to establish and sustain democratic institutions?
We have lots of historical examples of countries which had bad governments and then became more democratic as they grew economically. Countries like Korea and Taiwan, but also the US and Britain. On the other hand, I’m not aware of any poor country that has become a textbook liberal democracy and THEN grown out of poverty because of it. The causal link between income and democracy may not be fully understood (I did a quick literature search, and apparently Acemoglu et al have found that controlling for country fixed effects eliminates this association) but the weight of empirical evidence for the “growth leads to democracy” hypothesis seems to be much stronger than that for the “democracy leads to growth” hypothesis.
Please note that I am not a supporter of the ‘benevolent autocrat’ theory — I think democracy is valuable for its own intrinsic reasons beyond its effects on growth, and also that if countries like Russia were less autocratic they would probably grow even faster (and more equitably). But the best way to GET a liberal democracy seems to be by growing per-capita GDP. In other words, I think lack of democracy is often a symptom of poverty, not necessarily a cause. It is disingenuous to say that anyone accepting this fact is advocating for less democracy!
(See also: my comment on a previous post where Bill uses WordArt to make the argument: “experts advocating for good policy” = “Bob” = “wannabe dictators.”)
The benevolent autocrat (aka omniscient planner) is an usual ingredient in counterfactual analysis. Constant use of counterfactual analysis may lead people in academia to somewhat “believe” that they really may exist. My testable hypothesis: practitioners unrelated to academia are (everything else equal) less prone to such “belief”.
It’s sorta like this:
Mr Easterly says “I don’t like your map for development.”
His opponents say “Well where is your map? You have no map to show us.”
But the opponents don’t get it: there is no such map. You just gotta let the localers do their thing!
I’m a little disappointed nobody yet has recognized how this talk was designed to be absolutely foolproof — either you are convinced by my brilliant arguments or its the fault of your own cognitive biases that you are not convinced.
The map is the territory,
@ Easterly
I hope you are not serious with that comment, since you are walking into the world of the neo-Marxist crowd which is present in the NGO universe.
For the uninitiated, this is the concept of false consciousness which basically argues that only those who have true revolutionary consciousness can see the truth; those that do not, cannot and therefore it is only those with true revolutionary consciousness who can save the later from themselves. The proof as to whether one has true revolutionary consciousness, as defined by the speaker, is whether you agree with him/her or not.
For those who cannot understand their true condition (false consciousness), it also follows that they should have no say in how their lives are to be ordered for their own good.
This underlying attitude exists amongst some NGOs and which includes the belief that market economies and capitalism are terrible things.
From the very first time we become part of the Great Hubbub that is the Humanitarian Community, we start to take on new roles when we work with the beneficiaries, we become the benefactors or at least their agents. Rarely does one see an equal partnership develop where the inputs and outputs are matched. It is benefactor and beneficiary, be it individuals or governments. Cash for work is one dispelling example where the worker at the end of a week knows that his pay is what is his due for his labor. Despite the fact that it is often to dig holes in order to fill them in again. When we simply hand out goods and services the beneficiaries will take all we have to give and offer nothing in return. They are not a part of the partnership that should exist if we are to alter the way they are to change their lives and for the underlying reasons that is often behind the largess.
What we do is we give power to the autocrats to choose who they should give benefit to and trust that they are honest and fair and find out far too often that they are not and never learn from the experience.
I was amused to read of Mike Huckabee expressing dismay, after ten years of careful watching, of his doubts about Afghanistan or the level of corruption that exists there. IN the mean time, the US and others have great success stories to tell of their benevolence.
The proponents of the idea of benevolent dictators are unable to convincingly show that the counterfactual would have been a worse outcome. We only know of a non-democratic China and, therefore, are in no position to declare that a democratic China would have fared better or worse. Almost half of the 17 African countries which made Steve Radelet’s ‘emerging Africa’ list could be labelled democracies. This means citizens of these countries have enjoyed not only better political and civil rights but also better levels of income. In other words, the Kagame’s and Meles’ of Africa can not associate their countries’ moderate economic success to their autocratic rules. On a related point, it is ethically wrong to tell people give up their freedom in return for economic rewards.
3 Trackbacks
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by hranax, Conduit Journal. Conduit Journal said: Why we’ll always have benevolent autocrats http://bit.ly/fCesfy [...]
[...] this article: Why we’ll always have benevolent autocrats AKPC_IDS += [...]
[...] whaddaya know, Bill Easterly be frontin’ again, sayin’ how all development practitioners secretly love/want to be dictators. Since I [...]