POL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Escalator, Liberal Democracy
Document Summary
The hallmark of a durable political system is its long-term sustainability, not its performance in any given decade. World is knit together through a liberal system of trade and investment. Americans, more than other people, often fail to understand the need for effective government, focusing instead on the constraint of authority. In 2003, the george w. bush administration seemed to believe that democratic government and a market-oriented economy would spontaneously emerge in. It didn t understand that these arise from the interaction of complex institutions political parties, courts, property rights, shared national identity that have evolved in developed democracies over many decades, even centuries. The question is whether all countries will inevitably get on that escalator. The problem is the intertwining of politics and economics. Economic growth requires certain minimal institutions such as enforceable contracts and reliable public services before it will take off, but those basic institutions are hard to create in situations of extreme poverty and political division.
