POLS 2100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Amartya Sen, Authoritarianism, Pussy Riot
9 Feb 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Famines have occurred under virtually every other kind of government including authoritarian state, technocratic states, ancient kingdoms, colonial empires. Only one who has not had a famine is democratic country, i. e. countries where politically independent and regularly scheduled elections, opposition parties, free and uncensored press. Whether democratic countries are rich, or poor, they do not have famines. The most basic issue in terms of development, the only kind of government can address this issue is a democratic government. I(cid:374)(cid:272)e i(cid:374)dia"s i(cid:374)depe(cid:374)de(cid:374)(cid:272)e there has (cid:271)ee(cid:374) (cid:374)o fa(cid:373)i(cid:374)e, i(cid:374) spite of the fa(cid:272)t that there have been crop shortages, and insufficient food, democratic government has improved. He defines famine has mass starvation that causes massive amounts of people to die. Leaders are often blissfully ignorant of those who they rule. You learn to anticipate things, and take actions to reduce their impacts and severity. The free press acts as an early warning system.
