Thanks, Haggai, for directing me to Gary Hart's review of Fareed Zakaria's The Future of Freedom. I definitely need to get myself a copy of this book. A couple of comments. Hart concludes:
Zakaria is a serious enough thinker and has produced a serious enough book to require serious attention. Either one-dimensional "democracy" or a more nuanced constitutional liberalism with institutional instruments underwriting individual liberty are the choices he offers for the 21st century. He sees no alternatives, though a lively debate stimulated by his book might produce some.I'm in no position to dispute this, since I haven't read Zakaria's book, but I find it interesting that this was not the same kind of choice offered by Vladimir Popov, about whom I posted a couple weeks back. Popov's research was very clear: yes, transitioning countries with democractic governments and strong civil and property rights fare better than those with only democratic govermnents; but the countries which fared best of all were those without any political reforms - countries such Belarus, Uzbekistan, and China which are undemocratic but have moved decicively to create civil and property rights.
Faced with this data, a third alternative would be for a kind of phased transition that would leave democratic (ie political) reforms for later, pushing for civil and property rights instead to help stimulate economic growth. I'm not necessarily arguing for this, but it certainly merits consideration.
MORE: PG responds (in comments) that Iraq is different from China because of its oil. But Russia, the country with the richest endowment of natural resources in the world, has been a spectacular failure. Yes, there are differences between Iraq and Russia as well (I should also point out that Popov's research dealt only with countries transitioning from command to market economies), but the lack of clearly defined property rights in Russia has been disastrous, and there's no reason to think it work any better in Iraq. Property and civil rights are absolutely central to the functioning of a market economy, while political rights are not.
Why is it important to grow Iraq's economy? The whole neocon plan was to knock over the government in Baghdad and put in a democracy that would demonstrate the power of "our way of life" to nearby regimes. The neocons have always seen Iraq as the perfect candidate for this - the country sits on massive oil reserves and already has a forward-looking view of women and a highly educated populace. But new political rights aren't going to write an Iraqi success story by themselves. Economic growth is the only way to change people's everyday lives for the better, whether we're talking about Iraq or the rest of the Middle East.
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