With friends like these, who needs democracy?

[Judi Lynn]

With friends like these, who needs democracy?
20-Feb-2014


EAST LANSING, Mich. — From Ethiopia to Nicaragua, countries that go through civil war are much less likely to become democratic if the winning side gets help from rival nations, a Michigan State University political scientist argues.

In a new study examining democratization after civil wars since World War II, Michael Colaresi found the majority of groups that eventually took power failed to establish democratic governments if those groups took money or weapons from a foreign enemy during the war.

Receiving such aid can create mistrust among the nation's citizens and make it more difficult for the new regime to institute a democracy, which requires public consent for effective governance, said Colaresi, professor of political science.

"Leaders want to stay in power," Colaresi said. "If they try to build democratic institutions, they would then need public support and trust to continue to govern, which is no easy task if you have received support from enemies the public does not trust."

More:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-02/msu-wfl022014.php

[polly7]

1. Good article Judi Lynn. nt.

[demigoddess]

2. one reason the US should butt out of some of these countries

who are trying to sort out their new governments.

[MisterP]

3. In Nicaragua over 1990-93, a IMF Structural Adjustment Program cut funds for public health by 40%

and left Nicaragua the poorest country in Central America by 1995, and still in decline that year

[yurbud]

4. what did they get in exchange for that self-inflicted injury?

[MisterP]

5. Poppy said if they didn't vote Chamorro in it'd be another decade of Contra war

with the cocaine and the hanged infants and the bankruptcy and all that

[yurbud]

6. oh yeah, now I remember. What a choice: the bullet or the banker

in retrospect, they might choose differently.

[MisterP]

7. well, Ortega's back and the FMLN's ahead in El Salvador

(and nobody's surprised at their anti-choice stance: 60s universities had had it as a tenet that the Pill was a way to keep Central America from its destiny of multiplying its population tenfold; in the mid-80s they started to be glad they hadn't tried that)