The Dictator's Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy by William J. Dobson
Authors: William J. Dobson
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Taiwan may have been ruled by a single party until the late 1980s, but when it was surging in the 1970s,it kept state employment at a relatively lean 12.5 percent. In Russia today, the state remains bloated; the government and itsstate-owned enterprises employ nearly 40 percent of workers. Or consider education. In its early days, Singapore made enormous investments in schooling and saw its number of students enrolled in high school triple between 1959 and 1972. Russia is moving in the opposite direction. Under Putin,Russia’s annual spending per high school student put the country behind Brazil, Mexico, and Turkey. There is virtually no ingredient in the Asian economic miracle present in Russia.
If they aren’t citing Asian autocracies, Russian elites will mention another Asian powerhouse: Japan. Markov and other government officials I spoke with are enamored of the example set by Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The appeal is obvious: The LDP ruled Japan for an uninterrupted fifty-four years. In the same period, Japan rose from the ashes of World War II to become the world’s second-largest economy. Along the way, almost all political competition was little more than factional jockeying within the LDP camp, and corruption between political and business elites was commonplace. Russianelites see something to admire in the Japanese example. For them, the secret to the Asian economic miracle begins with the political leadership in countries like Japan (or China, for that matter) holding on to power. If it hadn’t, if some other political force had somehow wrested control from the LDP or from Chinese Communists, then, in the Russian view, it surely would have mucked things up. But what the Russians aren’t willing to admit is that they may have it reversed, that the ability of their Asian counterparts to remain in power for so long might be based on something Russian political elites have not yet proven they can manage: sustained economic progress.
Markov is smarter, however, than to rest his argument entirely on modern exemplars of the Asian miracle, whether democratic or authoritarian. He also reaches back to the example of post–World War II Italy, a country that was long ruled by a single party, had high levels of corruption, and managed to succeed. “An extremely high level of corruption. Maybe [Italy] was the most corrupt country; almost every prime minister was under the control of the Mafia,” says Markov, growing more certain of his argument. “[Yet] Italy [had] great prosperity, development, and modernization. Italy was one of the leaders in postwar Europe.”
It’s true that political scientists haven’t established an iron law between a country’s level of corruption and its development. But if the devil is in the details, the details aren’t good for Russia. Corruption is so great in Russia’s case that it is cannibalizing the country’s growth.Graft erases roughly one-third of the country’s GDP every year. The World Bank estimates that nearly half of the Russian economy is linked to some form of corruption. Russia finished 143 out of 182 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2011, below Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Syria.
I point out to Markov that just that morning I read thatthe number of billionaires in Russia, according to
Forbes
magazine, had nearly doubled from thirty-two to sixty-two in the past year. In the same twelve months, almost all of the country’s economic metrics were in decline.The national economy contracted almost 8 percent, its worst performance since the end of the Soviet Union. According to the World Bank, industrial output declined more than 10 percent, the manufacturing sector fell 16 percent, and fixed capital investment dropped17 percent. Didn’t that underline the problem, especially given that we know how some of those billionaires earned their wealth?
Markov brushes away my question. “It’s the kind of capitalism we
If they aren’t citing Asian autocracies, Russian elites will mention another Asian powerhouse: Japan. Markov and other government officials I spoke with are enamored of the example set by Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The appeal is obvious: The LDP ruled Japan for an uninterrupted fifty-four years. In the same period, Japan rose from the ashes of World War II to become the world’s second-largest economy. Along the way, almost all political competition was little more than factional jockeying within the LDP camp, and corruption between political and business elites was commonplace. Russianelites see something to admire in the Japanese example. For them, the secret to the Asian economic miracle begins with the political leadership in countries like Japan (or China, for that matter) holding on to power. If it hadn’t, if some other political force had somehow wrested control from the LDP or from Chinese Communists, then, in the Russian view, it surely would have mucked things up. But what the Russians aren’t willing to admit is that they may have it reversed, that the ability of their Asian counterparts to remain in power for so long might be based on something Russian political elites have not yet proven they can manage: sustained economic progress.
Markov is smarter, however, than to rest his argument entirely on modern exemplars of the Asian miracle, whether democratic or authoritarian. He also reaches back to the example of post–World War II Italy, a country that was long ruled by a single party, had high levels of corruption, and managed to succeed. “An extremely high level of corruption. Maybe [Italy] was the most corrupt country; almost every prime minister was under the control of the Mafia,” says Markov, growing more certain of his argument. “[Yet] Italy [had] great prosperity, development, and modernization. Italy was one of the leaders in postwar Europe.”
It’s true that political scientists haven’t established an iron law between a country’s level of corruption and its development. But if the devil is in the details, the details aren’t good for Russia. Corruption is so great in Russia’s case that it is cannibalizing the country’s growth.Graft erases roughly one-third of the country’s GDP every year. The World Bank estimates that nearly half of the Russian economy is linked to some form of corruption. Russia finished 143 out of 182 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2011, below Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Syria.
I point out to Markov that just that morning I read thatthe number of billionaires in Russia, according to
Forbes
magazine, had nearly doubled from thirty-two to sixty-two in the past year. In the same twelve months, almost all of the country’s economic metrics were in decline.The national economy contracted almost 8 percent, its worst performance since the end of the Soviet Union. According to the World Bank, industrial output declined more than 10 percent, the manufacturing sector fell 16 percent, and fixed capital investment dropped17 percent. Didn’t that underline the problem, especially given that we know how some of those billionaires earned their wealth?
Markov brushes away my question. “It’s the kind of capitalism we
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